Category: Writing Advice

Writing Advice

Writing Advice: On Definitely Using the Right Word

Harriet Phoenix

Spell checkers are excellent things, but I think we can all agree that over-relying on them is a mistake. Like anything else, they have their limitations. The one I’m talking about today is wrong word usage.

I posted a column a while back about beta readers and why we need them. One thing I discussed in that column is that spellcheckers, for some reason, don’t always notice when you’ve used the wrong word. I used to have a weird habit of using “reign it in” instead of “rein it in,” a small but glaring malapropism that my spellchecker completely missed but my beta readers (wonderful human beings that they are) didn’t.

That’s the great thing about humans over spellcheckers; spellcheckers only know if your writing matches the rules they’re programmed with. Humans are able to think and thus realise what you meant to say and where you’ve gone wrong. We humans have our own internal spellchecker that we’ve been reprogramming every time we’ve read anything our whole lives. It’s not infallible, however, especially when it comes to our own work, which is one reason we need beta readers.

Where it gets fun is when a person’s spellchecker ends up with a bit of programming that is just plain wrong.

A girl I knew at school once got shouting angry over the word “hasty.” She was convinced it meant “slow” and was absolutely ready to die on that hill (we English nerds attract each other, alright?). We finally called over an English teacher, who thought it over and concluded that she’d misunderstood the phrase, “more speed, less haste.” Another girl was absolutely sure that magenta was a shade of blue, and smugly insisted that I, the author of a book I cited as evidence, and friggin’ Crayola were idiots for thinking it was actually pink (that girl and I were not on the kind of terms that allowed for a lot of unpacking, and so the mystery of how she came to this conclusion remains unsolved).

So, yeah. Humans can think, but our programming is as able to be wrong as a spellchecker. That’s why, as with most things, it’s best to use a variety of methods to give yourself the most opportunities to catch mistakes.

Throw words you’re not sure about into a search engine before you use them. Use your spellchecker. Use beta readers. Sneak in quick rereads at odd moments, and one last one before you his SEND just to be safe.

Finally, just accept that, no matter how many times you read your brain-baby through, or how many beta readers check it over for you, after sending it off you will find a glaring mistake that somehow got missed before, and it will be embarrassing. That’s just how it works.

Writing Advice

Writing Advice: Unpopular Punctuation: Colons and Semicolons

Harriet Phoenix

My GCSE English teacher had many fun little quirks, one being that he hated semicolons with a fiery vengeance. He considered them useless articles, easily and better replaced with other forms of punctuation.

Did anyone else have this? A teacher who just sort of religiously took against a random feature of the language? He was pretty good-humoured about it, but still. That’s weird, and I’m saying that.

I, however, use them all the time. Okay, partly because I formed a habit in response to the above just to be contrary; fair comment. However, the semicolon wouldn’t exist if it didn’t serve a purpose, so let’s dive in.

A semicolon is effectively a “super-comma” used to link two complete, but closely related sentences as if they were clauses in one complex sentence, just like I did in the preceding paragraph. “… just to be contrary,” and “fair comment,” are sentences in themselves, and I used a semicolon to smush them together into one. A comma won’t work, because they only join sentence clauses, not sentences.

Basically, when a comma doesn’t feel like enough but a full stop feels too much, throw a semicolon in there and see if that works.

Now, my former teacher probably would have told me to just make them separate sentences, but I feel that a full stop would create a full-stop-level break in the rhythm that I don’t want there. Other alternatives, such as ending the first sentence and beginning the next with a connective word, like “however…” or “because…” clearly wouldn’t work there. A semicolon does.

If a semicolon is a super-comma, then the super-semicolon is… uh… a colon. Colons are mainly used to end a complete sentence and introduce something else: the basic difference between this and a semicolon is that a semicolon links two complete sentences, whereas what follows a colon is dependant on what came before to make sense. Like just there, where using the word “this” makes what comes after the colon a sentence fragment without the part before the colon. If I’d instead written, “the basic difference between a colon and a semicolon…” then that would be a complete sentence and would have to be preceded by a semicolon. Confused yet? Great!

Colons are also used to introduce a list, with the list items separated by commas (e.g. the countries of the UK are: England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales). However, where a comma is already in use the semicolon can once again step up as a super-comma to clarify things with an additional degree of separation. For example:

My favourite sci fi novels include: The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams; The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, Becky Chambers; Trading in Danger, Elizabeth Moon; The Martian, Andy Weir; Earth Girl, Janet Edwards; and Leviathan’s Wake, James S.A. Corey.

(List is in no way comprehensive.)

Yes, I know; I could have used “by” instead of the commas and then commas instead of semicolons. Whatever, it’s just an example. The point is; far from being useless, the semicolon has specific uses, and gives you some flexibility in how you express yourself. It’s where the rising comma meets the falling full stop. Embrace it.

Writing Advice

Writing Advice: Finding Competitions to Enter

Harriet Phoenix

Once you’ve finished your story, poem, creative non-fiction or whatever variety of brain-baby you make, and you’ve made it all shiny and nice, you’ll probably want to try and publish it somewhere. Entering your work into writing competitions is a pretty good way to do this, but where do you find them? Here’s my non-comprehensive list of places to try:

Writing magazines! You ARE subscribed to at least one, right? If not, sign up to one right now (or, if budget is an issue, stop by your local library and see if they have any. If they don’t, find a librarian and ask if they’d consider signing up. And then write to your MP, governor or whoever is in charge of these things in your area about keeping libraries open). Seriously, every writer should be receiving at least one writing magazine for inspiration and information. Also, as well as running competitions themselves, any writing magazine worth reading will have a section where writing competitions and publication opportunities of all kinds are listed, often by writing form and genre. Chances are, you’ll be able to find something there that works for you.

Alternatively, there’s the standby: just Google it (using the search engine of your choice; other options are available). Plenty of literary sites list competitions, so hunt around, bookmark a few you like and check them on the regular. Throw in “writing competitions” whenever you’ve got a few minutes and see what you can find.

Of course, any publisher or other entity who have run a competition that has interested you in the past is worth checking again, even if you didn’t end up submitting or your entry didn’t make the cut. If they ran one competition that felt like your thing, chances are they’ll run another at some point, so keep a list somewhere and drop in every month or so just in case.

Obviously, once you’ve found a few competitions you like the look of you’ll want to do an organised-person thing, like make a note of it somewhere so you don’t forget and miss the deadline. I have a spreadsheet for competitions I intend to enter (for someone who doesn’t like spreadsheets very much, I do seem to have a lot of them), with columns for things like competition title, wordcount range, deadline, publisher and a hyperlink. If you’re like me and getting organised is tricky for you, then taking an hour or so to throw something like that together can save infinite headaches for Future You.

So, that’s my incomplete list of places to start your search for competitions to enter. I’ve undoubtedly missed something, but hopefully I’ve given you a few good places to start. Have fun with whatever competitions you choose to enter! Coming soon: How to Deal with Rejection!

Writing Advice

Writing Advice: Cover Letters

Harriet Phoenix

Another nuts-and-bolts column today. Loathe ‘em or hate ‘em, cover letters are a necessary part of submitting your writing absolutely anywhere, so hold hands and take a deep breath: let’s get this over with.

Most creative work is submitted electronically these days, so your cover letter will likely be copy-pasted into an online form, or the body text of an email with your story attached.

While the quality of your submitted work is most important, you should assume your cover letter will have a bearing on your submission’s chances; this ties back to a previous column about making life easy for whoever deals with your submission. Your cover letter is where you tell them what you’re sending and what you expect them to do with it. That might seem obvious, but imagine being the person trying to sort hundreds of incoming entries for five different competitions. They’ve probably set submission guidelines to tell you exactly which information they want from you, so read those and follow them carefully.

Your cover letter has different requirements depending on what kind of creative work you’re submitting. If it’s part of a greater project, such as an anthology or a magazine, then keep your letter short; greet the editor by name if you know it or “Dear Editor” if you don’t. In your first paragraph, tell them the name of your entry, the genre or subgenre and the wordcount. The next paragraph should be an author bio if they’ve asked for one; if not, assume they’ll ask if your piece is accepted. Then thank them for their consideration and sign off. That’s it; remember that hypothetical person with hundreds of these to go through, and don’t waste their time.

A cover letter for a novel is different. It’s an introduction to someone with whom you hope to forge an intense and prolonged business relationship; the investment of time and resources in a debut novel is immense, and the agent or publisher you’re reaching out to needs to know who they’re dealing with. Where a cover letter for a short piece needs to be to the point, this kind requires you to take your time and elaborate.

When I attended the Stockholm Writers Festival in August, I got to discuss the submission process with Liv Maidment of the Madeleine Milburn Agency, who told me a cover letter for a novel should be written “as if the person reading it will be fed up and hung over.” Going too formal is a mistake; you’re giving this person an idea of what the next few years will be like if they choose to invest in you. Don’t obscure your personality; try and cast yourself in a fun and friendly (but still professional!) light.

(It’s worth noting that I didn’t realise any of this when I was submitting my first novel and went ridiculously formal, which is maybe why no one went for that one. Maybe.)

For the same reason, don’t copy-paste this one. Personalise it. Mention why you’ve chosen this agency, this agent, in particular (“I wrote a book and you do books” isn’t it). For example, if I were to submit a work to Liv Maidment, I would definitely mention having spoken to her at a festival. If you’re a fan of one of their authors, say so, especially if you think it has a bearing on the work you’re submitting. Also; talk about your influences. Which existing authors would your work share a table display with? Pick someone well-known and recent.

So, that’s cover letters. I’ll try and do something fun next time, I promise.

Writing Advice

Writing Advice: Fanfic: Yea or Nay?

Harriet Phoenix

Okay, cards on the table; this column felt like a piece of harmless fun when I picked it, and now that feels like a mistake, because there are a lot of opinions out there on the subject of fanfic and whether or not it’s artistically valid or even morally acceptable.

Some of these opinions come from some very high-profile authors, such as Anne Rice, who has stated that “It upsets me terribly to even think about fan fiction with my characters,” or George R.R. Martin, who “[doesn’t] wanna read it and I would not encourage people to write it.” Diana Gabaldon colourfully expressed the desire to “barf whenever I’ve inadvertently encountered some of it involving my characters.”

Clearly, emotions run high when fanfic is under discussion.

And yet, AO3 processes 6 000 invitations per day. That’s the population of a village seeking an account from which to post or view fanfic, every day. That’s an awful lot of people for the folks mentioned above to be annoyed with.

On the other side of the fence, Neil Gaiman has stated that “all writing is useful for honing writing skills. I think you get better as a writer by writing.” Meg Cabot concurs; “I think writing fan fiction is a good way for new writers to learn to tell a story.”

Me personally – and I’d like to state for the record that this is JUST AN OPINION, DON’T SHOOT – I do find fanfiction artistically valid, although I can definitely see why others would feel differently. For one thing, I have no idea what it would be like to come across fanfic involving my own work. I imagine I’d be blown away at the idea that something I’d written had made such an impact on someone, but I don’t know that. I can also imagine wanting to avoid such works wherever possible, for the usual legal reasons and to avoid my vision getting tangled with someone else’s. But its actual existence means someone really engaged with your work, and isn’t that what we’re going for?

Finally, writing fanfic is fun. Let’s face it, writing can be tough. It’s not something anyone does because it’s easy, it’s something we do because we love it, and if you want to be able to maintain your writing then it’s important to keep touch with the fun.

I’ve made no secret lately that I’ve been struggling. Covid took a baseball bat to my immune system in the spring, I keep getting annoying little bugs and my brain keeps getting stuck on low-power mode. None of this is making it easy to keep writing, but I’ve found that if I take a break, it becomes even harder to start again. I tend to side with Gaiman and Cabot on this topic, because one way I’ve found to work with my brain is to write fanfic. It’s fun, there’s very little pressure which makes it easier, and best of all it keeps me writing.

Just, y’know, don’t expect it to advance your professional writing career or anything. I hear the copyright holders can get snippy about that sort of thing.

Writing Advice

Writing Advice: Characterisation: Why Your Character Needs To Suck

Harriet Phoenix

Here’s a fun fact; we don’t actually read fiction for entertainment. That’s just the lure that draws us in. But what keeps us drawn in is the chance to learn a little about those baffling mysteries of the universe: other people.

Whether it’s couched in wizards, spies or spaceship battles, a story is basically an account of how a character changes. How they overcome a flaw, or, if it’s a tragedy, how they fail to overcome it and bear the consequences. Interpreting how other people operate is one of the hardest and most important things our brains do; anything that lets us rack up a few more experience points can’t be ignored. That’s why a good story stays with us long after we’ve finished, and why cliffhangers keep us coming back; we need to know what happens, so we can add that information to the big database called “Other People: What’s Up with That?”

Of course, for that to work, your characters need to have a flaw. That’s why, whenever people complain about a book or film that “didn’t work,” it often comes back to the main character being a Mary Sue. As well as being annoying, Mary Sues have no flaw to overcome, so any story featuring one is going to turn out a little pointless no matter how many cool sword fights you throw in.

So, your character needs a flaw if we’re going to be interested in what happens to them. No decent character can be summed up in a short column, but to make a compelling personality you’ll definitely need to answer these three questions:

What’s wrong with them? How did they get like that? And how do they overcome it?

Their flaw can’t just be something you picked off a list and which has nothing to do with the story. Their flaw is the story. If we’re going to care, we need to see how it screws up their lives.

Maybe they find it impossible to form connections with anyone because they don’t trust other people. We need to see the friends they’ve driven away, the relationships they’ve ruined. We need to feel the loneliness they insist is preferable to leaving themselves vulnerable by letting other people in.

About that vulnerability… we need to understand what they’re afraid of. How did they get that way? Whose betrayal hurt them so badly? This is sometimes called a “Shard of Glass.”

Imagine your character was impaled on broken glass at some point, and a shard remained inside the wound (the betrayal). That shard continues to stab them from within (the mistrustful behaviour that damages their present relationships). Until that shard is removed, they won’t be able to heal (form rewarding relationships based on trust).

Understanding where your character’s shard of glass came from is vital for the payoff, when their emotional journey results in the conquering of that flaw.

Writing Advice

Writing Advice: Shut Up and Write the Damn Thing: Inner Cheerleader

Harriet Phoenix

Much of my writing advice falls under the umbrella of “shut up and write the damn thing,” so this entry will probably develop a few sequels in the future. For now, though, I’m talking about first drafts.

They will suck. They’re meant to. Accept that and write them so you can move on.

This is a trap quite a few writers, myself included, have fallen into; hmming and hahing over your first draft, trying to make it perfect when all it needs to be at this stage is done.  You can spend hours agonising over…

.. Wait. Should I have used “agonising” there? Bit cliched, isn’t it? Should I say “obsessing” instead? Eh, that seems a bit flat. What about “vacillating”? Wait, do enough people know what “vacillating” means? Do I know what it means? Maybe I should look it up…

Don’t. Put the nearest word you can think of, and trust that Future You will notice if it’s wrong.

Trusting Future You is a big part of getting your first draft done. But you can do that, right? I mean, they’re you. The only difference is, they’ve done slightly more writing than you have and they’re slightly better at it.

I do keep having problems with this, because whatever I’m writing tends to percolate in my brain for a while before making it outside. This means I’m often transcribing whole passages that arrive fully-formed after bubbling away in my subconscious, so when I reach a part that isn’t already formed and that I have to compose using my actual waking brain, it can feel like rushing headlong into mental quicksand. But I’ve found over time that squirming free of that quicksand can be as simple as remembering one thing:

If you have something, you can make it better. If you don’t, you can’t.

What you need to do at the first draft stage is send your Inner Critic home for the day. His time will come. For now, you need your Inner Cheerleader. Train up the voice in your head that celebrates the act of simply making progress.

“You wrote a thousand words today? Well done you! Hey, you know what? I bet you could do it again. Then you’re ahead on tomorrow, right? Hey, you did it! You’re a star! Think you can do just a couple hundred more?”

(Important note: you may be ahead on tomorrow, but when you actually get there that word counter resets to zero. Your Inner Cheerleader’s job is to keep you writing.)

Now, doesn’t that seem a little more productive than all that obsessing (worrying? Brooding?) over a single word back there?

The point is to forget the pressure of making it good in favour of getting it done. So train that cheerleader voice, trust your future self, and remember, you’ll make it better later.

Above all, just shut up and write the damn thing.

Writing Advice

Writing Advice: Dealing with the Competition Wait

Harriet Phoenix

So you’ve just entered a competition. For weeks now you’ve been lovingly tweaking and sculpting your short story, poem, screenplay, or whatever until it’s the best version of itself you can possibly manage. You’ve checked and rechecked your cover letter, made absolutely totally sure that you’re sending in the right version of your baby, and now it’s winging its way into the big wide world of literature.

So now what?

I said “competition” up there, but this applies whether you’re sending a poem to a competition, a story to a magazine or a submission package to an agent or publisher. Whichever way, it’s the same thing; for better or worse, you’ve done everything you can, your part in events is over and all you can do is wait until the judges get back to you (or, more often, until enough time has elapsed that you can assume you haven’t won). Whatever you’ve submitted to, you now have a long, agonising wait until you know if your entry has made it through. So how do you cope with the weeks of suspense?

Simple. Forget it and do the next thing.

Write another story. Find another competition. Dig out an unfinished project and see if you can revive it. Do the next thing. What you did yesterday doesn’t matter. What are you doing today?

I’m not saying forget it entirely. You’ll probably want to record somewhere what you’ve submitted, where to, and when you expect a reply. I have a spreadsheet and a separate folder for anything currently under submission. It’s good to check these things once in a while, to avoid missing the opportunity to submit that story elsewhere. I like to have a few submissions out in the world at any given time, so it’s nice to have that information available.

(Plus, I would definitely forget what’s gone to where and do something stupid, like send the same story into the same competition three years in a row, if I didn’t.)

Focusing on other projects will also distract you from the uncomfortable truth that the odds are sadly not in your favour. Fun as it is to fantasise about the respect and validation you’ll get from winning, and what you’ll do with the prize money (not that you care about such things, for you are an artist, amirite?), writing is a harsh business. The rejection rate is something like 97%. That’s not encouraging, but the alternative is never to submit anything.

The more stuff you have out there, the less each individual rejection will sting. So keep submitting, enjoy your fantasies of winning (but don’t get too invested), and above all, keep writing. The next thing ain’t happening by itself.

Writing Advice

Writing Advice: When You Really Do Have to Stop for A While

Harriet Phoenix
Thought I’d update the photo. Enjoy!

Most writers will tell you – and it’s true, today’s column notwithstanding – that you can’t accept excuses from yourself not to write. Writing is not something you do “as inspiration strikes,” it’s a habit you must cultivate. You must keep showing up, even when you don’t really want to, if you intend on making any serious headway. If you want to actually be good at writing.

All of that is true. However, there are also times when you really do have to take a break.

This winter and spring, I was on a decent creative roll. Then in April, after dodging the bullet for three years, I got hit with Covid.

Now, reactions to Covid fall across a very wide spectrum from “didn’t notice” all the way up to “died.” Mine was about in the middle. I wasn’t in any serious danger, but basically everything I was doing besides “being sick” came to an abrupt halt.

Imagine riding a bike downhill. It’s so easy you don’t even have to pedal; you just freewheel it. Your feet aren’t touching the pedals, the wind is in your hair and you feel amazing. But then, something happens. Some arsehole throws a stick into your bike wheel and you go over the handlebars. You’re upside down on the pavement with a bike lodged in your thorax, most definitely not riding.

During those couple of weeks, my energy budget was slashed to the bone. Lying around watching Pixars from a sofa nest was in the budget. Calling 111 and chatting to the nice doctor about paracetamol and throat sprays was in the budget. Writing? Not so much. So I decided to save my energy for getting better, and officially put the writing on hold.

But the story doesn’t end when my symptoms cleared up. Because after Covid, there was good ol’ Long Covid Brain Fog. It makes sense; the brain is an energy-hungry organ, and Covid is an energy-draining illness. It does make sense that a bout of Covid would put your brain on energy-saving mode for a while, and that non-vital applications like “making shit up and then prettying it for others to enjoy” would be suspended for a while.

Seriously, when I think back to how I felt in January to March, it’s like I was flying. And I can’t remember how I got up there, but I need to figure it out, because I know a big part of the problem is that I did, in fact, stop. Whatever the reasons, I made that decision, and now nudging my brain into working properly again is up to me. I’m doing that by signing up to every writing competition I can find that’s remotely applicable to me and challenging myself to write something for each of them no matter how uninspired I feel. I think it’s working; I’ll keep you posted.

So I guess the takeaway is that, however committed a writer you are, there will come a time when you do have to take a break. But in taking that break, you need to be aware of the other side of the coin; recultivating the habit. Accept from the start that at some point, you will have to extract that bike from your midriff, peel yourself off the pavement and get riding again.

Writing Advice

Writing Advice: She Said, Adverbedly

Harriet Phoenix

I feel like, if you give writing advice, somewhere you have to mention adverbs. It’s like a requirement, you know?

I had no idea how controversial adverbs were until University. One of my tutors had posted a helpful grammar guide that I now wish I’d control+C’d and saved somewhere. For one thing, I’d be able to quote directly the part that went something like, “Now, I know you’ve all been told in school to never, ever even think of using an adverb…”

This is where I looked very confused, because I had heard no such thing.

To be fair, I moved around a lot as a kid, so maybe I just missed the ‘ADVERBS: DO NOT’ talk every time, but I’m pretty sure they were introduced as just another kind of word. I’m sure there are people who will absolutely die on the Adverb Hill, but I’m pretty sure that to most people, adverbs are fine as long as you only use them as they should be used, and that sparingly.

A verb is a word for an action. An adverb is a word that describes the action. Thus, in the sentence, “She slept soundly,” “slept” is the verb while “soundly” is the adverb.

An adjective describes a noun. An adverb modifies an adjective. Thus, in the sentence, “The biscuit was somewhat stale,” “stale” is the adjective while “somewhat” is the adverb.

An adverb can also modify another adverb. Thus, in the sentence, “He checked his answers very thoroughly,” both “very” and “thoroughly” are adverbs.

Clearly, adverbs exist for a reason. However, Stephen King said, “The road to Hell is paved with adverbs,” Anton Chekhov advised writers to “cross out as many […] adverbs as you can,” and Mark Twain declared himself “dead to adverbs.” We can probably assume those folks know/ knew a thing or two about writing, so what’s the problem?

The main issue people have with adverbs is that they can usually be cut out altogether by trading in the word you’re modifying. For example, “He walked quickly” can become “He hurried,” “He hustled,” “He fled,” etc. Notice how these are not only quicker to read, they’re also more interesting and, sometimes, give an idea of what’s happening. Similarly, “The light was very bright” becomes “The light was blinding.” Even in the adverb-on-adverb example above, “very thoroughly” could be “meticulously” or “obsessively.”

Brilliant as this may be when you’re making cuts to fit that wordcount you’re already pushing, it does have the effect of rendering the adverb as, “that thing you do when you can’t think of a better verb.” This does not add to its perceived coolness.

It doesn’t help when people misuse adverbs by throwing them in where they don’t add anything. Don’t say, “She laughed happily,” because laughs are usually happy; the fact of laughter makes us assume happiness. Adverbs should tell us something we wouldn’t assume from the word being used. Go ahead and tell us she laughed “bitterly,” “sarcastically,” or even “nastily,” though. That’s new information; it challenges the assumption we made when you told us she was laughing.

The bottom line is this; as a writer, every word you use needs to be there for a reason. If deleting your adverb doesn’t change the meaning of a sentence, it’s clearly not earning its place and needs to go.

So that’s adverbs done. Phew. I’ll do something fun next time, I promise.