Is there actually such a thing as an original idea?

Maybe not.  But there are a lot of things you can do to make your story stand out from the crowd. Especially if the competition has a theme.  Here are my tips for finding an idea that’s different:

For the purpose of this exercise we’ll assume the theme of our imaginary competition is Loss.

So the first thing you should do is to write down all the ideas that spring to mind when you think of the theme loss.  These are mine. Some of them might be yours too.

Loss of job

Loss of spouse

Loss of child

Loss of house

Loss of pet

Loss of life

Loss of bag

There is a good chance that everyone else will think of these ideas too, so unless you have a really original slant, move on and list some more.

Loss of limb, finger, toe, eye

Loss of liberty

Loss of memory

Maybe we’re getting a few ideas that are a bit more lateral.  But let’s go on.

Loss of an identity (Alzheimer’s or another reason)

Loss of a parrot – or another unusual pet, think snake or hippo, or how about something mystical, a unicorn

Loss of a generation

Loss of a culture

Loss of a precious artefact

Hopefully there won’t be many stories with the above losses and I’m sure you can think of lots more. But let’s make it a bit more unusual.

What if you used a different structure as well? What if you used a diary structure, for example. I read a brilliant story recently (in a competition I was judging) where the author had used a diary structure, but, just as in the Time Traveller’s Wife the dates weren’t chronological.

Or you could tell your story entirely through taste, or smell, or perhaps dual viewpoint.

Or you could link the scenes with the same setting, for example the sea.

The diary story won the competition I was judging by the way!

Food for thought!

OK, so the writing is good, but what else should your first page contain?

Having carried out some research on this subject (I analysed a selection of best selling novels) I’ve collated a list of elements that a successful first page is likely to contain. So here they are:

A hook

There must be enough of a hook to make the reader want to turn the page, and, indeed, get past the first paragraph.  This does not have to be dramatic.  That will depend on the type of book you’re writing, but you should try to engage the reader immediately.

At least one character

This won’t necessarily be the main character, but it usually is the main character or someone closely connected to them.  If it isn’t, you should have a good reason.

Place

Whilst the setting doesn’t have to be spelt out, and this is often not possible, there should probably be some indication.

Time

Is your novel contemporary or historical?  It’s a good idea to indicate this fairly early on.

Genre

We should also be able to tell the genre of the novel very quickly.  Not necessarily from the first page, but do begin in the style in which you are likely to continue.   If the novel is humorous, you might not necessarily have an hilarious event on the first page, but the genre should be reflected in the style of writing.

Dialogue

Not all first pages contain dialogue. For example, first person novels often don’t need it, but it isn’t a bad idea to introduce dialogue quickly.  The sooner the reader hears your characters speak, the sooner they will start to care about them.  Or not – as the case may be.

Descriptions of characters

Again, these do not necessarily have to be on the first page, but if you are introducing a character without giving the reader any hint of what they look like, then the reader may well formulate their own view.  If you later contradict this, i.e. the reader assumes your character has brown hair and they actually have flaming red hair there is a danger of losing reader identification.

Summary

And finally, you will need to do these things without it appearing in the least contrived. This is no mean feat, I’m sure you’ll agree.

The good news is that it’s probably not worth worrying too much about your first page until you have completed the novel.  In my experience, the first page I originally write for a novel is rarely the first page I end up with.  Therefore it makes no sense to worry too much about it until you have completed a draft. It is pointless to edit and perfect something that you might later discard.

Incidentally, if you’re interested, there’s more on this subject in my book, Moving On – From Short Story to Novel, published by Accent Press. Price £9.99

How it works

You take along the first chapter of your novel and you get it critiqued on three levels. You get written critiques from other writers in the conference who opt to choose your chapter. Each writer chooses about six first chapters to critique over the course of the weekend.  You get in depth verbal critiques from the five other people in your group, you read the entire chapter to them.

Plus – and this is the really scary bit – you read only the first page of your novel to the entire assembly of novelists – the idea being that’s all they would read if they went into W H Smith and picked it up.  Then you keep very quiet while they tell you exactly what works and what doesn’t.

Trial by fire, but it’s fabulous. I want to go again right now. And it really inspires you to write the rest of the novel.

Incidentally I’ve done some research on the first page of novels, which I shall post here later. It’s fascinating stuff.

It was along the following lines. If you try to do something and don’t succeed first time, you haven’t actually lost anything.  How can you have lost what you didn’t have in the first place?

So, for example, with writing, if you try to break into a new market (or an existing one for you) and they say no, then you haven’t lost anything because you weren’t in there before you asked. So what’s the problem? How can it be a rejection?

Simples! As they say on the advert!

The same goes for sending out query letters for features or thee chapters and a synopsis to an agent. We have absolutely nothing to lose!

But we can all get jaded and feel depressed when editors say no.  And then our creativity suffers because we think our work must be rubbish. Which brings me nicely on to my course next Saturday 28 January which is called, Kickstart Your Creativity.

This is for writers who are feeling jaded – who isn’t in January! You can bring along a half finished story and hopefully I’ll be able to inspire you enough to get it started and out to an editor – or you can start a story from scratch. Either way, I’ll inspire you to write something new.  And hopefully something saleable.  See my website page under courses for full details.

And all for £35.00!

Which you can hopefully earn back when you sell the story to a magazine!

I’m a failure every day. Sometimes, I’m a failure several times in the same day! I’m forever being rejected. But, I make a point of telling myself that it isn’t me personally being rejected – just that idea at that particular time.

And because of that, I keep going. I keep writing and sending out work and making pitches to editors. And because I keep at it, I get acceptances too.

I once sent an article to a magazine. It came back rejected. A few months later, I heard the magazine had a new editor, so I resubmitted it. That editor rejected it too. Then some time later, I discovered the editor had changed again, so I resubmitted it to the same magazine. That particular editor accepted it. I hadn’t changed anything in my text. The words that third editor saw were exactly the same as the words the first two editors read. But the third one decided he liked it.

I sent a short story to a UK fiction magazine, and it was rejected. I also sent it to an Australian magazine, who decided to accept it. When they published it, I noticed that they’d made two very small changes. So, I made those changes to my original text and resubmitted it to the UK magazine. The UK magazine bought it.

In both those examples, had I given up after the first rejection, I would not have seen the publication of my words. (Nor would I have received the payments either!)

Once you understand that rejection is merely a moment in time, it makes it easier to move on. We all get rejected. Even professional writers are rejected. (Rumour has it, even the great Della Galton gets the odd rejection or two.)

And being the positive kind of guy that I am, I actually think rejection is a Good Thing. Because only writers who have the gumption to send their writing into that big, wide world out there can ever be rejected. You can only really appreciate what an acceptance means, when you’ve experienced rejection. So, go for it! Stay positive. Stay productive. And one day your efforts will be rewarded!

Good luck!

Simon

www.simonwhaley.co.uk

Twitter: @simonwhaley

Blog: Simon Says! http://simonwhaleytutor.blogspot.com/

The Positively Productive Writer, by Simon Whaley, shows writers how to reject rejection and enjoy positive steps to publication.

ISBN: 9781846948510

UK: £11.99

US: $19.99

Available now on Amazon.

You don’t look too clever, Trace?

Don’t feel it, Marge.

What happened to you?

Last year’s New Year’s Resolution, that’s what!

Which was?

Just say no.  And I did.  To everything.

Everything?

Yep!

What, cigs?

Yeah.

Drinks?

Yeah.

Food?

Yeah.  Fetched me up in here, it did, in the end.

Dehydrated I expect?

Yep.

And anorexic?

Yep.

Stressed?

Yes, yes, YES. OK!

Sorry, I’m sure!

‘S’all right…  Well, now we know why I’m here. How about you?

Same thing.  New Year’s Resolution that went wrong.

What was yours then?

To prove you don’t need an aeroplane to fly.

Busted much?

Nearly everything.  I can get about though, with the crutches like.  Ooh,  can I smell lunch?

Reckon so.

You having any, Trace?

Well I’d like to but …

Oh, yeah … you can’t, can you?

No.  How ‘bout you, Marge?  You having some?

No.  I’ve arranged for the window-cleaner to let me into his crate while all the nurses are busy, with lunch.

Going to have another go, then?

Got to, ain’t I?  New Years Resolution, weren’t it?

Long way down, from the 29^th floor

You need a bit of height, don’t you, for flying?

Suppose so.  ‘Ere, we both done well ain’t we, Marge, with our resolutions?

I’ll say.  You going to carry on sticking to yours, the whole year?

Yeah – if it kills me

Same here.  Well, must … er …

Fly, Marge?

You got it, Trace.  Fly.  Ta ta, then.  Nice seeing you

Ta ta Marge.  You too!

Well done, Karla, for brightening up a very dull day in Dorset!  You made me laugh out loud. This was so clever and funny. I loved it.

Commiserations to the rest of the shortlist.

Veronica – I loved your twist.

Ginny – I loved the voice of the narrator.

Hilary – you made me laugh.

Alyson, your story was wonderfully original too.

Carrie, you also made me laugh with your clever twist.

Many thanks for entering.

If you haven’t won you can buy a signed copy of Moving On – Short Story to Novel for a discounted price of £7.99 plus post and package by emailing me on dellagalton@yahoo.co.uk before the end of January.

Don’t forget.  If you are interested in exploring Flash Fiction in more detail I am running a Flash Fiction course in Bournemouth on Saturday 28 April.  The course runs from 10.00 a.m. till 4.00 p.m. and costs £35.00

If you have entered this competition you are entitled to a £5.00 discount on the cost – just mention this when you email me to book.

Today (January 5th, 2012) is publication day of my new book, and I am so excited.  Even though I know everyone else in the universe won’t know and won’t care and the momentous news will pass without comment. But I am bursting with pride, and I feel a huge sense of achievement.

I wrote this book because I needed it when I wrote my first novel, and I needed it when I wrote my second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh novels…. And it wasn’t around.  So I thought I should write it!

Actually, I was a bit scared of taking the huge leap between writing short stories and novels. And, rather strangely, the more I learned about writing, the more scared I was – it isn’t a straightforward transition, at least it wasn’t for me!

I have sold my work for 25 years now, and yet each time I venture into a new type of writing, whether it is feature, or serial or poetry or radio play or children’s story, or humour, or erotica or full length non fiction or novel, I feel for a little while, as though I am stumbling around in a darkened house. There are no lights, no signposts, no familiarity.  And I have had success with writing, and I know the techniques, I know the craft, but that doesn’t mean I am not afraid.

I literally feel my way.  Going from the short story to the novel was the biggest leap for me.  I wrote my first novel knowing nothing whatever about the form.

By the time I wrote my fourth, Passing Shadows, which was the first one I sold, I felt as though the lights in the house were on – but I still had so much to learn.

What did development of characters mean? What did it really mean? How much plot did I need? What were the differences in real terms? Were there a lot of differences?

Oh yes, there were.

This is why I wrote this book.  I hope my experiences will help you.  I love teaching almost as much as I love writing and I wanted to share my journey with other writers who are also making the move from short story to novel.

Moving On – from Short Story to Novel – A step by step guide is the result.

Thank you for all the writers who shared their experiences with me on their moving on writing journey.

With love

Della Galton

Della Galton is the author of six novels, and three non-fiction books. Her short stories have been published in every major UK women’s magazine, as well as numerous short-story anthologies (available from Accent Press). She is Agony Aunt for Writer’s Forum magazine, and teaches at various writing courses and workshops around the country. Moving On – from Short Story to Novel – A step by step guide by Della Galton, is published by Accent Press, price £9.99.
Find out more about Della at dellagalton.co.uk.

Click here to purchase ‘Moving On’ from Amazon.co.uk

Click here to view all of Della’s books on Amazon

Oh my gosh, that’ll teach me to organise a short story competition and only give myself a day to judge it!

I was overwhelmed by the volume of entries.  I received 31 stories.  They were a great selection. Thank you so much for entering.

The most popular themes were:

Giving up drinking.

Giving up smoking.

Dieting/getting fit.

Finding a new man.

Combinations of the above.

Any of these could have worked as long as they had an original angle. The main two reasons stories didn’t make the shortlist were because:

They had a weak ending.  Lots of them started really well, and then tailed off.

They weren’t original or didn’t have an original slant

I ended up making a shortlist. My top six stories were written by the following writers:

Ginny Swart, Veronica Ryder, Karla Brecon, Caroline Hall, Hilary Forrest and Alyson Hilbourne.

The winner will be announced and available to read on this blog at 4.30 pm today.

Not that I like to keep you in suspense!

While you’re here though!

Check out my Flash Fiction Course

If you are interested in exploring Flash Fiction in more detail I am running a Flash Fiction course in Bournemouth on Saturday 28 April.  The course runs from 10.00 a.m. till 4.00 p.m. and costs £35.00

If you have entered this competition you are entitled to a £5.00 discount on the cost – just mention this when you email me to book.

And, and and and and ….If you haven’t won you can buy a signed copy of Moving On – Short Story to Novel for a discounted price of £7.99 plus post and package by emailing me on dellagalton@yahoo.co.uk before the end of January.

Writing ones, that is…

January

Write the first page of a feature or short story, or perhaps even the opening page of that novel you’ve been planning to write.  By the end of the page you might be hooked enough to carry on.

Or you could always treat yourself to my new book Order it from me and I’ll sign it for you!

Buy a signed copy from me for £8.99 including post and package!

February

Enter at least one short story competition.

March

Interview one of your friends or family and write up the piece as practice for feature writing..

April

Join a writing class or book yourself on a course.

May

Give yourself twenty minutes to write a selection of opening paragraphs.  Then pick the best and make it into a 1000 word short story.

 June

Start a manuscript group with 3 or 4 friends. It’s the best way to get motivated.

July

While on holiday, take a notebook and make notes.  If you’re abroad, write down specific details, such as what food you ate, otherwise just note down landscapes and places of interest.  You never know when they will come in useful for either fact or fiction.

August

Get out an old piece of work you weren’t happy with and try re-writing it from another character’s viewpoint.

September

Buy a notebook and keep it for writing titles in.  Carry it around with you for when inspiration strikes.

October

Read out a piece of work you’ve been having trouble with to a trusted writer friend to see if they can help. This can be a reciprocal exercise.

November

Enter a poetry competition.

December

Write some Christmas verse and personalise your Christmas cards.

With the new year just days away, Peter Jones shares his passion for personal Goal Setting, and explains why failing them is a good thing.

So, in three days it’ll be 2012. And for the fifth year running I’ll be setting myself personal goals.

A lot of my friends dislike the idea of setting personal goals, like it somehow takes the ‘private’ part of their life – the part that is supposed to be about relaxing and having fun – and turns it into ‘work’. And work, as we all know, is the mortal enemy of fun and relaxation.

Perhaps you feel the same way? I know I did. Having read and listened to more than my fair share of self help books I thought I knew all that I needed to know about Goal Setting – enough to know that it wouldn’t work for me. And as I sat in traffic on the M25, morning after morning, listening to those Tony Robbins CDs, I’d start to wonder whether I’d enjoy them more if I wound down the window and tossed them, Frisbee-like, over the edge of the bridge and into the River Thames far below me.

That was, until I went out for a curry with my old friend Denny.

“I’ve set myself 5 goals for next year,” she told me one winter’s night in January.

“Goals?” I said

“Yeah,” said Denny as she mopped up some sauce with a strip of naan bread. I was stunned.

“Why?”

“Because I’m fed up with my life being like it is.”

“But, setting yourself goals – it’s a little extreme though, isn’t it?” She shrugged.

“Not really,” she said.

“But what if you don’t achieve them?” I asked.

“Then life will stay pretty much as it is, I guess. From that perspective I can’t really lose.” I thought about this for a second or two.

“Maybe I should set some goals,” I said.

“Maybe you should,” said Denny. “What would they be?”

And that was five years ago.

I like to set my goals at the start of each year, and review them at the end. This might make them sound a little like ‘resolutions’ but resolutions are something entirely different. “I will give up smoking” – that’s a resolution. “I have given up smoking (December, 2012)” – now that’s a goal.

Take for instance one of my goals for 2010:

My Happiness Book is published
(Dec 31st 2010)

At the time I set that the Goal I’d hardly started writing How To Do Everything and Be Happy, let alone given much thought to how I would publish it. I didn’t even have the title.

Did I achieve the goal?

No.

That’s the not so funny thing about setting goals – some of the time, perhaps even most of the time, you fail!

But then I’m not particularly motivated by ‘easy goals’ – goals that I know I have a good chance of achieving. They don’t even feel like goals – more like boring items on my to-do list. I had a friend who, on January 1^st, set herself the goal of joining a gym. By the end of the first week she’d achieved it. Was that really a goal? Shouldn’t joining the gym have been part of a much larger goal to improve her health and fitness? In my mind a goal should stretch you. A goal should be ever-so-slightly out of reach. With most of my goals I know that my chances of success are extremely slim, though the chance is there.

So my revised Goal for 2011 looked like this:

“How To Do Everything and Be Happy”
is available in three formats,
and selling really well (to be defined),
whilst I bask in the success (to be defined)
of the seminar(s)
Dec 31st 2011

And will I achieve that Goal??

No.

But I’ll come darn close. The book was released as an ebook back in March, and as a paperback a few weeks later. Both are selling better than I could have ever hoped. An audio version is planned for this coming year, and whilst I’m not exactly basking in the success of my one workshop, two more are being planned for the coming weeks.

Most important of all though, by identifying why I achieved or failed my goal I’m equipped to write smarter, more specific, or maybe utterly different goals.

Working with goals – that is, having them in your life – is something that gets easier the longer you do it. You develop a habit, or a mindset – after a while you start to look at everything you’re doing in relation to how it sits with your goals. In a very real way, your goals force you to decide what’s important to you and move you in that direction. They give you purpose and vision.

And it’s true what they say:

“Without vision the people perish.”

So, people of the interweb – what are your Goals for 2012. Drop me a line or use the comments box below – I’d love to hear from you.

Wishing you a very happy New Year

Peter Jones
Author of How To Do Everything and Be Happy