Of course everyone in publishing would say ‘voice’, by which they mean the character and personality of the writing. Agents want a voice that is unique, fresh and engaging. If you remain unclear what that means, the best way to understand is to read, read and read contemporary books. The narration – whether first or third person – will have a unique and distinct feel. From the opening paragraph it will engage you in a way that makes you want to read on and respond to the story and characters.

In every course I have taught people complain: ‘They say they want a unique voice, but all the books on sale look the same.’ Really? The comment reveals that the person speaking needs to read more, especially contemporary work within their chosen genre, if a novelist, or subject area, if writing non-fiction.

If you think voice doesn’t apply to non-fiction you should read cookery books. Isn’t a recipe book just a recipe book? No it is not. Jamie Oliver sounds nothing like Nigel Slater or Joanna Weinberg and none of them sound like Nigella. In another section of non-fiction, historians of the Second World War Ben MacIntyre and Anthony Beevor are completely different. The same is true of two biographers of Queen Victoria, Kate Williams and Helen Rappaport.

The misunderstanding about voice is in part because packaging is often confused with voice. Take a handful of writers of women’s commercial fiction – say Adele Parks, Jojo Moyes, Santa Sebag Montefiore and Rachel Hore. Each sounds different to the other. They may have covers that position them firmly in the same section of the supermarket, but they differ in subject and theme and in the way they approach characters, plot and the tone of their writing. That is what readers engage with and that is what makes them unique – it is also why three of them are represented by the same agent: there is no overlap, they just happen to appeal to a similar market.

What else do agents want? High on the list, especially in genre fiction, is a writer who knows instinctively how to tell a story. When I was at university there was a student called Baz who was a master of the shaggy dog story. These tales would go on for a long time and invariably have a terrible ending that left everybody groaning, but that didn’t matter. Why? Because it was the way Baz told them. He would have us hanging onto every word, usually in stiches

Now think of the people you know and how you respond when they start to tell a story. Do you engage or do you tune out or find yourself trying to cut them short? Unlike Baz, they have no instinct for storytelling. Now think about the novels you read and how they engage you and carry you through from first page to last. Does your manuscript do the same? It is an important question to answer, because the answer will help an agent determine whether to represent you or not. And don’t ask this question of your family and friends. They will probably lie. Get people you trust and who read widely to read your book and let them be completely honest,

Of course a good novel is more than just plot. Equally important when assessing a manuscript’s worth is whether the writer knows how to create characters readers will like and whether the dialogue is convincing.

Readers make an emotional investment in authors’ characters. It may be that they identify with them or that they aspire to be like them or that they want a character to redeem themselves. But, if a character is simply unpleasant to be around, unless you have rare skill – think Tom Wolfe or Patricia Highsmith –  you risk alienating your reader. Not only will they close the book early, they will tell others they hated the book too

This is why the psychopathic killers who inhabit crime fiction rarely narrate entire novels. Those that do are engaging in some way: Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter is killing nastier psychos than himself and doing it with great humour and a degree of humanity absent from most psycho killers. When a perpetrator’s point of view is given it is almost always as a plot device to ramp up the tension and place the protagonist in peril. Val McDermid’s Jacko Vance is rendered even more threatening when we see his point of view, as is the perpetrator in Mari Hannah’s The Murder Wall.

As for convincing dialogue…well, can anything kill a good read faster than clunky dialogue? It kills any sense one has of the character or action. I think one way to test dialogue is to read it aloud or, better still, get a friend to read it. How does it sound? Does it sound natural? Are there pauses for breath? Is it appropriate to the action? I am not the only one for whom the final scene of Ian McEwan’s Saturday was rendered risible when the protagonist’s naked and pregnant daughter recites from memory Dover Beach while under threat of violent rape. I would love to hear your own examples.

And finally, the fifth element agents and publishers look for is whether the writer is clear about the genre in which he or she writes, whether crime, romance, thriller or women’s fiction and whether they are clear about what the book is about. ‘But’ – you may protest – ‘my book defies genre.’ Let’s get this straight: nothing defies genre. Even literary fiction is a genre – in fact much of it fits snugly into the classier end of crime or romance. Agents and publishers ask this question because they want to know if a book fits their list and how easy it will be to place in retail outlets.

And if you still don’t understand what an agent or publisher wants, here is my final bit of advice: get reading. It really is the only way to understand what constitutes successful writing. Read like an author: read critically; read to understand aspects of character, dialogue and voice; and read to understand the taste of the agent to whom you are pitching. Agents with websites usually feature client lists, go out and buy the latest books by those clients. Read around the genre – always contemporary work, not books published years ago. By doing this you will learn an enormous amount that should help when pitching your book.

© Danuta Kean 2013

Women have broken into the last bastion of macho writing, Science Fiction and Fantasy, and they are changing the market

Forget everything you ever thought about Science Fiction and Fantasy (SFF). Forget nerdy boys role playing space heroes or Goth girls dressing as elves or maidens at conventions. In fact forget every gender stereotype you ever possessed. Because sales of SFF are rocketing, leading every large UK publisher to either revivify existing imprints or, in the case of Random House with Del Rey, launch new ones.

It means that if you are a SFF writer, now is the time to submit your manuscript. And don’t worry about your gender in a market once dominated by men: the new SFF readership includes a substantial number of women turned on to the genre by everything from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to The Games of Thrones, and men for whom the gender of the author is far less important than their ability to tell a good story.

Publishers are also spurred on by the fact that women are receiving critical as well as commercial acclaim: the past two winners of the prestigious Arthur C Clarke Award are women (Jane Roger’s The Testament of Jessie Lamb won the 2012 award). ‘There is a sense that this is a golden time,’ claims agent Oli Munson of A M Heath of the upsurge in SFF.

‘I think it’s fair to say we’ve seen a renaissance in the commercial success of women fantasy writers in particular,’ agrees Michael Rowley, editorial director of Del Rey, which launches in January. ‘The huge successes enjoyed by Robin Hobb and Trudi Canavan alone have popularised women writers in the genre, broken down a lot of the old gender barriers and encouraged the writing, publication and reading of a whole generation of new talent.’

Michael has signed up a number of women to launch his list, which is named after its successful US sibling, which publishes George RR Martin and Terry Brooks.  First off the block will be sometime Mslexia contributor Liesel Schwarz with A Conspiracy of Alchemists, the first in The Chronicles of Shadow and Light series.

Liesel epitomises the way gender stereotypes are breaking down. The novel fits into the Steampunk genre, which mixes gothic fantasy and invention into a heady mix of high romance and adventure – think Robert Downey Jr’s Sherlock Holmes or Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy.

Despite Steampunk being invented by Brit Michael Moorcock, British women have not made a mark on the genre – published women, such as Gail Carriger and Katie MacAlister, are almost all US-based. Liesel’s series was born out of frustration at this: ‘Traditionally, Steampunk tends to be quite blokey and so good reading for women in the genre is in short supply.’ She quips that her book is an ‘entry level drug’ for those new to Steampunk.

In many ways the re-emergence of women within the SFF market is a return to form: Margaret Atwood, Ursula le Guin, Angela Carter and Charlotte Perkins Gilman are some of classic women authors whose contribution to SFF was eclipsed in the 1980s by a slew of poorly written and horribly packaged – think busty space maidens with weaponry – titles by men that alienated a female audience.

In part change came because fashions in SFF changed, says Anne Clark, editorial director of Orbit, which publishes among others George RR Martin heir apparent Joe Abercrombie. ‘Traditionally I think women have been expected to write more emotionally-connected, relationship-based fantasy, while men have been expected to focus more on the action,’ she says. ‘Nowadays fantasy by women and men is overall more character-and relationship-driven, so there’s not so much difference between them.’

The appeal to writers of the genre is clear: ‘You can let your imagination off the leash,’ says Elspeth Cooper, author of the Wild Hunt series published by Gollancz. ‘You can play with civilisations and bring them to their knees, you can hack emperors to death,’ she adds with glee at the chance to play God in print.

But, she contends, the fantastical form taken by SFF does not mean writers can avoid research. ‘Research underpins the fantastical,’ she says. ‘Because, however fantastical your society is, it’s got to be consistent and work for readers.’

In the area of science fiction this is especially true says Cooper’s Gollancz stablemate Jaine Fenn, creator of the Hidden Empire series. ‘Consistency is very important in Science Fiction because you are playing with ideas and coming up with things outside readers’ experience,’ she explains.

Though Jaine says she is ‘definitely not a scientist’, she is engaged with the subject: she reads New Scientist and studies astronomy in her spare time. ‘You have to be very careful that you think through the implications for your characters and story of everything you use. A lot of writers who don’t read SF think they can just stick in a cool idea without thinking it through, but that won’t work.’

Such clangers can be avoided by reading widely within the genre, which is fundamental to writing well in it, says award-winning leader in the market Trudi Canavan. ‘It’s the advice I have always given to readers,’ she adds. Kate Griffin, author of Stray Souls, believes reading widely will inspire you to write with passion. ‘Don’t let your ideas be constrained by what you think people will expect you to write about, or what you feel politically you should write about, or what people are surprised you’re not writing about,’ she says with passion. ‘Write what you love, regardless of what it is, and let the world decide for itself the meaning of your words.’

And if you get stuck in space, Gillian Redfearn, Gollancz editorial director, has some excellent advice: ‘Put yourself in your characters’ shoes. Relive what’s happened to them, consider their goals, and consider how they’re feeling. You’ve got them into this situation – what’s their next move? What do they want? The answer might surprise you … But there’s a good chance it will also un-stick you.’

FIVE OF THE BEST:

The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers (Canongate, £7.99)

Winner of the 2012 Arthur C Clarke Award for science fiction writing and longlisted for the 2011 Man Booker, Rogers is a natural successor to Margaret Atwood. Mothers are dying in their millions and Jessie Lamb must sacrificed to save humanity: if she were your child what would you do? The book is a powerful, thought provoking and beautifully written literary dystopia with echoes of Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale and Ishiguru’s Never Let Me Go.

Queen of Nowhere (Hidden Empires 5) by Jaine Fenn (Gollancz, £14.99)

Feisty heroine Bez, the best hacker in ‘human-space’ is fighting a secret war against the Sidhe, evil beings who, 7,000 years into the future, have secreted themselves among humanity with terrible consequences. Likened to Iain M Banks, Fenn creates vivid characters in a story of high stakes paranoia. The fifth in the series, she has carved a niche for herself as a woman writing in a genre usually regarded as masculine.

A Conspiracy of Alchemists (Chronicles of Light and Shadow 1) by Liesel Schwarz (Del Rey, £14.99)

British Steampunk by a female author, Schwarz marries Belle Epoch style to High Gothic and feminist principal in a fun tale of an adventurous female dirigible pilot fighting to hold her own in a world of men. When Elle Chance takes on board an unusual cargo in Paris, she is thrust centre stage into a battle between Alchemists and warlocks that could bring about the end of the world. Possibly the only novel to feature an absinthe fairy.

The Rogue (The Traitor Spy Trilogy 2) by Trudi Canavan (Orbit, £7.99)

Latest solo outing by the prolific Australian queen of fantasy. Set 20 years after her Black Magician Trilogy, In the fictional world of Kyralia a killer is stalking the streets, while in neighbouring Sachaka, rebellion is brewing that could destabilise the entire region. A story of four strands, it builds in Canavan’s reputation for building magical and fantastical worlds in which the old tropes of fantasy – masculinity, heroism and the triumph of good over evil – elide.

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes (Angry Robot, £7.99)

Beukes is Raymond Chandler meets urban fantasy in this tale of Zinzi December, a reformed addict whose job is to find people – even when they don’t want to be found. A mash up of pulp genres from magic to crime this cyberpunk novel is set in South Africa. Beukes plays for high stakes with clever ideas – in this case that sinners are given an animal familiar that they must succour (a monkey on their back). She wins thanks to the engaging voice of her central character.

I have spent the last few months saturated in the blood of young women. 

As I fall asleep I block out their screams. As I sit at my desk I avert my eyes from their mutilated bodies.

But before you send me to Broadmoor, these are not real murders. These bodies are buried in the pages of bestselling novels, read in preparation for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate this weekend, where I am chairing a debate called Deadlier Than the Male.

The debate asks whether women write the most violent crime fiction. My initial thoughts were no, look at Scandinavian crime fiction writers Jo Nesbø and Stieg Larsson, or Stuart MacBride, author of the Aberdeen-set Logan McRae thrillers, for work by men of eye-watering brutality.

But I have changed my mind. Not because of the manner of killing – it would be hard to compete with the inventions of Nesbø. But because of the sheer number of women inventing new and vicious ways to kill.

For every Jo, Stieg and Stuart, there are ten women stepping into the shoes of female crime writers Karin Slaughter, Tess Gerritsen, Chelsea Cain and Mo Hayder. And they are pushing boundaries with work that is getting nastier as a result. 

‘I read a novel by a woman a few weeks ago that really disgusted me it had such horrific violence,’ one male crime writer, whose name is frequently on the bestseller lists, has confided to me. Mindful of the storm of criticism that hit Ian Rankin when he spoke up about the level of violence meted out by female rivals, he asked not to be named.

He added: ‘I don’t know how some get away with it. There seems to be really gratuitous violence in many where the “M.O.” of the killer seems merely to be no more than an excuse to inflict all sorts of vicious torture on the victim.’

He is not alone in questioning whether we should call time on this explosion of ‘torture porn’.

‘You shouldn’t be making money by thinking of new ways to torture women,’ Lauren Henderson, whose books include Dead White Female and Kiss of Death, told me flatly. ‘How far do we have to go before someone says, “Enough.”?’

It is a good question. The murders peddled in mass-market fiction are enough to make a hardened forensic psychologist blanche. Take Jillianne Hoffman’s The Cutting Room, the third of her C.J. Townsend novels.

In it, a snuff club films young women being tortured – including anal rape and acid used to burn their faces and feet – before being murdered. Last year Hoffman published the equally gruesome Pretty Little Things, the cover of which shouts: ‘Tempted. Tortured. Trapped.’

Or Mari Hannah’s gripping début, The Murder Wall. It opens with a sickening account of the rape and murder of a young girl in a country church. Little is left to the reader’s imagination, from the roughness of the rapist’s hands to his victim urinating in fear as he unbuckles his belt.

Even those women whose work rises above the pack for its psychological depth and power don’t hold back from portraying graphic violence.

In The Retribution, the latest Tony Hill novel and number one bestseller from Val McDermid, after murdering a husband and wife as they have sex, an escaped psychopath rapes the woman as life seeps from her slashed throat.

Even the killer is repulsed. ‘He didn’t want to look at that wound and the almost severed head,’ Britain’s finest crime writer writes.

It is sickening stuff. But why do women write books in which we suffer horrific sexual violence when all the statistics show men are the biggest victims of violent crime? And, as women buy 80 per cent of these books, why do we read them in huge numbers?

The obvious answer is that sensation sells. These books dominate the bestseller lists. One author told me a publisher approached her to write, because they needed a female ‘high concept’ (publishing jargon for violent) thriller writer. ‘They said rivals were doing well in this market and they didn’t want to miss out. The gorier the better,’ she confided.

The choice by publishers of women writers – or in the case of Nicci French and Tania Carver, female names – is deliberate: women describing sexual violence against women is sharing a fear; men writing it risks being creepy.

Martyn Waites, who with his wife Linda writes the Tania Carver series, was told by a female horror writer he knows: ‘I’m glad your wife is writing these with you, because if they were just by you I would not want to know you, because what you write would mean you hate women.

Women writing in this genre deny they write to please the market. ‘We’re writing about murder for God’s sake,’ Val McDermid insists when I ask about the violence in her Tony Hill series. It is shocking, the critically acclaimed author maintains, because violence should be shocking.

McDermid believes strongly that women write and read these books because from childhood we are conditioned to be afraid. ‘We perceive violence differently from men,’ she explains. ‘From childhood we are taught if you walk down a dark street you risk being raped or worse. We fear the sound of footsteps, men don’t.’

Women writers empathise with the darkest fears of readers who seek reassurance that, not only is it possible to survive, but that the rule of law will prevail, she claims. It is a strong argument.

If this is true, these novels have a similar role to childhood fairy tales. Substitute the imperilled heroine for a princess, a serial killer for the dragon and a maverick cop for the knight in shining armour and these stories are revealed to be as much Grimm as grime.

But she remains uncomfortable at the imagination invested in crimes that in real life are so rare their perpetrators – the Wests, Hindley and Brady, Ted Bundy and Harold Shipman – assume the status of bogeymen. ‘I think they can be accused of perpetuating women’s fear of violence,’ she adds.

No such sensibilities will stop publishers exploiting this market however. The genre is by far the most lucrative in books. As we have seen with misery memoirs, which tipped deeper and deeper into the sickest depictions of child abuse in order to gain the attention of gluttonous readers, and we are starting to see with the flood of badly written erotica pumped into the market in the wake of 50 Shades Of Grey, when publishers spot an insatiable appetite for something, they are willing to go to any lengths to supply demand.

‘But that is because it was so badly written. There was no plot, character or depth. It is just one person rushing about doing terrible things.’ If the book had been better written, would she have represented it? ‘Probably, yes,’ she replies matter-of-fact.

The word ‘porn’ implies poor writing. But many of the women who dominate this field are great writers. In fact, I believe a reason women overcome the gore is that the likes of Cain, Hayder and Slaughter are compelling storytellers.

But is the high – mutilated – body count necessary? No, says Mark Bilingham. ‘I used to think that keeping the violence off the page was a cop-out,’ he says. ‘Increasingly though, it seems to me that you can keep the majority of the violence off the page and still have a book every bit as powerful.’

Accusation of ‘torture porn’ disturbs Martyn Waites. ‘I would not be happy with anything we wrote that read like that,’ he insists.

Like many in the genre, Waites and his wife Linda draw on real crime for inspiration – The Surrogate was inspired by murders of pregnant women in the US. Rapist Michael Sams, who murdered Julie Dart and kidnapped Stephanie Slater, inspired The Creeper.

But, he claims, the last thing the two want is to fetishise evil. ‘We don’t want these to read like fairy tales,’ he maintains. ‘We want to acknowledge there are dangers out there, but not imply that they are, like the monster outside the village, no one’s responsibility.’

He adds with no hint at a double meaning: ‘These are all our monsters. We’ve created them ourselves.’

As a woman I think he is right: the fears of women have helped create these monsters by making them lucrative bestsellers. But just because we have an appetite for fear, does not mean, I believe, that we should feed it such strong meat. Because as crimes become ever more grotesque we risk becoming inured not just to acts of evil but their impact on the victim as well.

© Danuta Kean 2012

This article first appeared in Mslexia Autumn 2012

Finding time to write can be hard, especially when you have to fit it into already packed schedules. Danuta Kean marvels at how women writers get so much done

Over the past two months I have written four 2,000-word features (not including this), an 800 word book review, a couple of interviews and several blogs. I have also chaired 14 events at literary festivals – okay 12 were at the same festival – and appeared in a heavyweight debate about the future of publishing in a live webcast. I’ve also commissioned and edited this issue of Mslexia (including the book pages). Oh, and run a workshop on How To Get An Agent. To do it I have worked three weekends and pulled three all nighters on top of my usual schedule (which includes being mother to a four-year-old who refuses to sleep).

No wonder I feel exhausted and haven’t had time to work on my novel.

But I’m not unusual among Mslexia readers. Published or unpublished, scratch a woman writer and you’ll find someone whose dexterity at multitasking would beat Jessica Ennis to gold. And I am in awe.

On Twitter I asked when you find time for creative writing and the deluge of replies was testament to how committed you are to your craft.  ‘I get to work an hour early and write during that time or at lunch. Then at night, between 10 to 12PM,’ Liz de Jager, an executive assistant at a mining company, says. Liz is not the only early riser. Aspiring novelist Sarah Walters was one of many to tweet: ‘I get up at 5AM and do a bit, then scribble a bit more while the kids get ready for school and a bit more in my dinner break.’ Sarah Callejo prefers to wait until her children are asleep: ‘I do my writing at 9PM, when the kids are in bed. It’s the only moment I can fit it in,’ she replies.

Without complaint we slip our creative work into the cracks in demanding schedules. ‘The majority of my writing is done on public transport during the hour long journey into work, the hour on the way home and the various appointments in between,’ Lisa Bailey confides. ‘If I’m lucky I may even get time to do a bit of writing during my lunch break.’ Fellow aspiring novelist Katherine Crowther tells me: ‘I book a daily writing slot into my diary for each day, even if it’s just for 15 minutes, so that I can be sure of fitting some writing in.’

Even published novelists find their time to write books increasingly squeezed, thanks to a shrinking book market that has led to cuts in advances and forced authors into portfolio careers in order to survive. ‘These last two years have been more difficult than any other years for all the writers I know. My advances have dropped by 50%, which is a huge cut, especially as I am the main breadwinner in our family,’ confides one author. A frequent guest on the bestseller lists, she asked not to be named.

Pressure to perform

Declining book sales – forget Fifty Shades of Grey, the average book now sells fewer copies than 10 years ago – have also led publishers to place tighter deadlines on writers. ‘Publishers are aware of how tough the market is and are putting more and more pressure on us,’ explains Jojo Moyes.

You may think having a Richard & Judy megaseller in Me Before You would make Jojo ease back on her work commitments. You’d be wrong. She continues to produce a book a year, with a month off between each novel. In addition she writes a column for The Daily Telegraph (‘it’s good for my profile’) and works on other projects, including a television proposal and a Quick Read for the Booktrust. This is on top of family commitments that include raising three school age children. ‘I work flat out,’ she admits.  ‘But like any other freelancer it’s very hard to turn work down, especially interesting projects when they come your way.’

After 20 years and a string of bestsellers, Rowan Coleman, whose Lessons in Laughing Out Loud is out this month, is equally loathe to ease back, In fact, giving birth this year to twins to add to three other children under 10, has not stopped her writing an adult and two YA novels. ‘For the last five years I’ve had to work through the holidays,’ she explains while the 13-week old babies snore blissfully unaware beside her. Married to a musician, she acknowledges his flexible working hours help with their work-life balance, but the precarious state of the market means she never feels able to relax completely: ‘The knowledge that you have delivered something is always counterbalanced by the fear that you won’t have any work after that.’

Declining sales are not the only pressure point for time-strapped authors. The structure of payment, which comes from lump sums paid as part of an advance or twice yearly royalties, neither of which tend to cover annual expenses, mean authors shore up their earnings elsewhere. ‘Because my income from books comes in sporadic “lumps” I tend to prioritise journalism,’ explains novelist Amanda Craig, whose acclaimed last novel Hearts and Minds was published in 2009. ‘This is one reason – besides children – why I haven’t produced more books – I simply don’t feel I can afford to.’

Born this way

But I also wonder if we women writers are born workaholics. My recent punishing workload may reflect the fluctuating fortunes of a market that swings between feast and famine, but it also reflects the fact that I derive tremendous satisfaction from delivering an article. Writing all rounder Stella Duffy sums up the feeling:  ‘I know that when I sit down and write I will feel a huge buzz afterwards.’

I began the year feeling nervous: the recession has hit journalism badly. And it was a struggle. I said yes to everything because I need the money. In May the steady flow of work turned into a flood and I felt in danger of being overwhelmed. Before I had a child, I would happily work through the night, but after four years of sleep deprivation and without the luxury of a lie-in after filing late night copy, meeting deadlines at three in the morning filled me with dread. Did I say no to new commissions? Of course not, because, as fellow freelancer Caroline Sanderson says: ‘If you say no, then you worry that you won’t be asked again.’

Fear of closing a door to future work haunts most writers. ‘I say yes to too many things,’ admits Rowan Coleman. ‘But very often I feel that if I say no to something, then I’ll regret it.’

‘No’, it seems, is the hardest word in a woman writer’s vocabulary, as this admission from Stella Duffy implies: ‘I just turned down the Cheltenham Literary Festival. It feels brave to say no to these people and I’m really proud of myself for saying it.’ It’s an astonishing admission from someone with as packed a schedule as Stella.

Fear and its vicious sidekick guilt are not the only driving forces behind our failure to say no. There are positive incentives, and it is important we are clear about these so that fun gigs are not robbed of enjoyment. Despite my creaking workload, I agreed to be in a live webcast last month because it was screened globally as part of software giant Adobe’s Creative UK Week. As well as raising my profile, it involved working with people at the bleeding edge of online publishing – none of whom were from the book industry. It was fun, interesting and energising.

Bernardine Evaristo, who as well as novelist can add academic and competition judge to her job description, says writers need to be clear about what they take on and why so that it doesn’t undermine their writing. ‘It all has to be career building,’ she says. ‘You must be selective, so that your energy is not dissipated away from your career.’ This is why she accepts reviewing commissions whatever her deadline because ‘there are so few of us (Black writers) out there and I know that if I said no to things then my voice won’t get heard. It’s about being a force for change.’

And there can be creative benefits to multitasking, as occupational psychologist Dr Kamal Birdi of Sheffield University points out: ‘There is a phenomenon called “incubation”, where you leave a problem you have been working on for a long time and then come back to it, finding a solution suddenly pops into your head.’ As a result, multitasking can help with problems such as writers block. ‘By going off and doing something else, you get a new insight on how to deal with your original problem,’ he adds. ‘By multi-tasking, you might therefore get a new insight by doing something different.’

Kamal’s advice is reflected in copywriter Alison Burnside’s experience. ‘I use time when I’m cooking, cleaning or dealing with the kids to think about my stories,’ says the mother of twin six year olds. ‘It’s a way of keeping the door open so that I can go back into them.’ Her time meditating on her stories has paid off. This year not only has one been chosen for a university anthology, she has won her first competition, with a short memoir in the Body Gossip (Rickshaw Publishing) anthology published this month.

But sometimes we need to say ‘no’, whether to the small child wanting to play while you prep a short story for a competition or to friends who want to coopt your writing night for a girls’ night out or to a commissioning editor with a great idea that will bring in money but place you under relentless pressure. It is hard. Amanda Craig has a sign over her desk inherited from her mother-in-law that says: ‘Just say no.’ However, she admits she’s often persuaded to sacrifice valuable time on her new novel if she likes the idea or commissioning editor or needs the money.

Ring-fence your time

Learning to say no with confidence is important, because whether published or unpublished, we are only writers when we write and for that we need time to think as well. ‘The challenge for anyone doing any writing is to make enough mental space for deep thought,’ says Rachel Hore, who has written five novels including the 2012 bestseller The Gathering Storm. ‘It’s not just about creativity, it’s mulling over what you’re doing and being able to concentrate.’ Rachel, who has three teenage boys, ring-fences her time. As she writes best in the morning, she puts off phone calls and other distractions until the afternoon.

Jojo Moyes feels she works best first thing in the morning, so rises at six to work for an hour and a half before the children go to school. Her reasons are psychological as well as practical. ‘At six you are almost writing from your subconscious,’ she says. ‘The further you go into the day the more your brain becomes full of ephemera that shouldn’t be floating around in it.’

It’s a timetable familiar to Mslexia readers. Tanya Gupta, who works shifts as an online journalist, has just sent her first novel, Rules of Play, to agents. Inspired by Julia Cameron’s 2002 bestseller The Artist’s Way, Tanya writes at least three pages before she goes to work. In these ‘morning pages’, she writes through blocks, tries new angles and characters for her novels. ‘It can take 10 minutes or an hour, whatever time I have,’ she explains. ‘But it has really helped me.’ When I ask about the level of discipline required, she laughs, and replies: ‘Its not like discipline doing this, it is like going to a spa.’

I can learn from Tanya’s positive attitude to self-discipline, because, like others, the tighter the deadline, the greater the temptation to procrastinate. ‘I am the procrastinator’s procrastinator,’ laughs playwright, newspaper columnists and comedian Caroline Gold when I ask her about this problem. ‘It’s the only reason my kitchen floor is clean and my socks are ever in pairs thanks to what I “should” be doing.’ As Caroline points out, what is perplexing about this temptation to put off writing, is that writing is something we love. ‘I don’t know why we are so destructive,’ she says. ‘Because once I’m stuck in to it I am at my happiest and in my element.’

Procrastination can be a sign of overload or even burn out and doesn’t just involve an irresistible desire to stand around the virtual watercooler of Facebook or Twitter, says occupational psychologist Angela Carter. ‘Thinking you should be doing something else is a distracting thought process that can affect either gender,’ she explains. ‘What I think is important here is that you know your own cues, which tell you that you’re trying to put something off. Once identified you can put those thoughts aside – write yourself a note to remind yourself – and focus on the task in hand.’

Angela, like Rachel Hore and Jojo Moyes, thinks understanding your creative rhythm is vital for focus. ‘Everyone will have their own creative time pattern,’ she explains. ‘Mine is in the morning and the evening, so I try not to overload on email during those times. Start the day with writing and when you have achieved something you are happy with, then have a look at your emails.’

Get help

For those of us who lack the iron will to ignore email or funny pictures of cats on the Internet – you know who you are – or are suddenly transformed into all baking, all cleaning domestic goddesses when we should be writing, there is help thanks to a host of apps and software some of which can be downloaded free (see box). My particular favourite is Anti-Social. It’s a ten quid miracle because it enables me to block distracting social media and email and access the internet if I need to check facts while writing.

On a more practical level to free time to work it is important that we learn to delegate. In an office, women do not be expect to take on every task – from admin to computer support – but in the home we often do – burdening ourselves with all the cooking, cleaning, laundry and childcare. No wonder we have no free time.

How much and what you delegate will depend on your support network and financial situation. My partner and I have no relatives living locally whom we can call on to help with childcare, and when we delegate it tends to be to paid babysitters, ensuring we automatically add at least £30 to the bill for a night out.

As a result, our nights out together are curtailed. We have decided to use the money saved by having no social life to employ someone to help with the cleaning. The reason is that I find a messy house too distracting as I work from home. I end up exhausted trying to clean and write. Employing a professional has helped me enormously.

Of course not everyone can afford or sacrifice a night out to hire help. But it is worth looking at all the tasks you undertake and seeing what can be delegated or shared in a way that gives you time to write. You would be surprised at the solutions you come up with. I know writers in babysitting clubs, who use their turn babysitting as an opportunity to write. I refuse to iron everything – it takes up time I could be writing. Others are happy to leave the dishes for a night so they can get a couple of hours in writing at least one night a week. Solutions need not cost money, but they do demand we be creative and organised.

Delegation isn’t only an investment in your time writing (and thus your future chance of success), it helps to protect us from burnout, which is the most dangerous side effect of over-commitment. The signs of burnout include irritability, lack of focus and listlessness  – all of which affect our ability to create, as psychologist Angela Carter notes: ‘Overload of any sort is likely to dull creativity.’ It is dangerous because it will undermine all parts of our life – including relationships at work and home. If we continue to push when completely exhausted we’ll eventually be unable to do anything.

Though work was not the direct cause when Caroline Gold suffered a breakdown after her father died, she admits overworking to avoid facing painful emotions. ‘The work became far too “loaded” and an avoidance, distraction,’ she admits. No one would say delegating in such circumstances is easy, but our mental health and creativity are important; we need to be realistic about how much we can carry – however broad our shoulders.

And if you feel guilty about stopping for a moment, listen to Louisa Young, whose My Dear I Wanted To Tell You, was also chosen for the 2012 Richard & Judy Book Club. ‘I don’t see male writers saying, “Oh my God, I’m not going to finish my great work of art on time….” Women writers need to be less hard on themselves.’ She’s right. I have never heard a man apologise for the state of his house or for not being perfect at everything. But I hear women writers do this all the time. So stop – right now – and celebrate how much you achieve, from short stories to poems, plays and books. I look at you and think: we are miracle workers. As Jojo Moyes says: ‘We should all take a step back and give ourselves a big pat on the back.’

© Danuta Kean 2012

No we are shocked by the easy way the tabloids – and others – have rushed to condemn a culture in which women were, allegedly, routinely groped by male colleagues and derided when they complained.

I know quite a few male hacks are getting on, but surely they can’t all be suffering from age-related memory loss?

Few women in the media that I know haven’t suffered sordid advances, wandering hands or forced to sleazy barrack room comments about women in general or particular.

And it isn’t just the media. The workplace has long been a place where the price a woman must pay for access is to be treated as a sex object, whose rise up the career ladder is accompanied by snide innuendo and vicious gossip,

Since I started work at 23, I have seen women hounded out because they refused their boss’s advances; bosses dragged off female colleagues trying – and failing – to reject violent advances; pretty new female workers subject to ‘an interview’ with a senior member of the team that involved an attempt at seduction over lunch; a senior director who regarded a call from a female journalist as the equivalent of calling an 0898 number; a powerful man who could undo the bra of a women seated beside him at corporate dinners with the deftness of a cat thief; and senior men whose hands wandered up the skirt of any woman seated nearby.

These are just a handful of my workplace experiences.

When I or other female colleagues objected we were at best listened to and told the HR director would ‘have a quiet word with them’ or, more usually, told not to make a fuss. For the most part we said nothing, because to say anything marked us out as trouble/couldn’t take a joke/uptight (delete as appropriate) whose career would suffer.

The culture that bred Jimmy Savile is a culture in which women are not taken seriously as equals. It is a culture in which women are regarded as fair game. The men, meanwhile, are just asked to join the boy’s club.

If you doubt this look at the ‘dolly bird’ language and laddish jokes of Savile’s denial – ‘she looked 16 m’lud’ is only funny if it is placed in the context that after 16 she is ‘available’, whether she wants an ancient, track-suited bottle blond pawing her or not.

If the Savile revelations are to mean more than a scandalous entertainment, real change must take place in attitudes towards women.

Of course, top of the list is that allegations or concerns about the treatment of children must be properly investigated.

But there needs also to be a wider awareness that sexual abuse and harassment at work should not be tolerated. Those who complain should not be made to feel that their career will suffer or that the perpetrator will get off with a ‘quiet chat’ with someone in personnel.

Because my experience is that the people who get away with it once have a history. It’s just that this time they got caught.

Mslexia

Others told me they felt relieved to hear other writers cram as much into their day as they do, and feel exhausted, overwhelmed and guilty about not doing ‘enough’ – as Mslexia is a women’s magazine, I wonder whether men would have the same reaction? My guess is no. We should learn from them and place ourselves under less pressure

In the feature I write about coping strategies (I will post the whole thing here soon). Top of the list for me is the ability to say ‘no’. Too often we are overwhelmed because we don’t feel comfortable with this small simple word and fear that if we say no, the rejected editor won’t ask us back. But ‘no’ is the best weapon in the armoury of any writer. It helps us focus and ensures we don’t become so over-committed our work and private life suffer (and by that I mean our mental health).

Over summer I ran out of time to do everything. Typical freelance, I had gone from a steady stream of work to a flood (I am not complaining, I love it). But it meant that I had to consider seriously what I could manage. In this case it meant leaving my website for a couple of months. Also I turned down a commission – that hurt. No one likes to turn down money.

To feel comfortable with the word ‘no’, it’s vital to set criteria for saying ‘yes’. For me this means asking the following:

What time and expertise is required for the commission/task?

How will it impact on other commitments?

Does the remuneration justify the commitment?

How much do I need the money?

Is it something that will further my career?

Is it something that will stretch me in a positive way?

Is there a way I can juggle my existing commitments to fit it in?

Is it something I would enjoy, despite the sacrifice involved?

Is it an opportunity that will open doors/extend my career in new directions?

How will it impact on my family?

Not all the answers have to be positive for me to take a commission, but it helps me focus and plan. It also reminds me that saying ‘yes’ to everything can be more unprofessional than saying ‘no’.

After the summer break, things are now back to normal – or the usual freelance paranoia and attempts to stave off that other demon in the life of the writer, procrastination. I know I am not the only one who struggles with this. Come on, I know who you are, I’ve seen the pictures of cats and funny illustrated quotes you post on Facebook and Twitter….

Let’s face it, if Zadie Smith admits she gets distracted by Facebook, then the rest of us can too.

In my feature I listed a few technical aids for the distracted mind. I find they help – and, better still, some are free. Here is my list:

1. Freedom: Popular with writers including Jojo Moyes, Zadie Smith and Dave Eggars, this software will block the internet for up to eight hours. It means you can work without any onscreen distractions. Windows or Mac.

2. Anti-Social: This is my favourite anti-distraction software, because it only turns off the social networking parts of the Internet. You can specify the sites for specific periods – I usually give myself 180 minutes. I like it because while I can block Facebook and Twitter – my main source of distraction – it lets me access the Internet, so I can research facts or check data. Mac only

3. The Pomodoro Technique: A motivational tool loved by Stella Duffy. Best point is that you only need a piece of paper and kitchen timer if you aren’t techno savvy, though an app is available to download. To use, you write a list of tasks, which you then work on in 25-minute blocks. If the task seems too big, break it down into component parts. As you complete each task tick it off the list. Nothing makes you feel motivated like ticking off lists. I find it a very good method to overcome writers’ block too. Windows and Mac

4. Dejal Time Out: This software manages screen breaks, which helps concentrate the mind. You can configure breaks to your own schedule. I like to work a ‘power hour’ (50 minutes work and 10 minutes off). I use the 10-minute shutdown to get away from my desk, run up and down three flights of stairs or do some stretches. Exercise gets oxygen to your brain, which helps concentration – it is why going for a walk is such an inspiring activity for blocked writers. A niece at medical school has a prof who uses the Power Hour in his lectures. Every 50 minutes the students are sent on a walk around the building. The class has seen its grades consistently 10% higher than the rest of the year. Another important benefit is that my body doesn’t atrophy from sitting at a desk all day. Mac only.

5. Focus Writer:  This is free software that combines focus-building software with nostalgia. It recreates an old fashioned word processor on your screen while blocking out distractions. As well as simplifying your screen, you can set word count or writing time goals to help focus. My favourite part? It sounds like a typewriter when you strike the keys, which appeals to my inner Jessica Fletcher Windows or Mac.

I hope these help. And I hope that you will share your secrets about keeping on keeping on.

© Danuta Kean 2012

You have to hand it to the editors of Wikipedia – half of whom are under 28 – youthful rebellion never looked like this. By instigating a 24-hour blackout of the service in January, they became the first generation in history whose rebellion left corporations and venture capitalists clapping their hands in glee.

Glee, because the protest made it harder for democratically elected governments to pass legislation strong enough to protect ripped off writers, musicians and other artists, from those who profit from stolen intellectual property. Why? Because the blackout, which shut down the online encyclopaedia, was in protest against two bills before the US Congress: Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA). The publicity it generated shook politicians so hard they quietly dropped the proposed legislation.

And that sets a disturbing precedent for any government that acts against online piracy. Because it shows the enormous power wielded by the 1,800 editors consulted about the blackout, even though not all of them are based in the USA. These editors have effectively mobilised a mass protest and media coverage (an estimated 115,000 websites supported the protest), that made politicians look like advocates for internet censorship

Welcome to the age of the online oligarch: as rich and powerful as Enron, but with a better media profile. ‘What has come out of this is the power of these organisations to get legislation they disapprove of shelved,’ ALCS deputy chief executive Barbara Hayes comments. ‘Where is this freedom they’re all talking about, if they can pull the plug on their service when they can’t get what they want for free?’

The rallying cry of Wiki and its supporters – including Google (2011 annual revenue: $37.9bn), Facebook (latest quarterly revenue: $1.8bn) and eBay (2011 revenue: $11bn) – was free speech.  These and other organisations that came out against the legislation – including illegal filesharing sites like iFile.it (which with Library.nu is said to have made $11m from ebook downloads)  - ran banners urging users: ‘Tell Congress: please don’t censor the web!’

The SOPA and PIPA bills included two key proposals. One had widespread support within the creative economy, including the Motion Picture Association of America, Recording Industry Association of America and Entertainment Software Association. More on that later. The other was more controversial. It was a plan to reroute users from filesharing sites like Rapidshare and Megaupload by altering the domain name system that enables computers to locate each other on the internet. Critics – not all of whom support the Open Rights Movement – warned this risked damaging the architecture of the internet and would be hard to enact. Rerouted users would find themselves looking not at a site with unlimited free stuff to download, but with a US government message stating why the site was blocked.

The risk was that filesharers would circumnavigate the technology, and crash the net because trafficking in stolen IP is now very big business. BitTorrent – the technology of choice for illegal file-sharing – is estimated to account for 18% of global Internet traffic. If downloaders found ‘safe’ alternative routes to ripped-off stuff, huge numbers would descend down those narrower highways. It would be as if the residents of Springfield were offered free beer on certain roads. Homer Simpson wouldn’t be the only one stuck in a jam waiting for a freebie.

The Authors Guild of America for one, chose not to support the second proposal because of this provision. AGA executive director Paul Aitken explains: ‘It was problematic on a number of levels, not least that it handed the other side this easy rallying cry of “stop online censorship”.’ The AGA did, however, back the first less controversial SOPA and PIPA proposal aimed at hurting traffickers where it matters: their bank accounts. Access would be denied to US-based payment services such as Paypal and credit cards, so copyright infringing sites could not collect subscription payments or advertising revenue. This money is essential to fund the tech needed to run a site and the lavish lifestyles of many owners (more of that later). The thinking was simple: kill the money, kill the site.

Contrary to popular belief, illegal file-sharing sites are not shoestring operations run by penniless kids. They require vast servers to host stolen content. They also require huge bandwidth to handle the illegal downloads. Even start-ups – let’s call them small town dealers – need computer equipment, software and broadband services that cost considerable amounts of money. To pay for their operations, traffickers use two revenue models: paid-for premium subscriptions that enable faster downloading; and display advertising – often supplied through Google Ads – which appear as content downloads.

The revenue raised is eye-watering. When the executives behind file-sharing site Megaupload were indicted for copyright violations, racketeering and money-laundering, the indictment left many authors (average income £7,000 and falling) slack-jawed at the money involved. The FBI accused the seven execs, including CEO Kim Dotcom (yes, seriously, that is his name) of amassing $175m since the site launched in 2005. In 2010 Dotcom took home $42m; another exec earned $9m. Among seized assets were a Lamborghini, a Maserati and 15 Mercedes cars with personalised number plates including the legends ‘STONED’, ‘GOOD’, ‘BAD’, ‘EVIL’ AND ‘GUILTY’. Oh, and a Rolls-Royce Phantom (list price £250,000 to £300,000) bearing the number plate ‘GOD’.

Not surprisingly, this apparent bravura display of Megaupload’s economic power is not among propaganda spouted when the Open Rights Movement – as the loosely affiliated group of internet activists and online corporate interests who backed the Wiki blackout style themselves – lobbies governments, and that includes our own and the EU. Instead, they prefer to put about the myth that traditional creative businesses – film companies, book publishers and record company executives – are the greedy exploiters in this market.

The ‘poor victim’ in this myth is not the writer who can’t earn enough to buy food after being dropped by their publisher because illegal downloading has destroyed their market. No, the victim of these greedy exploiters is the “lonely pioneer”, seeking new ways to spread culture, ideas and innovation to a hungry world. It’s powerful propaganda – just look at the outcome of the review of IP and culture by Ian Hargreaves for the government (Digital Opportunities, 2011), which seemed to fall hook, line and sinker for the claims made in the ORM’s submissions that copyright stymies innovation.

UK Publishers Association chief executive Richard Mollett feels angry at these claims. ‘It is completely bogus to say that supporting the rights of creators and the companies who invest in them is dangerous to innovation,’ he fumes. ‘Any innovation in publishing, be that publishing into new genres or new businesses like Nosy Crow, are paid for by the ownership of intellectual property that allows investors to recoup their investment.’

The facts simply do not support the myth that copyright stifles innovation. Take iFile.it. It shut down alongside Library.nu following an injunction that claimed the two offered 400,000 ebooks, and had made more than $11m in revenue. Earlier this year, AGA president Scott Turow, cited a blog written by iFile.it’s owner in testimony to a US Senate judiciary committee on copyright. The voice that comes through isn’t that of a man desperate to spread culture. It isn’t that of a man eager to empower creativity. He doesn’t rhapsodise about the thousands of children’s books available illegally from his site. Instead he enthuses about iFile.it’s rapid growth and ability to put more free stuff quickly into the hands of downloaders. And he carps, like a wannabe on “The Apprentice”, about his rivals, especially Rapidshare (which in January scored three million unique users). Within two years, iFile.it had a million users and required 45 servers to provide high speed data connections through ISPs. All this was paid for by advertising – just as it is with free newspapers. But there is a huge difference: newspapers pay the people who write their content. The only people paid by iFile.it were tech companies needed to provide users with access to the books, music and films illegally stored on the site.

Which brings us back to the other beneficiaries of the trafficking in illegal content. Whatever the Open Rights Movement says, it isn’t individual creators who benefit from the billions of pounds that change hands in the online black economy. Nor is it solely traffickers. It is also global corporations – computer manufacturers and service providers and venture capitalists – because users of stolen content need hardware –mp3 players, ebook readers, computers – and broadband services to download and use stolen books, music and films. Financial sector corporations benefit too because traffickers have to pay for servers and bandwidth. And for that they need revenue raised through advertising or subscriptions, and to process that revenue they need payment services. None of these corporations may actively target trafficking sites for revenue, but they do profit from them.

‘You can see this as a fight between Northern Californian venture capitalists and Southern Californian venture capitalists and who’s going to have the higher return on their investment,’ the AGAs Paul Aitken observes wryly. Aitken sees the battle as about the value of content. North Californian suppliers of information like Facebook and Google need to provide a return on investment for their backers. In an online economy built on the supply of free content, much of it created by South Californian industries, notably film, music and television, this creates an immediate conflict between the two. ‘The more Northern Californian VCs can drive down the value of content the higher the return on their investment in things that deliver content in one way or another.’

So much for youthful revolution.

But all is not lost for artists and writers facing financial ruin as a result of illegal downloading. Authors and their supporters can fight back and should. Musician David Lowery showed how in an open letter posted on The Trichordist (http://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/), a community blog by artists campaigning for an ethical internet. The letter was addressed to Emily White, a 21-year-old intern at a the US National Public Radio website All Songs Considered, who admitted that of 11,000 tracks in her music library she had only paid for 15 CDs.

Though the letter addresses specific issues faced by musicians, there is much that applies to writers– including Lowery’s utter bemusement at a generation happy to shell out money for hardware and gadgets or for Fair Trade coffee, but not to pay the artists whose work they profess to love.

Lowery also suggests taking action of our own to raise awareness and challenge the accepted wisdom that the battle is lost. So let’s move on. Here are six things you can do too:

• Contact: Companies whose advertising or services benefit trafficking sites. When you find ads for companies on filesharing sites contact those companies through the ‘investor relations’ pages on their website and point to the specific places in which their advertising revenue is being used to support illegal sites. Ads are usually supplied by services such as Google; again use the investor relations page to contact the provider and point out its service is helping fund a trafficker.
• Note: Every time you search for a piece of music, book or film and the first result page that appears is illegal downloads, inform the copyright holder and the search engine. One of the issues faced by copyright holders is the ease with which illegal sites get their content to the top of search results, making it easier to entice punters into stealing.
• Lobby: The Open Rights Movement has massive lobbying power. They put their case to MPs and MEPs through lobbyists based in London and Brussels. Counter their arguments and contact your MP, MEP and relevant ministers to show how copyright infringement is undermining creativity not feeding it.
• Join: Organisations like ALCS, the Publishers Association and the Society of Authors can keep you updated on what is needed – such as changes to search engine protocols to stop traffickers ranking top in searches.
• Publicise: No company wants bad publicity. Use shareholders meetings, blogs and articles to point out how specific businesses are profiting from the Big Rip Off of Writers.

Argue: A recent study of BitTorrent traffic showed that 35.8% was pornographic. Ask these business if they know they are making money from sites that include the exchange of child pornography. Ask filesharing friends about the company they keep.

This is not an easy fight, but writers and other artists should not assume they cannot fight back. We can. We know we can, because we have been in a world where ripping off writers was endemic before. It was the active and vocal campaigns of writers in the 19^th Century that established copyright in the first place. It’s time we brought our fighting skills up to date.

© Danuta Kean 2012

Have you noticed a disturbing trend in your teenager’s reading material lately? Has a change from lively and engaging child into sullen and difficult teenager coincided with them ditching adventures by the likes of Lauren Child or Michael Morpurgo for bleak futuristic fantasies about violent 16-year-olds or grimly realistic tales of abuse victims?

Then you should be worried. Not because the violence and suffering portrayed in Suzanne Collins’ fantasy thriller Hunger Games or Being Billie, Phil Earle’s tale of an abused boy in a care home, might corrupt your precious offspring, but because what your child reads may be a sign of hidden troubles.

This is the message children’s experts and authors have read into the rapid rise of the latest literary trend among teens. For while the hysteria over Twilight, Stephanie Meyer’s fangs and fornication series, fades thousands of teenage readers are turning to darker stories whether fantastical or realistic.

But don’t panic just yet, insists Sue Minto, head of children’s counseling service ChildLine. Just because your daughter or son may devour tales with grim names like 15 Days Without A Head (Dave Cousins) or Kill All Enemies (Melvyn Burgess) does not mean they are about to wreak havoc in a shopping centre near you.

Instead they are probably finding in novels what the myriad of sex and fashion obsessed mags and programmes aimed at teenagers lack: a let up from the relentless pressure to be thin, successful, popular, sporty or have sex. ‘The teenage years can be a very difficult and confusing period and young people will turn to a range of sources to make sense of the world. It’s important not to be alarmist about these books,’ Minto explains.  ‘Many simply reflect the difficult and upsetting situations that some young people find themselves in.’

That grim futuristic and grittily real novels are on the rise as vampire novels decline has left booksellers rubbing their hands. ‘Dystopian fiction is a huge trend in young adult reading for us,’ says Waterstones spokesman Jon Howells gleefully. Howells has witnessed the grip of dys lit first hand: his 12-year-old daughter Polly is among those rapaciously devouring books like Fear by Michael Grant, about a world where everyone over 15 disappears, or Paolo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker, set 100 years from now in a post-Apocalyptic world where children scavenge to survive. ‘She’s getting through a book a week,’ he confides.

Howells has high hopes that Polly’s obsession will be replicated in teens across Britain now that the film adaptation of Hunger Games has hit cinema screens. The book led the current trend, though the ground was prepared by Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses, inspired by the injustice done to Stephen Lawrence, and Philip Reeves’ sci fi epic Mortal Engines, both published in 2001, alongside Meg Rosoff’s 2004 World War 3 survival saga How I Live Now, currently being adapted into a film.

Minto’s calm assurance may not quell the fears of parents who see graphic scenes adults would baulk at filling the shelves of their child’s bedroom. Bloody, frightening and thrilling, Hunger Games pits heroine Katniss Everdeen against other children in a gladiatorial fight to the death on live TV. Despite the explicit violence, children as young as 10 have lapped up so many copies sales have now passed 10 million worldwide. If the film franchise matches the success of Twilight and Harry Potter, industry insiders tip sales to easily pass 100 million.

Rivals to Hunger Games’ crown are no less grim. Take Moira Young’s Mad Max-meets-The Searchers thriller Blood Red Road, in which cage fighting girl gang leader Saba seeks bloody revenge against the kidnappers of her young brother in a world destroyed by climate change. Or Sara Grant’s Dark Parties, in which young heroine Neva’s quest for the truth behind her grandmother’s disappearance leaves the reader tense with fear.

Then there is the nightmarish Scott Westerfield’s Uglies, set in a world where all 16-year olds are made ‘perfect’ with plastic surgery (a film is due this year); or Kate Harrison’s creepy Soul Beach, in which 16-year-old Alice Forster finds herself drawn into a sinister virtual paradise, in which participants meet dead friends made perfect; and Veronica Roth’s angry and rebellious bestseller Divergent, in which 16-year-old Tris challenges a system that pigeonholes you according to perceived personality traits once you reach 16.

What should concern parents is why teenagers devour these books. All feature children on the cusp of 16, they present an image of a world hostile to young people. Should we be surprised? According to ChildLine’s data, no. It presents depressing reading for anyone involved with this age group. A breakdown of calls received over Christmas 2011 revealed a shocking increase in the number of children calling about depression and mental health problems – 103% up on the previous year. Disturbing as that was, more worrying was a 62% increase in calls about self-harm and 57% increase in calls about suicide. These are children calling!

The data holds a key to why girls are such huge fans of dys and grim lit. Girls were twice as likely as boys to call ChildLine and girls outnumbered boys who self harm by 25 to one. It is not unreasonable to draw a correlation between the reading choices of our teenage girls and the torrid pressure placed upon them by television and magazines to reduce their aspirations to ones that involve getting a boyfriend and losing their virginity.

It is a conclusion with which publishers agree. ‘These books really are a massive reflection of the pressure under which teenagers feel themselves, whether to look good, do well at school or have sex,’ says Simon Spanton, deputy publisher of fantasy imprint Gollancz, reflecting a view held generally by publishers and authors.

By taking to extremes everything from reality TV to the plastic surgery boom and social media, these books offer an alternative perspective and place of safety for those unable or unwilling to conform to images promoted by the likes of Cheryl Cole or myriad sex and fashion obsessed magazines.

Kate Harrison agrees. She had fake celebrity culture and social media in her sights when she wrote Soul Beach. Twitter and Facebook are a ‘parallel dystopia’, she claims, that offer superficial friendship but the reality for many teenagers is that they are forums of fear populated by trolls and predators. ‘Online can be claustrophobic, oppressive and it’s easy to demonise people when you don’t see the consequences,’ Harrison says. ‘Yet if you choose to “escape” from the networks, you’re excluded from so much. I wanted to explore both the effects of that savagery.’

Parents may worry these books have overtly political messages, especially about climate change, but author Meg Rosoff, whose latest bestseller There Is No Dog imagines God as a typical teenage boy, believes they reflect back readers’ angst and fear of rejection.

‘I do this workshop with kids where I ask them a whole lot of psychological questions, including what animal would you be,’ the New York-born author explains. ‘Twelve to 13 year olds always answer that question with big, strong animals such as lions and tigers. But the 14 and 15 year olds want to escape or hide away. They want to be fish and swim in a vast ocean.’

Claims Rosoff, who has a 14-year-old daughter of her own, these children want to escape everything from exams and impending adulthood to that biggest bomb of all, the pressure to have sex.

Ordinary teenage angst doesn’t explain completely the surge in popularity of dys and grim lit. To an extent I regard their rise as a sign that the generation of readers created by J K Rowling’s Harry Potter are growing up. My evidence is the increasingly dark nature of the series, which pushed readers’ taste into darker corners, and the preponderance of strong heroines whose intelligence and physical prowess is uncompromised – just like Hermione Granger.

In a world where teenage girls especially are heavily pressured into becoming boy toy Rhianna bots, I find the popularity with boys and girls of kick ass females like Hunger Games’s Katniss or Blood Red Road’s Saba reassuring.

Instead what should concern parents whose children are becoming obsessive readers of grim and dys lit is what it may reveal about their secret anxieties. But don’t panic. Instead learn from 13-year-old Lily who picked up a copy of Saving Daisy, a gritty and realistic novel by Phil Earle about a young girl implicated in the death of her mother. Expecting a good story, Lily found something more important: the key to unlock a secret harboured by her best friend Emily

Like Daisy in the novel, Emily self-harmed. ‘It was only when I read Saving Daisy that I realised what was going on with Ems,’ Lily wrote to Earle. ‘We had The Conversation, and Ems told me she had been cutting herself for years.’ Talking to Lily was the first step on this young woman’s road to recovery and restoration. Says former care worker Earle: ‘It makes writing worth it.’ It also makes a dip into the books on your teenager’s bookshelf worth while in case you need a conversation of your own.

You see I’ve just read Sarah Salway’s piece for the issue of Mslexia I am editing (out in September). It’s about play and it’s importance to creativity. I asked Sarah to write the piece because I have watched Babster play over the past four years and realised it is a very serious thing for children.

More than that, I realised play is creative and the crushed feeling many of us suffer as we grind through adult life is because at sometime we stopped playing. We started to be Grown Up, censored by the disapproval of others and afraid of looking like we aren’t, well, Serious (whatever that means).

And yet, now Babster forces me to be the foil of her games – pretend pony rides, knightly adventures and mad rhyming contests – I realise how play makes me feel free. And creative.

It’s made me recall stories my eight-year-old self acted out in my imaginary persona (Samantha Fiver, the famous show jumper), hours spent drawing and painting fairy filled canvases, playing guitar and, as a three-year-old, digging into an old tea chest in which I always discovered new toys.

And iSpy The Night Sky! I spent hours scouring the heavens to tick off each constellation. And – oh how I miss them – my books of myths – King Arthur, the Midgard Serpent, Thor and Beowulf – each read and reread as if a sacred text.

But also recalled are parental comments, which circled my imagination like wolves seeking to devour pleasure and curiosity. (My father belittled my guitar playing as ‘plinky plonk’, so I gave up). I now realise how easily parents snuff out the sparks that fly from children’s minds.

I won’t give away the gems in Sarah’s piece – you’ll have to buy Mslexia for them. But tell me what games you played as a child? What do you miss? And why don’t you return to them and enjoy the delicious feeling of playing?

And DO something for me. Get a Hobby Horse and go for a ride (we’ve done this on a busy local road with Babster, so I am not asking you to do anything I wouldn’t). Fly a kite. Play Buckaroo or Hungry Hippo with adult friends. Have a go at face painting  - not necessarily on humans (Baster painted the dolly above…). And if you can’t do that, go to the park and  ride on the swings and roundabout.

You never know, you might find all that playing has serious repercussions for your writing.

Sea creatures are replacing vampires as the latest fantasy trend. Danuta Kean investigates

A wave of mermaids and selkies threatens to wash away vampires and angels in popular fiction, as young adults turn from the sky to the sea for literary escape . But forget Disney, these sea creatures swim in the wake of Helen Dunmore’s Ingo series and Liz Kessler’s Emily Windsnap. And they feature a fresh catch of writers, including Katherine Langrish and Margo Lanagan.

The appeal of the sea to writers springs from ancient roots, according to Simon Mason, acting editorial director of David Fickling Books, which has just published Lanagan’s The Brides of Rollrock Island (£12.99). It is based on Scottish selkie myths in which seals transform into women.  ‘These myths are very powerful creative ideas, so it is no surprise that authors and readers turn back to them again and again,’ he tells Mslexia. ‘I imagine they have been in and out of our consciousness since time began.’

According to Langrish, whose Forsaken (£5.99) was published by Franklin Watts, mermaids and selkies represent powerfully conflicting emotions, including sex and death. ‘In all the folklore I’ve read about mermaids, they have no souls,’ she explains. ‘Hans Andersen’s Little Mermaid will disappear like foam on the sea if she doesn’t win a soul: but when she does gain a soul, she stops being a mermaid, she turns into a spirit of the air, a sort of angelic Christian spirit. Writing about mermaids actually offers an opportunity to think about what it is to be human.’

The heady emotional mix of fear, alienation and desire, as well as repressed sexuality, female empowerment and otherness represented by Andersen’s story, explains why the genre is popular with teenage women. US-based author Carolyn Turgeon’s third novel Mermaid, published in the UK last year by Headline Review, was inspired by Andersen’s Little Mermaid.  ‘Mermaids are rich pickings because they’re so alluring and strange and multi-faceted and contradictory,’ she explains. ‘They’re gorgeous and sexy, but they live in the sea and are completely unattainable. They might even kill you.’

She adds: ‘They’re associated with death and birth and the subconscious, the depths of the ocean, parts of the world no one has ever seen. And with their bare breasts, curving bodies, fishtails and lack of genitals, they’re just as weirdly sexed as the vampire.’

Mermaids is her latest novel to be inspired by fairy stories. ‘I didn’t intend to write about mermaids,’ she recalls. The book was written after an approach from an editor at Headline asking for proposals. ‘Way down on that list was an idea for a kids book about a mermaid—kind of a random thought—and that’s the idea she bought, though as my next adult novel.’

Readers’ familiarity with original myths helps authors create dramatic tension by defying narrative expectations. A good example of this is found among the Mer in Helen Dunmore’s Ingo series, the fifth of which, Stormswept (HarperCollins Children’s Books, £12.99), was published in January. The Mer have legends about humans that are as accurate about us as our myths are about them. ‘They very much mock the idea of long haired girls with fish tails sitting on rocks,’ Dunmore says. It embodies the clash of two cultures central to the stories.

Sea myths contain another essential ingredient for novels: drama, as Margo Lanagan explains: ‘Most mermaid and selkie stories are tragic romances, in which the allure of these creatures is undeniable, but the consequences of consorting with them are unpleasant and even deadly.’ Readers’ knowledge of the dangers sea people represent stirs strong emotion: fear, hope, and foreboding. ‘Watching people foolishly fall in love with sea-creatures? That’s a story that’ll never get old,’ Lanagan adds.

It is easy to see why these stories appeal to young adults, but what about their growing audience of older readers? The answer is relationships, claims Katherine Langrish ‘For me, this legend seems to be about the difficulty of understanding one another, even in a bond as close as marriage – in a sense, one’s partner is always The Other.’ Looking deeper into the enduring appeal of these stories, she adds: ‘It speaks of the power struggle between couples – and the grief of a failed partnership – and, very strongly, I thought, about the plunge into post-natal depression.’

Landscape is important to mythological fiction. Lanagan’s Rollrock Island is a harsh backdrop to the ethereal selkie women. Zennor in Cornwall is the wild landscape for Dunmore. But Dunmore feels the landscape of the imagination is more important when planning these novels. ‘Before you begin to write you have to be immersed in the world you are trying to create,’ the author and poet advises. ‘Before I began to write these books I had a sense of the landscape, characters and their legends. The characters – Mer, human and animal – had to be extremely well determined if children were going to stick with them over five books.’

Though authors recommend David Attenborough documentaries over a sea dive to research underwater scenes, Dunmore feels that to write convincingly of the sea, one cannot be a landlubber. ‘The sea is different when you are on it,’ she says. ‘The colours and topography are very different, and when you look at the coast from water that is also quite different.’

But what ultimately carries the best of the new mermaid stories is what Katherine Langrish calls ‘emotional truth’.  David Fickling’s Simon Mason agrees: ‘What works for one author doesn’t work for another. It is for an author to discover where a story takes them and what a story demands.’ He pauses, then adds: ‘Rules don’t work, apart from one: forget Disney!’

The Reading List

Forsaken by Katherine Langrish (£5.99, Franklin Watts) Haunting story of a young mermaid’s search for her mother that twists the traditional tale into something far more satisfying and interesting for adults as well as children by the critically acclaimed author of The Troll Mill (£6.99, HarperCollin’s Children’s). Although it is a short book, it is as intense as it is brief and resonates with more mundane human relationships.

The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan (£12.99, David Fickling Books) A sea witch transforms seals into selkies, ethereal beauties, taken by local fishermen who dump their less attractive wives. But who is the enchanted? The selkie women or the fishermen who have claimed them as their sea brides? Stunning prose delivers a story with depth and poignancy that should turn it into a classic of feminist fiction.

The Ingo Chronicles: Stormswept by Helen Dunmore (£12.99, HarperCollins Children’s Books) Fifth in Dunmore’s Ingo series. Two sisters rescue a Mer boy, but as one tries to return him to his people, the worlds of mer and men collide. Dunmore’s breath-taking prose throughout the series has created a world at once alien and familiar in which readers are able to explore issues of alienation, conflict and integration through a narrative that engages and compels.

Mermaid by Carolyn Turgeon (£7.99, Headline Review) The Little Mermaid is transformed into the story of two women and their love for one man after a human princess witnesses the rescue of a prince by a mermaid. The narrative shifts between the two women’s viewpoints. As with her previous book, Godmother: The Sectret Cinderella Story (£7.99, Headline Review), Turgeon plays with a well-loved original bringing to it fresh zest and modern emotional resonance.

The Folk Keeper by Franny Billingsley (£5.99, Bloomsbury) Award-winning US children’s book that uses the selkie myth to create a wonderfully creepy story. Retold through a diary, it tells of orphan Corinna Stonewall who has been appointed the Folk Keeper. She is responsible for looking after ‘the folk’, spiteful creatures who spoil milk, create havoc and even devour parts of their keeper. But Corinna is not all she seems either…