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 WELCOME
CONTENTS
ON THE COVER 46 Masterclass: In dreams Using
4 Writing competitions: The way to different perceptions and points of 16
win – Part one Advice on making your view in your fiction
entries stand out for the right reasons 48 Writing for children: The rules of
8 Technology for writers: Robots write on magic Create the logic that will ensure
The impact of AI for writers magic enchants young readers Welcome to the final issue of Tina Jackson
Content Editor
12 Creative writing: Writing festive fiction 50 Fantastic realms: New year, new 2023! We hope you’ve had a
How to write a winter wonderland that approach Think about experimenting wonderful writing year, and our Christmas wish for
readers will fall in love with with your storytelling in 2024 you is that 2024 will bring you nearer to achieving
14 Creative writing: The rhythm of writing everything you wish for yourself as a writer. We’ll
What does the act of writing mean, COMMUNITY AND COMPETITIONS be there to help, advise and inspire your writing in
and why do we do it? 27 Novel ideas every way we can, and we’re looking forward to the
16 Star interview: Notably normal 30 Get the write idea Exercises about first issue of 2024, which will include the brand
Philippa Gregory talks about changing small things that make a difference new Writers’ Handbook and Competition Guide 2024.
the narrative on women’s history 32 Readers’ letters/The world of writing It will help you plan writing competition entries,
20 Creative writing: Reframing relatable 34 In the spotlight: Subscribers’ creative courses, festivals and more (subscribe to Writing
romance Writing romance from a writing Magazine by 11 December and guarantee your copy,
queer perspective 36 Subscribers’ news: WM writers’ see page 7 for our latest offer).
38 Free-range writing: Writer’s advent success stories With this in mind, in this month’s magazine we’re
calendar Themed festive writing 72 Open short story winners: Journey launching the first of a two-parter on how to win
exercises 74 Subscriber-only short story winners: writing competitions, packed with tips from a very
Machine experienced judge, Esther Chilton, on how to make
INTERVIEWS AND PROFILES 76 Competition launches your entries stand out for all the right reasons. Don’t
26 My path to publication: Tracy Fells The 78 Under the covers: Time for a palate- miss it, and the chance to get ahead of the game
debut author only got into print when cleanse? Gillian Harvey wonders if with your comp entries!
she made space for herself writing in a new genre would refresh This month we’re also taking a deep dive into one
28 Shelf life: Sarra Manning The journalist her creativity of the year’s biggest gamechangers for creatives – the
turned author of romcoms and YA impact of AI on writing. There’s also a wonderful,
novels picks five books INSIDE THE INDUSTRY thoughtful piece on the importance of the act
41 My writing day: Femi Kayode 54 The business of writing: The relaxed of writing, an interview with the great Philippa
The crime author and screenwriter writer The art of being a relaxed writer Gregory on reframing women’s history, joyful articles
52 Author profile: Daniel Hurst The 56 Research tips: Case study method on writing queer and Christmas romances and an
psychological thriller writer How to do in-depth research on cases advent calendar of festive writing prompts to keep
within a specific context your writer’s brain ticking over until your next issue
CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOPS 57 Behind the tape: Expert advice to get of WM!
22 Creative writing building blocks: the details right in your crime writing Merry Christmas, happy writing, and we’ll look
Beyond convention The relationship 58 Ask a literary consultant: How long forward to seeing you in 2024!
between creativity and the expectations should my novel be? Answers to a
Never miss an
WRITING
THE GIFT OF
GIVE YOURSELF

of readers and publishers common question that doesn’t have a

BESTSELLING
MAGAZINE
WRITING

24 Under the microscope The opening of simple answer WINNING

issue of Writing
WIN
£60,064

WORDS
IN WRITING
PRIZES

writing
How to win

a reader’s writing critiqued 59 Get published You’ve read the

s
competition
RECLAIMING
WOMEN’S
Festive fiction HISTORY

Magazine
on
Top tips for sparkling Philippa Gregory
Women
seasonal stories writing Normal
calendar
Creative advent

40 Writers’ circles: Myths and legends Use advice, now get into print! Up-to-
for writers
WRITING FOR CHILDREN

ROBOT
The rules
WRITING
of magic
and what the
AI for writers How to create

folk myths and local legends to inspire date submissions calls, publishing
it means for you logic that makes
magic work

Queer romance
writing
The rhythm of

new writing opportunities and writing competitions

SUBSCRIBE NOW see p7
42 Poetry workshop: The poetry of music 65 Going to market
The content expresses its subject in a 69 Travel writing know-how GET THE WM DIGITAL EDITION
musical poem 71 From the other side of the desk: Direct to your device
44 Fiction focus: Family values Alien invasion Measures to protect ORDER A COPY DIRECT, with free postage
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JANUARY 2024 3
 TO
WIN PART ONE
Winning a writing
competition is a standout
achievement for any
writer – and it can be
a springboard to other
success. So how can you
improve your chances
of a win? In the first of a
two-part series, Esther
Chilton offers advice on
making your entries stand
out for all the right reasons

T
here’s something special win. It’s something to put at the top published and your name alongside it
about short story of your writing CV and it can lead to gives you such a buzz.
competitions. They’re other work. It was winning a Writing But how do you ensure your entry
great fun to enter and if Magazine competition that first gave makes the shortlist? What will the
you’re named as a prize me faith in my writing ability and the judge be looking for? As well as
winner, there’s no feeling quite like it. confidence to send my work out. winning competitions, I have also had
Many competitions have cash prizes The majority of competitions also the pleasure of being a short story
and, of course, there’s the prestige publish the winning entries in one judge, so over this two-part series
that’s associated with a competition form or another. Seeing your story I’m going to give you an insight into

4 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 WRITING COMPETITIONS

what’s required to elevate an entry onto pass on, or where it’s revealed at the of the piece that ends up turning to the
the shortlist and beyond. end that it’s the other way round. So dark side and the villain who turns out
Short story competitions can attract I know what’s coming. Why not have to be the ‘good guy’.
hundreds of entries, so a judge has a a ghost who’s not very good at being Does the owner of the viewpoint have
lot of stories to read. For yours to stand scary? Perhaps they’re the one who is to be living in the true sense of the
out from all the others, it has to make frightened. Or the ghost could be that word? What about an object? I’ve read
them sit up and take notice. of a famous person from history. Who a story where the POV character was
would they choose to haunt and why? a musical instrument and in another,
Think outside the box Does the ghost have to be a person? they were a throne. Both were so well-
As Mark Twain said, ‘There is no such Could an object be doing the haunting? drawn, I believed in them as characters.
thing as a new idea.’ Building on this, Taking a subject and turning it on its Jot down anything that comes to
many an author has argued that all head is not only great fun to write, but mind and have a play around with your
stories have been done before. And yet it may well catch the judge’s eye. POV character.
a competition judge wants something When you’re brainstorming an idea
original, so how does that work? for your short story, especially if you’re Give us a laugh
Chances are, whatever competition writing it from a prompt, say one of the As a short story judge, I read many
you enter, the judge will have seen Writing Magazine competitions, don’t powerful, moving, heartrending stories,
it all before. For example, romance, take the first few ideas on your list. some of which have brought me to
where a couple run off into the sunset Those first few are likely to be similar to tears. Many I read, though, are full of
together; school stories, with a bully ideas other writers have come up with. misery and woe. They’re often well-
getting their comeuppance; dystopian Dig deeper and let your imagination go, written, but if I’m reading entry after
worlds featuring a hero/heroine who and see where it takes you. entry in this vein, it can drag me down.
saves humanity; twist endings, where So when I come across one which
the main protagonist turns out to be Unusual viewpoint makes me smile or has a lighter side, it
a ghost or a cat/dog; tales of writers An entry featuring an unexpected comes as a welcome relief. It means the
who have lost their muse only to find viewpoint always captures the judge’s entry immediately stands out.
it by the finish and crime stories where attention. Most stories are told from a Nonetheless, be careful of forcing the
the villain is caught by the end, or gets first-person or third-person viewpoint. humour; it must feel natural and be
away scot-free. But what about the second-person? relevant to the story. It’s easy to find
Yes, some of these are clichéd, but This viewpoint isn’t easy to write, but it yourself adding exclamation marks to
that doesn’t mean they can’t make can make for an exceptionally powerful the funny bits. The odd one is fine,
entertaining stories worthy of doing well story. It makes the reader feel as if they but too many and they detract from
in a competition. Let’s take the genre of are being addressed personally. For the writing and will, in fact, lessen the
a fairy tale and the well-known one of example: You know you shouldn’t take it, impact of the humour.
Little Red Riding Hood. Lots of versions but you can’t help it. Just one more. Then
have been told over the years, but could you’ll stop. Honest. You almost believe Read previous winning entries
you could make it your own? Little Red yourself. Do this for an entire story, and Whenever you’re entering a
Riding Hood doesn’t have to be a little the judge can’t help but be completely competition, if you have the
girl. She could be older, or a boy, for absorbed in the tale. opportunity to read stories which
example. The wolf doesn’t have to be Stories seen through the eyes of a have won before, do. It gives you an
an animal, but could be a person. The child can be particularly effective. insight into what the judge is looking
grandmother can be another member How about a little girl coping with for. When I first started competition
of the family. Or someone else entirely. her mother’s mental breakdown? This writing, I targeted those held by
We may not recognise the link to the tugs at the heart-strings straight away. Writing Magazine. My stories didn’t
fairy tale to start with, but you can lay Perhaps the girl helps her mother come come anywhere, but I kept reading
out clues for your reader as the story through it. Another narrator could be the winning entries to get a feel for
unfolds. You could change its genre to a young teenager battling to cope with the subject matter, style, language, etc,
anything – from romance to sci-fi. their sexuality and be accepted. that was clearly required if mine was
As a judge, I always look forward to A tale from the villain’s side of things to stand any chance of doing well.
seeing how a writer has handled a story will give it a different spin. Giving us Obviously, I couldn’t write something
and how they have given me something an insight into their behaviour and the same, but it really helped me to get
different. Let’s look at another example, motivations as we move through the a feel for what makes a prize-winning
this time in the ghost genre. I’ve read story might make us understand and tale. It also made me a much better
hundreds of spooky stories where empathise with them. They may be writer, and I started to find myself
the protagonist realises they’re being evil at the start, but they could have appearing on the shortlist and then
haunted and has to help the ghost changed by the end. Maybe it’s the hero winning a few of the competitions.

[Link] JANUARY 2024 5

Check the rules already appeared in a magazine, or The impact of dialogue on your story
Before you start writing, always read competition anthology, your story will will also be covered and the role tension
the rules. It can seem a pain as some be disqualified. and obstacles play. Even if your tale
competitions have a great long list of As well as taking care to read the rules dazzles all the way through, the ending
do’s and don’ts. But they all need to be before you start writing, take another can bring everything crashing down
adhered to. Otherwise, you can find look before you send your work off. so it’s vital you get it right. And do
yourself disqualified straight away, just You may think you’ve remembered the mistakes matter? Will the judge mind if
because you’ve missed something small rules, but it’s often the case that days your dialogue or punctuation isn’t quite
in the rules. or weeks have passed since you began right, or you’ve missed a few words out?
One of the competitions I used to your story and when you finished it. It’s something we’ll explore further.
judge was for stories between 1,000 – So it’s easy to miss something in your
3,000 words. Yet, I would often receive eagerness to enter the competition.
entries for under 1,000 words, while
others came in at over 3,000 words,
sometimes by a long way. Sadly, they
Nothing compares with the thrill of
winning your first competition. Your
WHERE TO START
had to be disqualified without even entry has stood out amongst possibly
being read. hundreds of others. The judge picked If you haven’t entered a writing
Other rules might relate to how your story. Hopefully these tips will competition before, think about
your work should be set out, or that help you on your way to win. starting small and building up.
an entry must be the unpublished In part two, we’ll take a look at how You’ll find competitions with a
work of the writer. In the case of the important it is to get the opening spot variety of prizes, ranging from £10
latter, if it’s discovered your entry has on, and to create credible characters. cash for the top spot or a book
token, to an eye-catching first
prize of £1,000. The bigger the
prize money, the more entrants
there are likely to be and you will
be up against stiff competition.
Some only offer publication of your
story if you win. But a win is a win,
whatever the competition.

6 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 ‘TREAT YOURSELF OR A
FRIEND THIS CHRISTMAS’

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 ROBOTS WRITE ON
ChatGPT and AI have created worrying issues for writers throughout 2023.
Gary Dalkin considers the impact of AI and looks at potential future
developments and how they could effect the world of writing.
very day we hear that AI is causing a and what companies large and small can get away
revolution in some aspect of writing or with all converge in surprising and chaotic ways.
publishing. Here is just a small selection Take Prosecraft, which probably closed down
of recent headlines: ‘Zadie Smith, before you knew it existed. Prosecraft was a website
Stephen King and Rachel Cusk’s pirated run by an American writer and entrepreneur called
works used to train AI’ (Guardian); ‘The author Benji Smith. He said that his site was, ‘dedicated
embracing AI to help write novels – and why he’s to the linguistic analysis of literature, including
not worried about it taking his job’ (Sky News); more than 25,000 books by thousands of different
‘Fiction Analytics Site Prosecraft Shut Down After authors.’ When, following a backlash in August,
Backlash’ (Gizmodo)… Smith took Prosecraft offline, he wrote a blog post
What’s clear is that AI is moving so rapidly that explaining that he originally created the site to help
you would have to read several articles about it every himself work out how many words there typically
day to keep up. The problem is twofold – what is are in different genres of fiction. From there he
happening, and what might be about to happen moved on to analysing novels to produce statistical
– the latter because this is a technology as much breakdowns of thousands of titles. He gave the
speculated about as it is understood — and that is example of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which
even by experts working in the field. apparently has 26,814 words, a ‘vividness’ score of
83.93% and uses passive voice 8.08% of the time
Unknown quantities — by Prosecraft’s metrics. The problem was, Smith
The truth is that no one knows how AI might had not only used long out of copyright classics like
change not just writing and publishing, but the Alice, but also thousands of very much in copyright
world, both because we don’t know just what the works by living authors. Smith argued his use of
technology might be capable of – it is developing the texts was protected under the principle of ‘fair
exponentially and people are constantly finding use’ and said he never made any money out of
innovative new things to do with it – and what its Prosecraft, arguing that he was a victim caught-up
limitations might be. in the writing world’s backlash against AI.
Equally, we don’t know the extent to which Smith’s case may be an innocent example of
individuals and societies will accept AI into their a relatively small-scale operation to provide
lives, or how they might push back to limit its algorithmically derived statistics about books by
impact. And with everything changing so rapidly feeding authors’ work into a computer, but it is
the result is a new frontier, one where what is just a matter of degree from there to training even
technologically possible, what the law says is legal, more powerful computers not just to produce data

8 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 T E C H N O L O GY F O R W R I T E R S

about already existing books, but to use those books as the but other digital texts, including such diverse material as
raw material to train artificial intelligences to write. documents from the European Parliament and Wikipedia
to subtitles scraped from YouTube videos. Analysing
Copy, paste, pirate The Pile, Reisner found over 30,000 books published by
Which brings us to the likes of ChatGPT and its various Penguin Random House, 14,000 from HarperCollins,
rivals. The problem with all of these systems, from Google’s and 7,000 from Macmillan. There were seven novels by
Bard to less well-known products such as Sudowrite Jonathan Frazen, 33 by Margaret Atwood, and 102 by L.
and Writesonic (which are almost all based on GPT, the Ron Hubbard (the founder of Scientology and a prolific
technology underlying ChatGPT) is that plagiarism is pulp writer). Reisner wasn’t able to learn what Books1
baked into the business model. Which is to say that these contains, but suspects it is the Project Gutenberg database
AIs couldn’t do what they do without being trained on vast of around 70,000 out-of-copyright books, while Books2 is
quantities of books by professional writers, their work being thought to consist of pirated digital libraries going by such
taken and scanned and analysed without their knowledge names as Bibliotik, Library Genesis and Z-Library, which,
or consent to develop new technology the very purpose if you know where to look, are available to download using
of which is to replace writers. In other words, the work BitTorrent.
of countless writers is being taken without their consent
in order to develop technology which is a direct rival to
human authors.
Writing in the Atlantic, Alex Reisner reported that he “They will never stop me from
had been able to obtain a copy of a dataset used by Meta
to train LLaMA (an AI). This dataset contained over writing. I will continue to
170,000 pirated books, ‘the majority published in the
last 20 years’. The dataset was known as Books3, and has
generate stupid, silly stories,
also been used to train Bloomberg’s BloombergGPT and even after technology has
EleutherAI’s GPT-J. This vast trove contains digital texts
by authors including Sarah Silverman, Richard Kadrey, made me completely obsolete.
Christopher Golden, Michael Pollan, Rebecca Solnit, Jon
Krakauer, James Patterson, Stephen King, George Saunders,
If there’s one edge I have over
Zadie Smith and thousands more. All taken without their AI, it’s this irrationality, this
knowledge or permission.
Books3, Reisner discovered, is part of an even larger need to create something that
dataset known as The Pile, which contains not just books, has no right or reason to exist.
I know it makes no sense. I’m
starting to think it might also
be what makes me human.”

[Link] JANUARY 2024 9

 Will writers become obsolete? and grammatic danger. I personally can’t wait for
Until recently authors just had to worry about a non-AI literary resurgence, where writers will
their books being pirated, though someone embrace techniques, like cut-up, to forge ambiguous
illegally downloading an ebook didn’t necessarily juxtapositions that AI struggles to decipher – a true
mean a lost sale. Most people who pirate ebooks punk-like pushback against the AI norm.’
wouldn’t buy a legitimate edition if they couldn’t And here is a key point. However good AI
get the book for free. Using pirated books to train becomes at synthesising text that gives the sense of
machines to potentially replace writers is a whole being crafted by a human being, people will always
order of magnitude more concerning. want to read writing that reflects – and therefore
Simon Rich is an American screenwriter who has valuable insight into – true human experience.
recently co-edited the book I Am Code: An Artificial No matter how good at faking it, a computer does
Intelligence Speaks, by the AI code-davinci-002. not have the experience of what it is to be human,
Rich also wrote an article for Time and the title and by definition it never can. It seems inevitable
alone – ‘I’m a Screenwriter. These AI Jokes Give that AI will take over the function of writing, for
Me Nightmares’ – should be enough to give you example, routine corporate prose. As Rich says, ‘It’s
nightmares. In this article he observed that while a great corporate tool and it would make a terrible
the limitations of AIs like ChatGPT are well staff writer.’ But equally, writers will resist, as we
known, there are other AIs which are much more have seen happen with the WGA (Writers Guild of
advanced. He wrote that what people don’t realise America) strike in the USA. Indeed, it is likely that
is that ChatGPT ‘sucks on purpose. OpenAI spent human written works will carry a logo to vouch for
a ton of time and money training ChatGPT to be their organic authenticity. Several such schemes are
as predictable, conformist, and non-threatening as already in development. And as Rich concludes: ‘…
possible.’ they will never stop me from writing. I will continue
Which is intriguing, because when I spoke to generate stupid, silly stories, even after technology
to Rachel Armstrong, Professor of Regenerative has made me completely obsolete. If there’s one edge
Architecture, KU Leuven, as well as the author of the I have over AI, it’s this irrationality, this need to
science fiction novels Invisible Ecologies, Origamy and create something that has no right or reason to exist.
Soul Chasers, she offered the opinion that: ‘Writing I know it makes no sense. I’m starting to think it
alongside AI will become as commonplace as using might also be what makes me human.’
spell-check today. Most times it will enhance the
natural flow of our writing, but occasionally, its Problems... and solutions
quirks will frustrate us, and we’ll find ways to disable And yet… there are reasons for optimism. While
it. We’ll regard AI as a writing companion and subscribers can now get access to a more naturalistic
sometimes wonder what it’s thinking, but we will AI text system, ChatGPT4, and websites like How
largely be blind to its biases, just as we are to our To Geek advise on how to get AI to produce ‘more
own, as it will be trained and shaped by us.’ humanized text’, Professor Gary Marcus, co-founder
Rich goes on to note that thanks to a friend at of the Center for the Advancement of Trustworthy
OpenAI (the Microsoft-backed company which AI, recently wrote that generative AI has, ‘many
develops GPT), he has been able to use another AI serious, unsolved problems’, and that it ‘probably
called code-davinci-002 which predates ChatGPT isn’t going to have the impact people seem to be
but which is far superior and can even produce expecting’. He suggested that it could be a mistake
jokes which are funny. He gives these examples of to think that ‘generative AI will be world-changing’.
fake, Onion-style headlines: ‘Experts Warn that War Drawing comparisons with past technologies that
in Ukraine Could Become Even More Boring’ and have failed to live up to their promise (or hype),
‘Budget of New Batman Movie Swells to $200M as for example, airships, he writes, ‘Fast-scaling
Director Insists on Using Real Batman.’ Admit it – technologies don’t invariably fulfil their promise’ and
at least one of those made you laugh. Rich concludes that ‘the whole generative AI field, at least at current
that, based on what he has seen at Open AI, ‘I think valuations, could come to a fairly swift end’.
it’s only a matter of time before AI will be able to And then there is another aspect to consider.
beat any writer in a blind creative taste test. I’d peg it What happens is not just a matter of what is
at about five years.’ technologically possible, but on what we, as societies,
Back to Professor Armstrong: ‘From a reader’s decide to accept. Technology is one half of an
standpoint, AI-assisted writing will exude a sense equation with the law sitting on the opposite side
of mildness and predictability and we’ll long for of the scales. So, for example, in June the Guardian
something dirtier, grittier with far more semantic ran a story headlined: ‘Two US lawyers fined for

10 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 T E C H N O L O GY F O R W R I T E R S

submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT.’ That section headed ‘Generative AI data subject rights’ which
though, was down to the lawyers’ ignorance in thinking introduces an option ‘to delete any personal information
that ChatGPT could be trusted. As I wrote for Writing from third parties used for generative AI’.
Magazine back in the April issue, AI systems are prone to In September, in an effort to combat a torrent of
‘hallucinating’, or to put it in plain English, making stuff up AI-generated books, Amazon limited users from uploading
– one of the potentially unsolvable problems Gary Marcus more than three titles a day using its KDP (Kindle Direct
alludes to. Publishing) publishing system. It must be noted that not
More seriously, writers (and other creatives) are starting all publishing applications of AI are bad – in September, in
to bring legal suits around the world for their work being collaboration with Microsoft and MIT, Project Gutenberg
used to train AI systems without their consent. But most made 5,000 out-of-copyright books available as audiobooks
significantly of all, 18 August may come to be seen as a ‘read’ by synthetic speech and using AI.
turning point. On that date in the US, a federal judge More recently WGA won its battle with the Hollywood
upheld a finding from the U.S. Copyright Office that art Studios over the use of AI to write or provide source
created by AI is not open to protection, that copyright only material for screenplays, and The Atlantic continued their
applies to work created by human beings. The obvious investigation into which books were being used to train AI
significance is that if something can’t be copyright then programmes, including creating a search engine to search
anyone else can legally reproduce it, and what publisher the Books3 database. You can find this at full-stack-search-
will invest time, money and effort in a book knowing [Link]. Enter your name to see if your work has
anyone else can legally have a version for sale online within been misappropriated. In a few minutes I found one book
hours of publication? I edited and many more by authors whose work I have
At the moment the above judgement only applies in edited. Finally, the Author’s Guild launched a class action
the US – and doubtless will be challenged – but if the suit against Open A.I. on behalf of 17 writers including John
US decides that AI works have no legal protection then Grisham, Jodi Picoult, David Baldacci, George R.R. Martin
effectively that will apply worldwide, certainly throughout and Jonathan Franzen over its use of their work to train GPT
the English-speaking world. The US is by far the biggest 3.5 and 4. Lines are being drawn, with these most recent
market for English-language works, and no British or developments indicating that positive change is coming,
Australian or Canadian publisher is going to bother with a and that while the outcomes are far from certain, works
book which anyone can freely republish in the United States. created by human beings will continue to be valued over
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell found that: ‘Human AI-generated ‘content’.
authorship is a bedrock requirement’ for copyright. That
US copyright law ‘protects only works of human creation’
and that: ‘In the absence of any human involvement in the
creation of the work, the clear and straightforward answer
is the one given by the Register: No.’ There is nothing
ambivalent about this. The law of the United States has
FURTHER READING
realised the vital importance of the human element in
creative work and has come down firmly on the side of • Benji Smith, ‘Taking Down [Link]’: [Link]
protecting it. rs/takingdownprosecraft

Progress marches on • Alex Reisner, ‘Revealed: The Authors Whose Pirated

Nevertheless, change continues apace. ChatGPT is now Books Are Powering Generative AI’: [Link]
available as an Android app and has been integrated into reisnerrevealed
Microsoft’s Bing search engine. It has also been updated
with voice functions and giving it the ability to ‘see’. • Simon Rich, ‘I’m a Screenwriter. These AI Jokes Give
Amusingly, when you sign into the Android app the Me Nightmares’: [Link]
first screen you see warns: ‘ChatGPT can be inaccurate:
ChatGPT may provide inaccurate information about • Gary Marcus, ‘What If Generative A.I. Turned Out to be
people, places or facts’. In the wake of ‘alternative facts’, a Dud?’: [Link]
‘inaccurate information’ is the new information.
Meanwhile the EU has passed The Digital Services Act, • Facebook Generative AI data subject rights page:
imposing much stricter regulation on major technology [Link]
companies, which they define as any platform with more
than 45 million users. The new law regulates, among other • How to Geek, ‘How to Humanize ChatGPT Text:
things, how big companies use the data they have access to. [Link]/how-to-humanize-chatgpt-text/
In response Facebook recently added a page to their help

[Link] JANUARY 2024 11

 l t h e f e e l s
Al
WRITING
FESTIVE
FICTION Christmas romances are perenially
popular with readers – so how do you
write a winter wonderland that readers
will fall in love with? Author
Jenny Bayliss offers her top tips.

ver the last few years, the market for understanding your readership and
festive romance novels has grown the market in any category, and
exponentially. This isn’t really a festive romance is no different.
surprise, when the world feels like it’s
going to hell in a handbasket it’s small Take your pick
wonder that we reach for something comforting. If you have been labouring under the misconception
that all festive romances are the same, think again;
Bringing the festive feels the subgenres in this field are many and varied.
Holiday romance requires the same ingredients as There’s the Hallmark Movie style, low on peril,
any other kind of fiction; an engaging plot line and big on joy and baking. Or the increasingly popular
strong characters that your reader can relate to and ‘spicy’ festive romances that offer all the sparkle
root for. But with a festive romance you will also be of the above but with sexy scenes which bring
required to bring your holiday twinkle and sprinkle more heat to your cheeks than the merry fire in
it liberally. The aesthetics and ambience of the your hearth. There’s the ‘just happens to be set at
season should almost become their own character. Christmas’ romance, the ‘none of this would have
In the same way that if you were writing for happened without Christmas’ romance, the urban-
Halloween you’d likely throw in some cobwebs and contemporary, the historical bodice ripper, or the
dark shadows to build the atmosphere, with a festive witty fast paced romcom; the world is your bauble
novel you are creating a feeling of comfort and in terms of choice.
hopefulness. Engage your senses, taste the mulled
wine, smell the cinnamon, feel the soft weave of the Festive romance for all!
blanket, and hear the crackle of the fire. It doesn’t Don’t change your writing style to fit someone else’s
have to be twee, but it needs to create a mood that idea of what a festive romance should be, it won’t
places your reader firmly in the festive zone. feel authentic, and your readers will know. Take the
genre and make it your own. If you are a writer who
Do your homework adores the season to be jolly but have found yourself
You can’t write it until you read it. Wide reading in hitherto underrepresented in holiday romance, now
the genre that you intend to write for is crucial for is your time to shine. We are beginning to see more

12 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 WRITING FESTIVE FICTION

representation and inclusivity within this space but

there is still a long way to go until everyone can see
themselves in books.
It isn’t only Christmas which can deliver on those
festive feels we crave. Hannukah romances such as The
Matzah Ball by Jean Meltzer provide holiday vibes
aplenty, and secular romances celebrating the season of
winter itself bring their own brand of whimsical magic.
So long as you imbue your writing with a sense of
warmth and goodwill to all, your conviviality will shine
through whatever the name of the holiday.

The holiday rules

A satisfying, happy ending is a must. Your festive
romance reader arrives with certain expectations
and if everybody dies horribly at the end of your
book then you’ve basically ruined Christmas. It
doesn’t have to be all snowflakes and candy canes,
but generally a reader chooses a festive romance to
enhance their holiday joy, so don’t be a party pooper.
That said, don’t be afraid to tackle difficult subjects
within the book, problems don’t cease simply
because the fairy lights are turned on, but be sure to
provide a good resolution.
In any story, your protagonist must go on a personal
journey and emerge transformed and this is especially
important in a festive romance. Think of it as the
Scrooge effect, at the end of the book your heroine
must be changed for the better.

Mix it up
Festive romance need not be prescriptive. Thanks
largely to Charles Dickens, a little suspension of
reality is perfectly acceptable in a holiday romance;
ghosts, time travel, magic bookshops and bakeries,
and life swaps are all fair game for the festive writer.
Take advantage of this liberality to exaggerate
and have fun with classic tropes such as enemies to
lovers, fake dating, or grinch vs wassailer.
However, keep your protagonist’s flaws firmly
grounded in the real world. They might well have
a holiday home in Santa’s Village but that doesn’t
mean they aren’t commitment-phobes or struggling
to let go of an old heartbreak, it’s your character’s
human imperfections which will make them
relatable to your reader.
Above all, let yourself be swept up in the
possibilities that festive romance offers, stamp it
with your own style and write the kind of book
that you would like to read.

A December to Remember by Jenny Bayliss is

published in paperback by Pan, £8.99. Also
available in ebook and audio.

[Link] JANUARY 2024 13

 THE
RHYTHM

© Matt Wilson
What does the act of writing mean,
what is its importance, and why do

OF WRITING we do it? Its rhythms shape us, says

award-winning author and essayist,
editor and professor of European
literature Ben Hutchinson

e live entirely […] by the imposition convincing ourselves of their tautness and tension for fear
of a narrative line upon disparate that they will go slack and let us fall. Life, too, is like this
images’. Joan Didion, as ever, has rope trick, as we scramble to hold on to our fragile sense of
a point. Our moods, our identity purpose. Intuition is as important as cognition, perhaps more
and self-esteem, all depend on our so; T.S. Eliot’s claim that we feel poetry before we understand
constantly shifting responses to external stimuli, to the many it might sound like so much mysticism, but it comes down to
micro-aggressions of the everyday. The news can make me feel this ear for rhythm. Rhythm is the body language of language,
sad or exhilarated, friends can make me feel empowered or and we are always reading it.
emasculated. It depends on how I read them. It depends on My top tip, then, for any writer of any sort, is to find
my narrative line. your rhythm. Partly this is a matter of that staple of creative
Yet what Didion actually writes – my coy ellipsis gives writing courses, ‘voice’: what makes you sound like you (and
the game away – is that we live entirely, especially if we are no one else)? But voice is also a matter of lexis and diction, of
writers, by the imposition of a narrative line. Prisoners of our grammar and mood, whereas rhythm is really about the sound
perspectives, we are the editors of existence, giving rhythm of your sentences – and thus about the relationship between
and cadence, rise and fall, to the parameters of our life their form and their content. How does your writing embody
sentence. Perhaps we just need to think about life as though what it is saying?
we were writing it. Any writing worth its talk reflects on this question.
Can we also think about writing as though we were living Copywriting and advertising do it all the time, indeed it
it? What does it mean to give existential importance to the act is their secret: ‘every little helps’. Punchy words convey
of writing, not just to its product? All writers have to answer punchy sentiment; memorable phrases stick in the memory.
this in their own way, but for me it comes down to rhythm – Insinuating meaning is better, in many ways, than insisting on
to finding the rhythm of a text, as of life, and moving with it. it. To adapt the oldest cliché of all: show, don’t yell.
The best way of not falling off a bucking bronco (I assume) is Rhythm can also be a matter of surprise, the switch and
to buck with it. bait of expectation. I’ve done it here a couple of times already:
Perhaps this sense of rhythm comes from my earliest interest the reader anticipates a proverb or saying, only to be pulled
in poetry. Momentum dictates meaning: one syllable solicits in a different direction. The mind is undermined. That this is
another, one sentence succeeds another in an ever-increasing more than merely playful points to an issue at the heart of the
string of meaning. Writing is like a conjuring act, a rope dialogue between reader and writer. Who is in charge?
trick with language: we climb up the words as we type them, We all want to feel, when we begin reading something,

14 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 C R E AT I V E W R I T I N G

that we are in safe hands. That dawning sense of relief as a love letter, among the darkest ever written, to the power
we read the first few paragraphs – that this will be worth of literature. Reading and writing are professions of faith in
our time, that we won’t be wasting our energy on lazy or the possibility of purpose: why else do we turn to books if
incoherent writing – is always welcome (and all too rare, not to broaden our sense of the capacities of life? In their
at least as a university professor). But we also want to be in very existence, in the very energy involved in writing them,
surprising hands: we want to be taken somewhere new, given all writing is life-affirming, even that that would seek to
renewed meaning. Trust, in other words – in precisely these deny or denigrate life, to banish us into forests far from
words – is the currency of literature. anyone. The most nihilistic of works is still a creative act,
Its exchange rate fluctuates with our flow. Another word powered by purpose.
for rhythm is pace, and the best writers know how to vary Writing – drafting, reading, deleting and redrafting –
it. We can identify pace at three main levels: the sentence, transcends the prison of the present. It places us, and paces us,
the paragraph, and the book as a whole. Get them right, and not just in time, but out of time. Writing consists of words,
everything else follows. and words construct meaning. Beyond their utilitarian value,
The sentence, first, knows many variants, from staccato beyond even their relationship to each other, words are worlds
Hemingway to stylish Proust. The syntax depends on the in miniature, windows onto our common past, our contested
sentiment. Do you want to be brusque and straightforward? present, our uncertain future. With sufficient scrutiny, even
Or baroque and serpentine, provisional and self-questioning, random adjectives – luminous, sheepish, incandescent – can
circling back on your own memories with an army of become one-word poems, flush with their own agenda. Repeat
adjectives? If the standard editorial advice veers to the former them often enough and they begin to resonate; hold them up
– don’t use the passive voice, simplify the syntax – the best to the light and they begin to shine. Their sound, their shape,
writers know how to vary the pace, mixing shorter sentences their un/stressed syllables: whole histories of meaning shimmer
with longer clauses, dosing full stops with semi-colons. In the through them, through etymologies both physical and
words of Samuel Beckett: every truth has its stopcock. metaphysical. Words, to paraphrase Milton’s iconic oxymoron,
This is especially true at the level of paragraphs. Pedestrian make absence visible. They conjure up something that isn’t
prose merely accumulates, placing one flat sentence in front there, they whisper sweet somethings into our avid ears.
of another like a cartoon train laying its tracks as it goes. Or Reading and writing teach us to be attentive to this absent
it mixes metaphors awkwardly, like this shift from walking presence, to the rhythm of our lives.
on foot to travelling in a train. Propulsive prose, on the We can all learn to be more attentive to this rhythm, in
other hand, generates its own momentum, moving with the our literature if not in our lives. Listening to our writing is as
meaning. My own tendency, I notice, is to begin with a punch important as reading it; prose does not have to be purple to
and conclude with a pinch – to return, after stretching my legs be poetic. The reason I value the act of writing more than its
through a succession of longer sentences, to something shorter outcome – which amounts, in the end, to the ‘death mask of
and pithy. Every good paragraph needs closure. its conception’, in the words of Walter Benjamin – is that it
Scaled up to a book (or story) as a whole, pacing is what gives me direction and meaning, pacing out my purpose as I
retains the reader’s attention. This can be at the level of plot type. This is also why – second top tip! – I am always writing
– we all want to know who did it – or argument, content something, however modest, since I am always seeking some
or form. For anything longer than a few pages, variations form of meaning, however meagre. Who isn’t?
in intensity are both inevitable and indispensable, which is
why long poems are notoriously difficult to sustain. Having Ten Lessons on the Meaning of Life by Ben Hutchinson is
buttonholed the reader and piqued their interest, we are published by 4th Estate (£12.99)
well advised to let them breathe for a bit, to give them some
reading space. No one wants to be talked at all the time.
None of this, of course, addresses the point of writing in the
first place. I can’t really help you there – we all have to answer
this for ourselves – but my own justification is something close
to that of Kafka (substituting writing for reading): ‘I think
we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab
us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow
on the head, what are we reading it for? […] We need the
books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like
the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being
banished into forests far from anyone, like a suicide. A book
must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.’
A recipe for easy reading this is not. What it is, though, is

[Link] JANUARY 2024 15

 Philippa Gregory’s latest book is a passion project that turns women’s history on its
head. She talks to Tina Jackson about Normal Women, writer’s wrath and how the Bayeux
Tapestry’s embroidered misogyny set her on the trail.

hether fact or fiction, global bestseller, The Other Boleyn Girl. it to get back to normal, for a man to
every story needs an ‘I was really struck by writing the have opportunities, you bring in the
inciting incident. For Tudor series, people would say, how did breadwinner wage.’
Philippa Gregory, in the you find this extraordinary woman?’ she What Philippa wanted was any
case of Normal Women: describes. ‘And then I’d find another. woman reading this to pick it up and
900 Years of Making History, it The daughter or a sister… and the say, this is a normal woman. ‘The
was the realisation that there were penny dropped, it’s not that you look for title initially was, A Brief History of
more penises (93) than women (5) women’s history through the historical Normal Women, as a joke! I want to say
embroidered on the Bayeux Tapestry. writing we have, it’s that if you look for anything a woman does is normal, by
‘There are five,’ says the renowned them you will find them. Doing things. virtue of her doing it.
author in some indignation. Her You look into it, there were women ‘The extraordinary women were a
new book of historical non-fiction brickmakers, master brickmakers. It sort whole world,’ continues Philippa. ‘All
re-claiming women’s lives – a passion of crept up on me, to be honest. If you sorts of women working in all sorts of
project that has taken almost a decade look for them,’ Philippa repeats, ‘you trades, religions, all sorts of things.’
to complete – begins with the Norman find them.’ She made the decision to begin her
Conquest in 1066. ‘One is mourning And she has. Normal Women is a epic history in 1066. ‘I thought, I
the death of her husband. Four women 900-page tome (‘A big beast!,’ laughs ought to start looking at the women
are being touched or sexually abused its author) packed with startling who are in the shadows. And I thought
– one is running away from a burning histories not of the rich and famous, when shall I start? 1066 – the Norman
building with her child. That’s literally but of ordinary women living lives that, conquest. And finish when women are
where we start. It was embroidered by centuries later, are full of surprises for the recognised as equal with men in the
the women of England and if that’s 21st-century reader. church of England. That might not
what the Normans commanded it tells ‘Every time I did any research I had mean much to women now but for
you everything about how the Normans a “good lord” moment,’ says Philippa. medieval women that would have been
saw themselves and women.’ ‘Women got equal pay in 1348, after the a huge, huge moment.’
Lively, angry, informed and Black Death, and never got it again. The She began writing almost as soon as
fascinating, Normal Women turns the population had halved and there were she began researching, always with the
accepted narrative that only occasionally vacancies, this extraordinary opportunity intention not to draw attention to the
have women throughout history stepped for all working women – and then this ‘extraordinary’, but to affirm the point
into ‘notable’ or deliberate pushback by the government that women’s lives have always been
‘exceptional’ roles who introduced that single women fuller and more engaged with the society
on its head. The couldn’t work for themselves, they had they lived in than conventional history
seeds of it were to work for an employer. Disasters and has allowed. ‘It was terribly important
sown when the opportunities. It’s when it’s disruptive. In to me that I didn’t let myself get caught
historian and the Civil War women formed regiments up in the extraordinary stories. I tell
author of historical and became fighting soldiers, and how the story is an example of what is
fiction was writing assessors of properties. Opportunities happening to everyone – it’s wonderful
her Tudor novels, open up for women whenever society to be able to say there were women
which include the is shaken up. And then when you want doing this… and this woman here,

16 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 S TA R I N T E R V I E W

‘It’s radical in the sense that

it’s mostly about working class
people – radical in the best sense.
It is a complete change to how we
normally tell the national history,
it’s not told about the rulers, the
important men. It’s the stories of the
unimportant women.’

there’s more. Here’s her name. Women women’s history is that, every time fiction it was
as examples of normal women’s lives – someone does something, we take her an absolute
I want them to be in the context of the out of history, from the others working marriage of my love of history
women’s history.’ in that area who then don’t get noticed.’ and fiction.’
The book reframes historical women’s Along the way, the reader of Normal She feels that the process of writing
lives in a radical way. ‘It’s radical in the Women will be open-mouthed at her fictional histories were leading her
sense that it’s mostly about working reading the systematic injustices in the direction of what would become
class people – radical in the best sense,’ that women have been faced with Normal Women.
says Philippa. ‘It is a complete change throughout nine centuries. ‘Without understanding it, I was
to how we normally tell the national ‘I think I experience writer’s wrath,’ finding women who had extraordinary
history, it’s not told about the rulers, says Philippa. ‘Some of these things are lives or were present at extraordinary
the important men. It’s the stories of outrageous and current comparisons events, and telling their stories. They were
the unimportant women.’ between then and today make it clear extraordinary women and I increased
Normal Women inverts the notion that that we’ve not achieved equality in their outstanding quality by telling them
a woman doing something noteworthy many areas.’ in a fictional biography. With this book I
must be exceptional. What has made her most angry? reverse the process. Mary Boleyn would
‘From the Greeks, as soon as people ‘Rape statistics,’ Philippa says firmly. be a great example of a normal woman –
are writing, they try to define the nature ‘In Elizabethan times the statistics she got into prominence through sleeping
of women,’ says Philippa. ‘Every male for prosecuting rapists was 20% of with the king, and ended her days as a
philosopher – and what none of them every case brought to court. Today we completely normal woman. By focusing
understand is that there are so many of successfully prosecute 2%. Less than on the court period of her life I made her
us, and normal is what any of us say it two. Basically, we have decriminalised look extraordinary.’
is. If you look at what we think of as rape. We don’t take them to court, we Mary Boleyn drew Philippa into
extraordinary – for example, a woman don’t convict them when we get them writing about the Tudor court. ‘After her
who joins the Navy, and sails around into court. In the Elizabethan era there there was Catherine of Aragon because
the world – we say she’s extraordinary. was a greater will to protect women than I couldn’t have written Mary Boleyn
And I’m saying these achievements are there is today.’ without loving Catherine of Aragon.
normal. One of the problems of writing Philippa first started writing historical It wasn’t that I wanted to write about
fiction around royals, but one lead me on to another.’
1986. ‘I’d finished Philippa’s most recent series, Tidelands,
my PhD by then is a departure from her royal stories:
– so I’ve never it tells the intergenerational story of a
written historical family with the humblest of origins.
fiction except as a ‘With Tidelands, I wanted to write
historian. It’s been about the rise of a family who came
an education! If from where most of us come from,
you love history peasant stock and mud, and it took me
and novels, you’re back to Normal Women,’ says Philippa.
going to be drawn ‘I think they absolutely developed
to books. When alongside each other. I am more aware
I first started of the limitations and the economic
writing historical opportunities open to women.

[Link] JANUARY 2024 17

S TA R I N T E R V I E W

‘In the early medieval period, women

enjoyed a lot of personal freedom because
we hadn’t yet invented the idea of
ladylike behaviour – there was a general
acceptance that women were noisy,
rude, good at making money, working
in hospitality and the food business.
There were women in the marketplace,
in positions of authority and other trades,
sexually active, causing trouble, liked to get
drunk and party.’

Ordinary people’s lives are so much more valuable than any forward to the stories she’s yet to tell. ‘I miss the imaginative
number of fairytale stories about princesses.’ process of fiction when I’m writing non-fiction. For much of
Philippa says she went about researching and writing her this I was writing Tidelands – I’d sneak off and write fiction!
exhaustive history ‘one bite at a time’. Writing fiction is a real joy to me and I think I’ll always love
‘There’s been fantastic work and I am eternally grateful to it. I can’t wait to get back to fiction. I’ve been obsessed doing
historians from the 1950s onwards,’ she says. ‘But they tend this, I’ve gone tooth and nail into it. But I think it’s been
to write about women in a particular history – for instance radicalising – I really have a sense of women’s place in the
medieval, or a particular point in history i.e. the suffragettes. history – I’ve always seen women in their historical context, a
So it’s a question of putting the detailed work in the context 17th-century woman is nothing like a 21st-century woman.
of the other work as well. I read a lot of secondary sources so But that’s really increased for me. And the story of women
I read their books and put them together. The biggest pulling isn’t just love and marriage, it’s working life, a spiritual life.’
together was going through time, starting from 1066.’ Which historical period did she most enjoy writing about?
Themes emerged through the writing process. ‘Violence ‘I think the early medieval period,’ says Philippa. ‘Women
against women, friendship, love and sex, intimacy with other enjoyed a lot of personal freedom because we hadn’t yet
women – these are constant and change through the times. I invented the idea of ladylike behaviour – there was a general
chose to be quite fluid about it, so women getting the vote is acceptance that women were noisy, rude, good at making
not even a dream until the 19th century.’ money, working in hospitality and the food business. There
Why did Philippa feel that this was her particular project? were women in the marketplace, in positions of authority
‘To be very practical about it, you couldn’t write this if you and other trades, sexually active, causing trouble, liked to
worked as an academic or at university because you’d be a get drunk and party. Dominant in sports – races were set
specialist in your area,’ she says. ‘You need a historian who isn’t up for and run by women. It was a society with a lot of
a specialist, a feminist, probably a woman – and someone who opportunities for women. And scholarly women in the
can do something for ten years without knowing if you’ll ever nunneries – women could live with other scholars.’
sell it. And someone with the ambition to write a book this big Living and breathing women’s histories, Philippa has no
on such an important topic, and not be daunted.’ wish to be transported to another era. ‘People say to me,
She threw herself into it. ‘I take so much pleasure in the where would you be reincarnated? They always think I’d say
research and the writing that I commenced it as a hobby and Elizabethan and I say, no period before 1960, when we had
didn’t see it as work until the editing.’ the vote, the pill and your
She doesn’t necessarily recommend that writers combine own money.’
historical fiction and non-fiction. ‘I wouldn’t offer it as a
blanket recommendation because it’s very demanding. I
wouldn’t recommend it unless you have a specific specialist Normal Women:
historical background. Writing historical fiction you can learn 900 Years of Making
on the job – the details and context of your story. But non- History by Philippa
fiction, that is the story. It’s very demanding.’ Gregory is published by
Now Normal Women is out in the world, Philippa’s looking HarperCollins, £25

18 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 Oxford Writing Mentors
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[Link]/editing
 ROMANCE
Romantic novelist CA Castle looks at writing romance from a queer
perspective, and offers his top tips for writers wanting to write rainbow
romances that honour their lived experience

n idea for a novel can start in any which way: • I wanted to be led, and influenced, by the Classics and
a hooky concept that excites you; a landscape their filmic counterparts – that would always sit at the
or setting that inspires you; a theme or conceit heart of the project.
you want to explore and see working in • I wanted to write a queer story set in the present day but
action. When I first set out to write my novel, which very much felt like a period classic.
I didn’t have a fully-fleshed out idea of what the novel was. • I wanted to draw on my favourite stories: Jane Eyre,
Instead, I had a set of ambitions, and as with any project, it Pride and Prejudice and more – and, as a result,
is helpful to make your ambitions clear from the start. This I knew there would be some degree of romance
will help you move more quickly in a forward direction. involved – this is integral to the plots which my book
My novel, The Manor House Governess, follows Brontë so heavily relies upon.
Ellis, who after years of lingering at St. Mary’s all-boys
boarding school, is offered a live-in tutor’s position at a This, of course, meant that there were already a set of
manor house in Cambridgeshire. Arriving there, he is rules, structures, and source materials that I needed to
welcomed by all – Mr Edwards, his employer, and his balance when constructing my stories. With a focus on
precocious pupil Ada – except for Darcy, the eldest son, who the romance, I predicted that my two main characters
seems uncomfortable by Bron’s presence and confidence in would likely start off on the wrong foot. I could even
his gender presentation. But Bron lives his life through the guess that one might be traditionally more fortunate
period novels and adaptations he so adores, and he cannot than the other in the looks department. These are tropes
help but feel drawn to this man who, for all intents and that we rely upon and re-tool again and again to suit our
purposes, should be his love interest . . . narrative. So, another key thing to establish when writing
Using my novel as the example, here were my initial set your romance is which tropes you want to employ,
of ambitions: interrogate, and comment upon. To make anew.

20 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 C R E AT I V E W R I T I N G

T H I N G S T O T H I N K A B O U T: trap of writing what we have already seen working!

So when it came to reflecting on some real life interactions
• What are the tropes that I as a reader have enjoyed that I wanted to work into my story, these are some of the
in my favourite books? things I knew: that you can’t help who you feel attracted to;
• What is the typical structure of an enemies to lovers that you might be so desperate for love that you lean upon
romance? A forced proximity romance? A mistaken whoever’s available to you at any one time, even if they’re
identity or a forbidden love story? not right; that the path to love is not smooth-sailing; that
• How can I play around with this already established everyone comes with baggage heavy or light; and that you
trope and structure? might end up bearing the weight of some of it.
• How might I critique this trope? Writing the romance between my two main characters
wasn’t always easy. It wasn’t always that romantic. I wanted
it to be true to the points aforementioned. With my main
protagonist, I wanted to reflect a character fully confident in
Of course there is no one way to write a queer romance, his gender identity, but who comes under scrutiny even by
just as there is no one way to write any romance. For me, those who seem to be romantically interested in him. With
writing this particular narrative was a way through which my love interest, I wanted to explore the feelings of a man
I could explore how I, as an androgynous person, venture who has had quite a different experience to the proud and
through the world, and some of the prejudices I have feminine protagonist; who has struggled with fully accepting
come across even by those who have been interested in me his queer identity; who pressures himself into fitting into the
romantically. So when it came to writing the romance on the box which we, as a society, continue to press men into; who
page, I wanted to balance two things: cannot understand why someone would want to make life
• A need to critique and refashion the problematic male harder than it needs to be. I wanted my character’s struggles
love interests that my character, Bron, is so enamored by. to feel complex and real – especially given the classic and
• An honest reflection on the types of romantic interactions archaic lens through which we meet them.
that I as a queer person have experienced.
A piece of advice I often give is to write about what you know, The Manor House Governess by C.A.
and I believe this is a sure way to write a story that is true to Castle is published by Black & White
who you are and not merely fitting the mould of what others Publishing (£8.99)
might expect from a romance. It is far too easy to fall into the

TOP TIPS for writing

yo u r o w n r o m a n t i c
characters and
encounters
• Work out what you want to say or
explore through their interactions. Is a
fun tête-à-tête, or a difficult conversation
between two characters speaking to a
wider truth?
• Have fun, or gain closure, and influence
the way things go in a way that is true to
your overall ambition.
• Remember that as long as you stay true
to your intentions, you can’t go wrong.

[Link] JANUARY 2024 21

 Author and tutor Ian Ayris reflects on the relationship between creativity
and the expectations of readers and publishers, and how writers need to
take both into consideration as they begin to assemble their stories

I
n this series on the Building Blocks of Creative Writing, of a publisher’s submission guidelines. Submission guidelines
we have spent time looking at the Foundation Blocks – are the hoops through which a publisher requires you to jump.
the attitudes towards writing underpinning everything And they are their hoops – take them or leave them. Mess with
else – perseverance, courage, trusting your intuition, them at your peril. Some publishers, to be fair, offer much
writing with a sense of wonder etc. These are all hidden more wriggle room than others.
from the reader. They are below ground, so to speak. In More on this stuff much later in this series.
the last couple of issues we have looked at ideas and the Until then, a couple of real-life examples: I was once asked
imagination – the mortar that holds all the Blocks together. to write a crime fiction story with a writer friend of mine for
It is time, now, to take a tentative look at the central a national women’s magazine. Now, my stuff tends to be very
Building Blocks of Creative Writing – STRUCTURE, visceral, often confrontational, sweary, bleak and violent. That’s
DESCRIPTION, DIALOGUE, VOICE, CHARACTER, just how it is. Fun for all the family. The submission guidelines
EDITING and all the smaller Blocks that make them up. for this particular magazine were that the story contain no
My head tells me these Building Blocks are the cornerstones swearing, no violence and must have a happy ending. These
of Creative Writing, yet something inside me screams were the hoops – hoops based entirely on the expectations of
REMEMBER – THERE ARE NO ABSOLUTES!!! And that the readers of the magazine. My initial response was to say no.
voice inside, is always the one to listen to. But I’d realised by then in what I laughingly called my writing
Especially when it screams. career that saying yes had become an incredibly powerful
And yes, it’s true. There are no absolutes in writing. Only principle. It had led to things I could never have imagined.
conventions. I’d forgotten that. Just for a moment. Too much Good things. Saying no was shutting a door. And I’d done
coffee. No absolutes, but conventions, there certainly are. that all my life. So I said yes. The story was published, and
A convention is generally defined as the way something is the whole experience not only challenged me as a writer but
usually done. That very phrase sounds like anathema to any became a really informative experience in terms of an exercise in
creative person and perhaps should make every one of us meeting the expectations of a market.
shudder a little. But we will not rail against it. We will not Another example was when I sent a short story of mine
seek to bring the institution of conventionality to its knees blindly to People’s Friend – purely on the basis that I saw
and destroy it. We will seek to understand it. And through a copy of that venerable magazine at my nan’s house and
understanding it, we will seek to remake it in our own image. noticed they published short stories. Turns out visceral,
The important thing about conventions is that they lead to sweary, violent, confrontation and bleak aren’t what their
expectations. In terms of the Building Blocks of Creative readers are looking for.
Writing, conventions come from publishers, derived and from So conventions matter. They matter because they fulfil the
the expectations of their readers. expectations of publishers and readers.
Aside from the genre-specific expectations and conventions Please forgive me, therefore, if I sound like an adherent to
– of which there are many – readers expect writing to be conventions when we work through the Building Blocks of
presented in a certain way – words, sentences, punctuation, Creative Writing. Conventions are merely a necessary evil. Evil
paragraphs, etc. They expect stories to be told in a certain way - might be too strong a word – but, you know what I mean.
beginning, middle, end, etc. And most importantly, if you want An important point: if you are writing purely for yourself,
to be published, conventions are the fundamental principles you can do whatever you want. Conventions are whatever

22 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 C R E AT I V E W R I T I N G B U I L D I N G B L O C K S

you want them to be. Expectations are purely whatever you set But we will be destined to step on one we missed at some point
yourself. If publication is your aim, however, one of the central in the future and rage at our inadequacy once more.
conventions you have to adhere to is word count. Literally, the But the time after that, or maybe even the time after that,
amount of words you can use to tell your story. And you will when we step on another one we missed we will pick that Block
generally have no flexibility in this number. up, we will study it, turn it over in our fingers and for reasons
There are many varied gradations of length dictated by we don’t understand we will hold it up to our ear and listen to
word count. The following is a list of approximate word it. And it will tell us we are a writer, and we’ll find ourselves
counts for each: closing that brick gently in our hand and reaching for that box
once more.
SHORT SHORT FICTION There will be times when life makes no sense, when you are
• Flash fiction – 500 to 1,500 not in a place to make sense of anything, but somehow just
• Micro fiction – 50 to 500 opening the box of Building Blocks, picking up a handful and
• And less – 100 word, 6 word challenge letting them slide through your fingers and listening to the
sound they make as they hit the others in the box or picking up
SHORT STORIES a single brick and examining it as if it was a lost treasure, seeing
• Short story – 1,500 to 5,000 it with eyes of wonder, will suddenly make the whole world
• Long short story – 5,000 to 10,000 make sense. You look at another Block, then another. You will
start fitting them together with no concept of a shape or an end.
LONG FICTION You will be bound by the conventional way of putting the
• Novelette – 7,500 to 20,000 Blocks together no more. You will be creating in the true sense of
• Novella – 20,000 to 40,000 the word.
• Short novel – 40,000 to 60,000
• Novel – 60,000 to 80,000 Okay, so we’re going to take this slow. Very slow. It is the only
• Long novel – 80,000 and above way – working from the outside in. Let’s return to our box of
Building Blocks and see what we’ve got.
Once you have an initial idea of the parameters within which The first Building Block we will be looking at is the one
you are working, it is time to look at how you are going to go labelled STRUCTURE. And it’s a big one.
about it – taking each Building Block in turn and seeing what it What do we mean by STRUCTURE when we talk about
can offer. Creative Writing?
So let’s take a look at what we’ve got. When we speak of STRUCTURE we are speaking about the
The Building Blocks of Creative Writing – STRUCTURE, framework upon which the story hangs. The compositional
DESCRIPTION, DIALOGUE, POINT OF VIEW, VOICE, principles or elements involved in the process of creating a
CHARACTERS, and all the rest – are like a Lego set (other format for your ideas. In short, STRUCTURE is how you tell
building blocky things are available). To begin with, having a your story.
picture to copy and instructions to follow is indispensable. It STRUCTURE conventionally has a Beginning, a Middle
is how we learn the properties of each Block and what each and an End. There is a Main Character who has to achieve
can offer. We need to know what each looks like, what their something – a Goal. There are obstacles to achieving that
function is, their relationship to the other Blocks, and most of Goal, and sometimes an underlying Theme or Issue. How the
all, the possibilities inherent within each one. Once you know character gets from the Beginning to the End is the Plot (Plot is
each building Block at this level you will no longer be bound by different to Story – something we will get into later). In terms of
them. They will be yours to command. mechanics, a story is written from a particular Point of View and
As writers we often begin by unconsciously writing in the in a particular Tense and it takes place somewhere – the Setting.
style of writers we love – often we even write in the style of As you can see, the STRUCTURE is fundamental to the telling
whichever author we are reading at any given time. Imitation of a story. We will cover all of these aforementioned aspects that
is an invaluable part in the development of any writer. In time, make up the Building Block of STRUCTURE in detail in the
however, returning to our box of Lego, we learn which Blocks next few issues.
fit better with others. Sometimes, we want to create something So we finally got there. The Building Blocks of Creative
other people will be impressed with. Often, our striving for Writing are before us. We have tipped the box out. They are
originality, however, will see us trying to fit Blocks into other all over the floor, mixed up and without visible connection
Blocks where there are simply no connections and, no matter or purpose.
how much we try and squeeze and push and manipulate, all But that is okay. That is just how it should be.
we end up with is a pile of Blocks on the floor and sore fingers. For it is our job to pick up the pieces, to tell the world stories
When we walk away, chiding ourselves for even thinking we that give meaning to what it is to be human.
could be original, we will no doubt step barefoot on one of these We are writers.
Blocks and scream at our own inadequacy. We will clear them That is what we do.
up, put them back in the box and hide them away for a time. So let’s go . . .

[Link] JANUARY 2024 23

 Your
Ready to have the first 300 words of
your manuscript critiqued? Contact
tjackson@[Link] for details

Aysha House’s journey towards creating

an inspiring book has been years in writing
critiqued
the making. A transformative trip to
Seville played a central role in shaping
her creative aspirations, and during lockdown
she finally embarked on the journey of putting
ideas onto paper. Her spiritual exploration took an
impactful turn when she embraced Christianity years James McCreet applies a
ago. Her faith opened her eyes to the world of the forensic micro-critique to the
biblical lands from New Testament times. The idea
beginning of a reader’s manuscript
of time travel began to take root in her mind – the
notion of journeying back two millennia to the era
of Christ, linked with the prospect of venturing
forward into the year 3000 AD.

(Ophelia) went as I tried to adjust properly to my surroundings.17

To see and travel back to a time and to a place of such The silhouette of old buildings lay ahead before me in the
historical significance,1 was a wonder to even contemplate.2 distance. Block-like shapes of all irregular sizes.18 It took a
To experience touch, smell,3 to visualise and wonder at the while to focus,19 as all I could see was a shining light that
most debated,4 praised, prayed and worshipped place for became the dominance of everything around me.20 It was so
over 2000 years.5 This is the Holy Land.6 bright that I had to keep diverting my eyes away from it.21
The air was cool, the wind touched with such Every time I managed to glance at it,22 I couldn’t make out if
gracefulness,7 lightly lifting strands of hair away from it was a figure? A reflection?23 Or even an angel lighting the
my face.8 The night sky was illuminated by bright white, area ahead of me.24 In a brief amount of time25 the brightness
dazzling stars dotted about on a canvas of black.9 Giving of the sky26 and the day-like appearance around me, instantly
a sense of mystery and elegance,10 yet at the same time an changed to the darkness of night.27 The bright moon then
element of enchantment.11 Fear started to set in.12 I could took CenterStage28 and became my main focus.29 I looked
feel my heart pounding,13 sweat started to build on my as the clouds glided across the moon,30 it shone so brightly
chest and travel upwards to my face.14 Where the hell was through the clouds and illuminated the irregularities of each
I!!15 My eyes started to blur16 and spidery lines came and cloud, making it truly mystical and captivating.31

1 The sentence begins problematically,

due partly to illogical order. Don’t you
overdone the amount of ‘to’. the comma after ‘cool’ is. It should be a
full stop. I’m also perturbed by the wind
have to travel back before you can see
it? Beginning with the infinitive (to see) 4 The sentence is breaking down.
It’s one thing to omit the expected
touching. Caressing? Stroking?

then following it with two further ‘to’

prepositions makes it all very unwieldy.
We have to read 17 words before arriving
‘and’ between ‘touch’ and ‘smell’, but
continuing with another infinitive
statement after a comma strains the syntax
8 Maybe it’s just me imagining a hairy
face revealed by the wind’s touch.

at the verb (‘was’) that will start to make

sense of the sentence. The comma is
unnecessary. It could be phrased much
and makes it difficult to piece the clauses
together. Is it really the ‘most debated’? 9 It’s a generic and clichéd description
of the night sky. Can we describe the
awe-inspiring and ageless constellations
more clearly (see the rewrite).
5 A place can be praised, but is the
place itself actually worshipped – or
as ‘dotted about’? Do stars ‘illuminate’
the sky? Or do they account for about

2 Here’s the fourth ‘to’ in one

sentence. I’m no stickler when it
comes to split infinitives, but this would
rather certain sites there? Is ‘prayed’ an
adjective? I accept that not all sentences
have to be grammatical in order to
one per cent of its light? Do they
genuinely dazzle in the way the sun does?

sound better as ‘even to contemplate’.

This first sentence is designed to
impress upon the reader the magnitude
create certain effects, but this looks like a
mistake because there are others. 10 Another non-grammatical
sentence. Telling the reader that it’s
mysterious doesn’t make it so – you need
of the proposition, but the sense of
wonder has largely been lost in the
convolutions of grammar.
6 It’s all been past tense until this line.
Why the change?
to suggest why. Also, how is the night
sky ‘elegant’?

3 I’m not against repeating phrases in

successive sentences. It can be an
7 The first paragraph is speculative/
figurative but it turns out to have
been literal. We have actually travelled
11 The sentence attempts to set up
a contrast but seems to say the
vaguely same thing: it’s mysterious but
effective technique, but we’ve already back in time. That’s not a huge issue, but enchanting?

24 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

12 An abrupt change that goes against

everything stated thus far. A new
paragraph would make more sense.
Ancient temples? ‘Ahead’ and ‘before me’
are essentially the same thing, but what is ‘in
the distance’? On the horizon? A few yards
‘ahead’ (where the buildings are) if the
light is ‘everything around’?

13 Another cliché. A comma can’t

be used to separate two separate
away? If it’s all irregular blocks, it could
equally be Manhattan or Dhaka. This is
difficult to visualise.
25 A third of a second? Fourteen
seconds? How should the reader
understand this?
sentences.

14 This doesn’t make sense on multiple

levels. Does sweat start in one place
19 Evidently, but it all seemed so clear
in the first paragraph. 26 The brightness of the night sky?

and then move? Why would it move to the

face if there wasn’t a ferocious updraft? We
know what you’re trying to say, but it’s not
20 This is manifestly untrue. You’ve
just described buildings so the light
is not ‘all’ you can see. I’m not sure what
27 It was night when we started. This
needs to be better explained. We
also have a conflict between ‘instantly’ and
working. ‘became the dominance’ means. ‘a brief amount of time’. Which is it?

15 Double exclamation marks are not

acceptable outside of text messaging.
And didn’t we establish at the start that
21 If the light is all dominating and
everywhere, where does one look to
divert (should it be ‘avert’?) the eyes? Isn’t
28 There was previously no mention
of the moon. Why is ‘CentreStage’
one word and capitalised? Is it a brand
we’re in the Holy Land? it more a question of closing them? name?

16 Why? I guess it could be an effect of

the time travel. 22 Does one ‘glance’ at an all
dominating, surrounding light? It’s
not a defined point of focus.
29 Why? And why not previously?

17 ‘Spidery’ in what sense? Pale like

a spider’s web? Scribbly like bad
handwriting? How should the reader 23 How could a figure be
everywhere as ambient light? A
30 There were no clouds before.
Again, a comma can’t be used as a
full stop.
visualise this (the danger of using generic figure has a shape. A reflection would
adjectives)? What are the surroundings
exactly? We’ve been given no information.
have to reflect from something else,
but what? 31 How? You can tell us it’s mystical,
but it seems you’re saying it’s
merely attractive. Where’s the mystery

18 This is imprecise. What kind of

buildings? Mosques? Churches? 24 An angel presumably has a
distinctive shape. How is this
exactly? Previously, the stars alone were
illuminating the sky.

In summary
There are many problems with this piece, us we’re in the Holy Land (Israel? It takes time to develop a voice and
but it’s apprentice writing. We all have to Syria? Egypt? Jordan? Palestine?) but to hear natural rhythms in your prose.
start somewhere and learn the skills that the narrator is lost in the next. ‘In That first sentence has a profusion of
make us better. I used to write like this. the distance’ is vague. So is ‘a brief ‘to’ and is quite convoluted. The goal
I suppose we all did at some stage. The moment’. Is something formless and is to think about where you want the
question is how to fix it. everywhere or a thing you can look at reader to focus and to organise the
First: punctuation. There are a and focus on? If the reader can’t figure order of words so that they most clearly
few sentences that aren’t sentences. this out from the text, they will stop and effectively express what the reader
Commas are used as full stops and reading very quickly. should think, feel or understand. If
clauses blend into each other. This Part of precise writing is having a we notice the grammar, something has
makes things difficult for the reader. wide and adaptable vocabulary. That gone wrong (unless this is show-off
A simple book about punctuation will means no clichés. English has more literature, in which case clever phrasing
help hugely. words that many other languages is part of the appeal.)
Second: narrative logic. What are (around twice as many as Spanish, for Don’t be disheartened. It’s brave
we trying to say? What is the reader example), so we have many options to to share work publicly to help other
looking at? It’s necessary to be precise select exactly the right meaning, sound people learn. Keep going and you’ll
and clear. The first paragraph tells or association. get there.

Read James McCreet’s suggested rewrite:

[Link]/how-to-write/under-the-microscope-mccredited/

[Link] JANUARY 2024 25

M Y PAT H T O P U B L I C AT I O N

TRACY
FELLS
As her collection of feminist fairy tales is
published, the debut author describes how she
only achieved her lifetime ambition to be in print
when she made space for herself

f I drew a map of my path to publication it would with it’. No more excuses; I bought a laptop, printer and
have numerous dead ends, and resemble a river delta desk, because I wanted to feel like a proper writer and then
with meandering streams, all feeding into one big got on with it.
channel. I’ve been writing short fiction for thirteen It hadn’t really been about ‘time’, it was head-space I
years and it’s taken that long to navigate my scarily needed. Instead of thinking about work issues (24/7) my
diverse story streams, many individually published online or head flooded with story ideas. I discovered Writing Magazine
in anthologies and magazines, into a single collection. and instantly took out a subscription, which I still have. I
Like many writers, my dream to be published started also bought piles of short story collections and magazines for
early, at primary school, when my stories were read out background research. Reading Angela Carter’s The Bloody
to the class. That dream continued into my teens, when I Chamber collection of gothic tales was an epiphany. These
penned some really dreadful poetry, though my ambition to were the stories I wanted to write. I’d found my tribe, I
‘become a writer’ waned during my animal-loving ‘I want was a magical realist! Later I discovered flash fiction, and its
to be a vet’ stage. I had to work hard for my A-Level grades wonderfully supportive community, gaining success (and
but was never destined for veterinary college, and chose the importantly, publication credits) with both short and flash
next-best subject: Zoology. stories. After several years I was selling stories to the women’s
From my working-class family, I was the first to go to uni, magazine market and winning prizes; I could call myself a
but none of them really understood why. A tutor rolled his professional writer. Feeling at the top of my game, I focussed
eyes when I shared my writing ambitions, so I kept quiet on entering the big competitions and submitting to top
about the spy thriller I’d completed (hand-written and literary journals, then … I hit the rejection wall, over and
still in a drawer) during term-time when I should’ve been over again. Was my writing career just a flash-in-the-pan?
writing up experiments. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t get a first With my son at university, I went back to college for a two-
and found myself in a tough employment market (mid year MA in Creative Writing. Here, sharing and reviewing
1980s) without a clue about my future, other than I didn’t work with other students, I learned a valuable lesson – I’m
want to join a graduate training scheme in accountancy. an impatient writer who submits too early. This was the first
Twenty-four years later and I barely had time for reading, time I’d had feedback on work-in-progress; receiving in-depth
let alone writing. With a life-science background I’d fallen critiques was tough. Hearing how my, supposedly, finished
into the pharmaceutical industry, eventually working in stories weren’t even close to being submission-ready shocked
clinical research and managing global teams. My career had my confidence. At home, or in my car, I cried.
taken off; I was happily married with a teenage son. All But I listened, digested the feedback (okay, reluctantly)
thoughts of creative pursuits were buried beneath a teetering and revised my work. It made all the difference, because a
pile of responsibilities, including long hours, extensive travel story I’d shared with my workshop group went onto become
and the stresses of corporate life. I’d lost sight of my dreams, a Regional Winner (Canada and Europe) for the prestigious
and myself. I was unhappy, unhealthy and not much fun to Commonwealth Short Story Prize. I won £2,500 along with
be around. an amazing trip to Singapore for the prize giving ceremony.
Something had to change … me! I left my full-time career My next goal was to publish an entire collection. On
to become a full-time mum, and house manager (because I the advice of a publisher (who suggested my writing had
needed to manage something), while my husband returned commercial appeal) I approached literary agents, but despite
to his career in engineering. It was his suggestion to pursue being called in several times, I was told the collection ‘lacked
the dream, or as he put it: ‘you wanted to write, now get on a coherent theme’. Once again, I was subbing too early

26 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 Isabelle Kenyon
Managing director, Fly
Fast-forward to 2022, my portfolio of short fiction had
grown with more publication credits and new stories On The Wall Press
too. There was an open window for a small indie press
with an excellent reputation and a commitment to As soon as I read Tracy’s collection, I felt I could ‘settle
sustainability. I’d enjoyed one of their anthologies, full of in’ comfortably to the stories: here was an accomplished
magical realism and uncanny stories … Had I found my storyteller. She exhibits a rare talent for crafting stories that
collection’s forever home? are both darkly sensual and hauntingly beautiful. I loved the
My path to publication has a happy ending, as Isabelle blurred lines between reality and fantasy, which allow the
Kenyon (managing director, and my editor) at Fly On stories to be both transportive, and relatable. It also allows her
The Wall Press wanted to publish my debut short story space to explore darker themes, such as postnatal depression,
collection, The Naming of Moths. From her first friendly domestic abuse and sexual exploitation. I also love that Tracy
email acknowledging receipt, and later a Zoom call, I is brave enough to create characters who are deeply flawed,
knew Isabelle was a rare find; she’s dynamic, committed and she displays these flaws – not all characters need to be
to quality and understands marketing. I hope this isn’t likeable to be believable or, indeed, to hold power over a
the end of the path, as I love my writing career and am reader. As a kind of modern retelling of Angela Carter’s gothic
now working on a dark, characterful crime mystery storytelling tradition, I saw these stories as continuing a form
novel, which I’ll submit when I know it’s really ready. of oral storytelling, with a feminist, magical slant – girls eat
chocolate-turned wolves, sisters turn brothers into hares. In
The Naming of Moths by Tracy Fells is published by the more realism-based stories, we find loss, resilience and
Fly On The Wall Press (£10.99) the power of friendship. Overall, it was the authenticity
and emotional resonance of her stories that compelled us to
publish The Naming of Moths. Tracy’s understanding of the
Tracy’s top tips human condition and her ability to craft narratives that linger
1. Enter competitions.
long after reading make this collection a truly remarkable and
2. Learn patience. Don’t rush to submit.
personal addition to our catalogue. It certainly felt that, after
3. Seek feedback (from writers you respect and
all of Tracy Fells’ years of writing and winning various short
trust), and act upon it!
fiction prizes, it was time for her debut collection!

Novel Ideas
Bath bombs
Lynne Hackles finds ideas come when writers are soaking in the tub

‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ is probably the question Another subject I have covered several times over the years
most writers are asked. A while ago I asked a wide selection is the use of notebooks. I have one on my desk, one next
of writers a similar question. Similar because it had only one to the bed, one in the living room and one in my handbag.
word missing. This is because (shock, horror) I do not own a phone. I’ve
My question was: ‘Where do you get your ideas?’ never felt the need, though I did buy a secondhand one just
The answers varied from whilst gardening to when taking over twenty years ago and didn’t replace it once it had died.
a walk, but the most popular of all was, ‘In the bath.’ That It was a pay-as-you go and £10 would usually last me for
may be because it’s one of the best places to relax and be a year, or even longer. Friends knew that if they wanted to
alone behind a locked door. contact me, they could email.
I should have come up with another question after those Combine those ideas that come to so many of us whilst
responses. ‘Do you remember those ideas when you stop in the bath with the phone and notebook subject and you
weeding/get home or get dried and dressed?’ might discover, like me, that you need a notebook in the
Many writers keep a record on their phones or in bathroom, together with a towel close by so that you can dry
notebooks. That’s fine if you’re in the garden or ambling your hands and make notes without having to get out from
along a footpath in the countryside, but who takes their the suds. And, if you agree, the good thing is you can go out
phone into the bath with them? and buy yet another notebook.

[Link] JANUARY 2024 27

 SARRA MANNING
©Ellie Smith

The journalist turned author of romcoms and YA novels

picks the five books that most inspired her own writing

My latest novel, The Man afternoon, usually very late in the afternoon,
Of Her Dreams, is about a I set my phone stopwatch for 25 minutes (the
woman with a rich inner life Pomodoro Technique has been a game changer
who manifests her dream for someone as fond of procrastinating as I
boyfriend. Then one day am) and settle down to write my daily 2,500
he literally turns up on her words a day, which usually takes me four lots
doorstep. Or does he? Vaguely of twenty five minutes. Then I’m tapped out Ballet Shoes
inspired by Harvey, the James for the day. Although if I’m on deadline and by Noel Streatfeild
Stewart film, it was the germ behind schedule, I will plough on until I can’t Of all the books I loved
of an idea that languished in see or think straight. as a child, most of
the back of my ideas folder for over a decade, I work from a really detailed outline, usually them revolving around
until it suddenly took on proper shape and a running to more than ten thousand words, boarding school, ballet
sub plot and supporting characters. and I aim to write my first draft as quickly and horses, Ballet Shoes
I’m about to start writing a new novel, as I can, usually in about eight weeks. This is the one I come back
a big, sexy tearjerker, exploring some big is because even with the outline, it isn’t until to. The one that I still
themes but also some romcom tropes that I have a (not very great) first draft, that I reread. The one that
I’ll have fun writing including the always understand what my book is really about, is so hardwired into
popular ‘There’s only one bed!’ This is rather than what I thought it was about. my DNA that every
the most exciting part of the process for Every time! This is why my writing mantra is time I go to the V&A
me; percolating an idea for months, even don’t get it right, get it written. on Cromwell Road, I
years, until all the vignettes and snatches of I do a lot of heavy lifting in my second draft; always think about the
dialogue and bits of back story coalesce into rewriting and structural changes until the true Fossil Sisters saving the
a halfway cohesive shape. At this stage, it’s story finally emerges. Then I do a quick and penny and walking.
going to be the best book I’ve ever written. dirty third draft, where I sprinkle on the magic How when I wish
The One. This is also the stage when I dust and add patina; and it’s only after this that someone good luck I
remind myself of the Iris Murdoch quote: I deliver to my agent and my editor. Until then hold my thumbs as the
‘Every novel is the wreck of a perfect idea.’ no one else has seen it. Fossils did when any of
But no matter how I dream up my novels, I always deliver with the understanding that them had an audition
they’re always written in the same way and this is not a definitive work. Rather I can’t and how I used to call
in the same place. I have to sit at my desk, see beyond it now and I need some expert my dog Betsy Pretty
in my study, at my laptop. No coffee shops guidance and hope that the editorial letter will Toes in honour of Posy
or sprawling on the sofa for me. No music be both kind and constructive. Fossil. Ballet Shoes
either, just pure silence, unless you count the Despite doing this for twenty years and with was the first book I
symphony of drills, angle grinders and effing over thirty novels published, writing doesn’t read that created a
and jeffing from the street outside where the get any easier. On the contrary! But I still love world that, as a reader,
houses nearest to me always seem to have the the magic that happens on a good writing I wanted to live in,
builders in. day, when the words bend to my will and I’m something that I’m
I’m definitely not a morning person immersed in the fictional world I’ve created. always mindful of when
and I’m also a very ‘bursty’ writer. In the There’s nothing else like it. I’m writing a novel.

28 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 A Room Of One’s Own Vanity Fair
by Virginia Woolf by WM Thackeray
I first read A Room Of One’s Own When I read Vanity Fair at
at university and it revealed to university to impress a boy, I
me a world where women’s voices thought it was too long, too
had been hidden for so long. boring, too waffly. Fast forward
It was something I hadn’t even thirty years and I lied and said it
considered before but it was a real was my favourite book when a
aha! moment. This is also the book publisher asked me if I’d be up
that made me realise that I could for writing a modern day adaptation. During the
be a writer. Even if I didn’t have a room of my own six (yes, six!) weeks I had to write The Rise And Fall
and £5,000 a year (or the modern day equivalent!) to Of Becky Sharp, I had such unexpected fun rereading
live on, A Room Of One’s Own made being a writer Vanity Fair, channelling Thackeray’s sly and knowing
feel like something I could achieve, when up until humour and especially in creating a contemporary
that point I’d believed that people like me didn’t get Becky Sharp. As a writer of commercial women’s
to be writers (I was the first person in my family to fiction, I know only too well the tyranny of readers
do A levels then go to university.) When I bought my who seem to be obsessed with heroines who are
flat twenty years ago, deposit paid with money I’d relatable and likeable. Whereas Becky Sharp who
earned from writing (I had a staff job on Just Seventeen comes from nothing and through her own ambition,
magazine and was also writing YA novels) and had a guts and absolute lack of any kind of conscience,
room of my own just to write in, I really felt as if I’d acquires wealth and status, is completely brazen and
come full circle. unapologetic and I love her for it. Since then, I’ve
stopped worrying about the three star and below
reviewers and keep my heroines spiky and flawed.

Fabulous Nobodies
by Lee Tulloch
Subtitled a novel about a girl who’s Rachel’s Holiday
in love with her clothes, Fabulous by Marian Keyes
Nobodies, which I first picked up Back in 2007 when I was
in Edgware library in 1992 during struggling with edits on my
my lost years between university first adult novel, Unsticky,
and getting a proper, full-time and a difficult heroine who
job, was so ahead of its time that even I didn’t like, my editor
it never properly arrived. It’s the recommended that I read
story of a girl called Reality Nirvana, all of her friends Rachel’s Holiday. For anyone
call her Really, who’s a door whore at a New York who hasn’t read it, and I implore
club and has a closet full of dresses that talk to her. you to rectify that state of affairs
At the time I read it, I recognised that world (though immediately, the eponymous Rachel is checked into
I wouldn’t visit NYC for another five years) and now rehab for a drug habit that she swears she doesn’t
it’s a love letter to a New York which no longer exists. have. Rachel is deluded, devious, self-destructive
When it wasn’t out of print, I always had spare copies and my god, how I rooted for her. Despite the
to give to new friends. On the surface, it’s a joyous challenging subject matter of the novel, Marian
frothy book concerned with joyous, frothy things but Keyes wrote with such a colloquial, easy grace that
beneath the glitter is a story about the people that it was like having the story narrated by one of my
we pretend to be when we’re lost and looking for closest, funniest, wisest friends. Rachel’s Holiday made
somewhere to belong. Fabulous Nobodies really showed me re-evaluate everything I thought I knew about
me how to write lightly about deeper truths. writing women’s fiction and romance.

[Link] JANUARY 2024 29

 write idea
GET THE WRITE IDEA

Get the
Write about small things that make a difference in these
creative writing exercises to try right now
Photo by NordWood Themes on Unsplash

HOT
Brew up a new piece of creative attached to a particular hot drink. Does
writing. it suggest a particular person, or a time
What kind of feelings could a hot and place, or a significant moment?
drink evoke? When could it make a Or:

DRINK
difference in a narrative, or mark a • Create a storyline where a hot
turning point for someone? drink either says something pertinent
In writing, either: about a character, or creates a plot
• Explore memories or associations development.

Photo by Osman Rana on Unsplash

Photo by Kostiantyn Li on Unsplash

Write about assembling the

perfect gift for someone.
Who is the gift for?
What’s the reason for giving it?
Will it be sent, or given in
person?

GIFT
What will it consist of? Where
will the gift be sourced? How
will the giver assemble the
contents? What stories will be
attached to the item/items in
the gift?
How will the gift be received?
Write in any style or form for
OUT IN
15 minutes.
THE
RAIN
Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash
HABITS

Write about habitual behaviour.

What are the habits: Good? Bad? Convey being out and about in a
The kind of thing that shapes a day’s downpour.
routine? What kind of effect do they Who is caught in the rain?
have on the person’s lifestyle? What is their physical
What might happen when a experience of it? How does the
person decides to change their habit? weather affect their environment?
Are they in control of their habits? Are they prepared for it? Has it
Draw up a list of habits that your caught them unawares?
chosen character has, and create What changes does it make to
a passage of writing that includes their character and mood?
these habits and their influence. Does it force them to adjust or
Then, write a passage about alter any plans?
what happens when your character How might the rain add to or
departs from or gives up a habit. create a mood and/or storyline in
a piece of writing?

30 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
ERROR
MESSAGE
FIND
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Write about an unexpected discovery

Create a sequence of events. What is the find? Is it an object? If so, what is it? What are the
Imagine someone receiving an error circumstances of it being discovered? What part does the element of
message. Perhaps on a computer or other chance have to play?
electronic device that they use habitually. Is the find something other than an object or article? If so, how
What effect does the message have? would you describe it?
What are its implications? What gives the find its significance?
What does it prevent the person doing? What is the effect of the find on the person who finds it? Is anyone
Can it be fixed? Or not? else involved in any way?
What could happen as a result? What might the consequences of the find be?
No matter how far-fetched, plot out Write a passage of prose or poetry interpreting the theme in the way
a scenario where an error message has that most suggests itself to you.
consequences.
Photo by Jed Afdan on Unsplash

Photo by Santa Barbara on Unsplash

REPEAT MISTAKE
Explore someone or something that
repeats or recurs. Write about the consequences of a mistake.
The element that repeats might be What form does the mistake take, and how is it made?
a person, an object, a word, an idea, a Who has made it? What did they intend to do, or were supposed to do?
situation... how will you interpret it, What are the consequences of the mistake?
and what significance will the repeat In what way might the mistake act as a catalyst for something to happen
element have on the viewpoint character that creates a storyline?
in your writing? Write about the mistake and what it led to for 15 minutes.
Decide what your repeating element
will be and how it will influence the
direction of a new piece of writing.
Write for 15 minutes.
G e t m o r e p r o m p t s e v e r y d ay w i t h T h e W r i t e r ’ s
A p p, ava i l a b l e f o r A p p l e a n d A n d r o i d d e v i c e s
[Link] JANUARY 2024 31
 The world of writing
What goes through a writer’s brain?
Readers’ letters and dispatches from the wide world of writing

S TA R L E T T E R
POLISHING THE CRAFT
Ian Ayris suggests ‘you can write anywhere with anything on anything’
(Creative writing building blocks, WM Sep). Emboldened by reading that, I
joined the weekly Crafternoon in our Village Hall.
Some people bring knitting or needlework, some paint or draw. One Washington Irving
woman’s husband sets up her easel so that she can work on her paintings of famously noted that,
steam engines; he polishes small metal machine parts and chats to his friend ‘Christmas is the
who is making model buildings. How could I fit in? season for kindling
I set down my tablet and rhyming dictionary, then nervously asked whether the fire of hospitality’.
anyone would like me to write something. Someone said, ‘Write a poem Just try not to set fire
an
about this jumper I’m knitting.’ I asked a few questions, then tackled it like to your Kindle.
exam. At the end of the afternoon I emailed it to my first client. Success !
Since then, I’ve been asked for a children’s story, and produced one of 800
words; another time I wrote a biographical rhyming acrostic on someone’s
name. A story set in the Falklands in 1982 and 1983 meant homework for
’.
several days. It ended up 3,000 words long, and my client said it was ‘superb
I earmarked today for research. I talked to people about themse lves, their
work and tried to learn the vocabulary of their crafts. ‘150 grit emery cloth’
was a novel word combination to me. In addition, I have written something:
this letter. ‘One can never have
Writing on demand is challenging, but very rewarding. I now know I don’t enough socks,’ said
have to wait for inspiration to strike. Dumbledore. ‘Another
But thank you, Writing Magazine, for so many inspirational articles. Christmas has come and
SUSAN PERKINS
gone and I didn’t get a
Bedale, North Yorkshire
single pair. People will insist
on giving me books.’
J.K Rowling, Harry Potter
The star letter each month earns a copy of the Writers’ & and the Philosopher’s Stone
Artists’ Yearbook 2023, courtesy of Bloomsbury. Write to
letters@[Link].

MICROSCOPE UNDER THE LENS

Reading James McCreet’s critique in Under the I wonder if other aspiring novelists use James McCreet’s chosen piece
Microscope in the December issue, one sentence in Under the Microscope to learn the art for themselves, then try and
stayed with me, and I understood his wisdom. apply it to their own writing ?
James wrote, ‘the attention is more on the Lately I have been reading his chosen 300 words and writing down
pleasure of writing than on communicating a my own idea of how to improve the work. When I feel confident
scene to the reader.’ that I’ve done enough I compare my thoughts with James’s criticism,
I can be self-indulgent when I write and lose and sometimes take much pleasure when I realize that I have picked
sight of the purpose. It’s only when I read the up on exactly the same thoughts as the expert. As for the things I’ve
work back several weeks later that I recognise missed, it becomes a learning curve that makes me more determined
this and am grateful to have saved myself the to try and do better next month. Since pitting my wits against the
embarrassment of sharing it with a wider audience. master in this way, I feel my writing has become more succinct.
Chris Belton Kay Jenkins
Essex South Wales

32 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 COMMUNITY

‘You don’t
start out writing good stuff.
You start out writing crap and WORD OF THE YEAR
thinking it’s good stuff, and then
gradually you get better at it. Collins Dictionary has picked AI as the ‘Word of
That’s why I say one of the most the Year’. David Shariatmadari, author of Don’t
valuable traits is persistence.’ Believe A Word: From Myths to Misunderstandings
— Hugo & Nebula Award- — How Language Really Works, explains the
winning science dictionary’s choice like this: ‘The revolutionary
fiction author, AI-powered language model burst into the public
Octavia E. Butler consciousness in late 2022, wowing us with its
ability to mimic natural human speech. It could
do much more than that, actually – need copy for
a presentation tomorrow morning? No problem.
A recipe for dinner using only what you’ve got left
in the cupboard? Done. And while people were
A STATIONERY START understandably fascinated, they also started to get
A quote from Times writer, Sathnam Sanghera, ‘A career a bit anxious. If computers were suddenly experts
in writing is just a fetish for stationery that has got out of in that most human of domains, language, what
hand’, amused me and rings so true, and I wonder for how next? Cue an explosion of debate, scrutiny, and
many others? prediction, and more than enough justification for
As a child and growing up, I walked past Woolworths’ front Collins’ 2023 Word of the Year.’
counters of cosmetics, jewellery and sweets to browse in WH Making up the shortlist were: bazball, canon
Smith, collecting a large assortment of stationery-related items, event, debanking, de-influencing, greedflation,
exercise books, notebooks, pens and pencils. Of course, once nepo baby, semaglutide, ultra-processed, and
home, the pristine white pages just begged to be written on – ULEZ. How many of those do you know, or
and so it began. have even heard of? Find out what they mean
I still haunt WH Smith and my writing muscle is flexed and why they were chosen at [Link]
as much from the clean pages of a new writing book as from [Link]/language-lovers/the-
other inspirations. I have to add that a ‘new page’ on the acceleration-of-ai-and-other-2023-trends/
computer sadly does not have the same effect.
ANNE WILSON
Morpeth, Northumberland
ME ON A PAGE
If I had to earn money to feed
my family, like any other tool,
What a pleasure reading Phyllida Shrimpton’s article (WM Nov), on novel a circular saw to cut timber, or
writing when older with so many valid observations. paint stripper to clean off old
I have lectured, written and published all my life. In my twenties, I decided paint, I would use AI to produce
that one day, I would accept the challenge and write a novel. short stories and novels, but that
A lifelong sufferer from chronic relapsing indolence, I was 75, verging on is not why I write. I want my
the geriatric, when I started. It took a year to write, and longer to edit. Now words to laugh and giggle with
at the age of 81, my health and life expectancy, have declined. If I want to me; to feel melancholy; to cry
see it in print, it is too late for agents or publishers. in pain. I want my writing to be
However, Anroth the Druid is a story told by a storyteller about the last me on a page; to feel the sun on
Celtic Kingdom of Northumbria, perfect for an audio novel, which I have its back; hear the patter of the
now recorded. raindrops; let the lightening flash
My daughter is a social media consultant, her husband a film editor. We across the paragraphs. In any
have had great fun working together. But far more important, having written case, it isn’t AI that creates the
in old age, I leave behind something much more intimate than the written stories, but whoever programmed
word; the love, the laughter, the passion and the pauses, in a voice. the software. I do not want to
Release is planned for the new year, in the meantime, you can follow us on be nothing more than their
Instagram: @mfburkeauthor reflection.
MICHAEL BURKE DAVID G. DALTON
Gateshead, Newcastle Faringdon, Oxfordshire

[Link] JANUARY 2024 33

 IN THE
SPOTLIGHT:
YOUR WRITING
DARK SIDE
Spooky season evidently offered creative inspiration aplenty for the WM writers, who responded to the call for
writing in November’s crime-themed issue on the theme of ‘Dark Side’ with our fullest mailbox yet. The poetry
and prose sent in demonstrated darkness in many guises, with unafraid work that explored the shadier aspects
of human existence with nuance and verve. The theme may have been dark, but what a pleasure it has been to
read the submissions, which interpreted the darkness with imagination, originality and some exceedingly fine
writing. Chosing the two exceptional pieces that we now present to you was always going to be a tough task,
but Lesley Mason and Leanne Simmons both sent in darkly glittering diamonds and we’re thrilled to include
them on these pages. TJ

POETRY
Noir (After Nick Triplow) By Lesley Mason WE WANT
There is a darkness YOUR WRITING
where we all lie bleeding
and a starless night (and we’ll pay you for it!)
that asks us to stand
and walk away Each month in WM, we feature creative writing by our
from all that we’ve left subscribers. Selected pieces will be published in WM and we pay
of our bodily fluids £50 for prose and £25 for poetry, and provide a mini-critique
upon the melting snows. explaining what made the pieces stand out to us.
This month, inspired by Ben Hutchinson’s thought-provoking
The patterns of the streets piece on the importance of writing (p14), we’d like your
feel different in the rain; submissions on the theme of: Why I Write. The pieces can be
what stays broken gets washed fiction, non-fiction or poetry, but should in some way address why
away, sluiced down drains writing matters.
and what gets fixed Submit prose up to 500 words and poetry up to 40 lines to
forever bears the scars wmsubmissions@[Link]. Include your subscriber
of innocence blood-stained. number.
The closing date is 31 December.
Street lights fracture
the amber and diamonds
beneath our careworn soles
and the dark tidal waters
seep through our consciences • This stunning poem by Lesley Mason was the first piece we received,
raising the wrecks we’d thought and it set the bar exceedingly high. This is entirely memorable writing
forever buried beyond the flats. that fearlessly acknowledges the loneliness and isolation of noir as it
twists the psychic horror at its heart into a kind of stark, fractured
There is the darkness beauty. As Nick Triplow pointed out in his piece in the November issue,
where all lies await their keening noir demands that its writer look into the darkness and understand
and sleepless nights how it changes the people whose lives it touches. In this poem, Noir,
that ask us to stand Lesley expresses all of that: urban grit and the unrelenting pain of
and walk away. broken lives, wrapped up in a tender, terrible understanding.

34 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 WRITING LIFE

PROSE
You Can Be Brutal With Roses By Leanne Simmons
A promise is a promise. She stayed with me that blowy afternoon, as the day
She believed in ghosts. They gathered in her as we folded into evening, into night, and my body went cold.
waited and watched the trees turn yellow. When leaves Held her head in her hands on the bottom stair while
fell and swirled at the doorstep, two men set up the men with plain faces zipped up the bag and wheeled my
hospital bed at the garden end of the living room, their remains over the threshold and into the hearse, beneath
eyes and voices low. Mother’s watchful eye – watchful a flat black sky crowded with quiet constellations.
heart – gently directing. Lowering the coffin into the clag, she wept (I’d have
I grew used to its metallic wheeze. Was almost soothed been happy, scattered under the peonies where I used
by it. But she was restless. Fluttered like a bird, her to play) and a October robin sang, busying itself in the
hand landing on mine briefly before flitting off to tuck hawthorn. She wanted somewhere to be, to remember
or untuck a sheet, straighten the coverlet or replenish me, a sign, so I rippled through the beech trees that
the cup of water I could no longer sip. I hated her pain erupted between the gravestones, kissed her face, soft
harder than my own. She couldn’t settle. Fussed about with bewilderment, the way she looked when listening
the temperature in the room, opened the French door to difficult music she couldn’t quite fathom.
enough to let the garden in – breathy morning mist,
glint of dew on the pyracantha berries – only to close it Ghosts travel light. We find our way back. Along
moments later, while the chant of a nearby train faded ribbons of road, slick from a downpour. Above towns
into the distance. and cities, buoyed by a rush of clouds. Through fields in
Release comes slow, like careful footsteps. A steady a gathering, water-grey haze.
letting go. Shadows on her forehead darkened and Orange dawn. I found her amongst the roses, morning
my eyes grew heavy, gazing past her at the wall, busy bleeding into the sky, a strangle of dead-heads clustered
with family photographs in cloudy frames. A crumple in a basket hooked over her elbow. Her dusty eyes
of paper prescription bags lined the window ledge, shadowed by a mustard-coloured sou’wester casting a
squashed amongst spider and snake plants. Then the feel queasy glow on the high points of her spidery face.
of her face up close. Eyes darting like a cornered rat’s. “You can be brutal with roses,” she said. “Snip right
It was too much to ask. Burdened by her promise, her down to the next pair of leaves. They’ll come back.”
age-thick fingers kneaded the patchwork cushion she’d A promise is a promise.
stitched together with memories. I knew she couldn’t do Release.
it. My eyes closed and my heart broke like her promise.

• The exceptional writing – layered, haunted,

elliptical, allusive – of Leanne Simmons’ ‘You Can
Be Brutal With Roses’ immediately set it apart. So
did the devastating delicacy of its exploration of a
truly dark theme – the death of an adult child before
its parent. Set within a limbo-like liminal space
where life and death are beautifully blurred, and
existence is a force of love and belief that outlives a
physical body, and told through the perspective of
the departed spirit, Leanne’s bold creative choices are
delivered with writing of a memorable lyric intensity.

Highly commended Next month,

Terry Baldock; Antony Crossley; Fay Dickinson; Joyce Evers; Dee Gordon; look out for the pieces
Georgia Griffiths; Lucinda Hart; Alison Hennessy; Isabelle Hichens; Sue we’ve selected from the
Hoffman; Deborah Hugill; Katie Kent; Tom Powell; Clare Reeve; Matt submissions call in the
Roberts; Christina Swingler; Kate Twitchen. December issue on the
theme of ‘Unreliable
Narrator’.

[Link] JANUARY 2024 35

Subscribers’
news Magic
To feature in Subscribers’
News contact: ingredients
tjackson@[Link]
I was never much good
at taking advice, writes
subscriber John Phelps.
Apart from not reading
HELL other people’s works
enough and failing to

ON EARTH heed all directives to

plot properly, I have
eschewed the view that
I am excited to share the details of my it is vital to be clear
next novel, The Summer and the May, about what my chosen
writes subscriber Lucinda Hart. genre is.
It’s my fourth to be published, and The advice I received
my third with Vulpine Press. This book at a talk I attended
is special to me because I wrote the recently was: ‘If you
first draft when I was 16. Over the don’t spell out the
years it has had many edits and fact that your book
improvements, and bears little is crime, romance,
resemblance to that early work. fantasy, historical or
The Summer and the May is a belonging to some
standalone folk horror set in SW other specific category, no
Cornwall (where I grew up and still one will be interested in buying the book.’
live). Helston Flora Day celebrates At the moment, my big hope is that
the victory of the Archangel Michael collections of short stories are somehow
over the Devil, and the legend is different and that, in this context, ‘eclectic’
retold every year in a mumming play is not a dirty word.
called the Hal an Tow. Long ago St My latest book, A Kind Of Magic,
Michael fought Lucifer and banished contains twenty-four short stories that vary
him to Hell, sealing the entrance greatly in both theme and length.
with a giant stone. That stone gives the town of Helston its name, The collection begins with an off-beat
and allegedly lies somewhere beneath the Angel Hotel. romance … if it can be called a romance
I chose to move the gateway to Hell a few miles away to where … and includes a multiplicity of themes
the cliffs are beaten and eroded by the waves. Deep below the sea that include crime, fantasy, sport, more
and the rocks, Lucifer is stirring. romance, a bit of satire and a few attempts
A young girl visiting Cornwall becomes enchanted by a beautiful to be humorous. In other words, the
man she meets on the cliffs. As her obsession grows and her behaviour collection is eclectic.
becomes more erratic, her friends fall away from her, and she is left In my defence, I must point out that,
alone and afraid when the two ancient adversaries battle once more in at the age of 81, I have been around a
the skies over Cornwall. bit and been able to draw on an array of
My two other novels with Vulpine are family dramas set experiences. Or, to put it another way, I
in Cornwall, dealing with the everyday upheavals of family, like to think that A Kind Of Magic contains
romance, motherhood, illness, death and so on. There are two something for everyone.
more of these to come in the near future. But if you fancy It can be bought at bookshops such as
something more Wicker Man do try The Summer and the May. Waterstones and W H Smith or directly
Find me on Facebook as Lucinda Hart Author and let me know through the publisher, Matador. Further
what you think. information is obtainable via Google.

36 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 COMMUNITY

Swansea and District

Writers’ Circle
It’s often said that in order to be a better writer it’s important to
surround yourself with other writers, and where better to start than here,
at Swansea and District Writers’ Circle? writes Rhydderch Wilson.
This eclectic and close-knit bunch of novelists, short story writers,
poets, playwrights, script-writers and others would like to invite you
to join us. All we ask is that you share our passion for the art and
craft of all things writing-related.
Established in 1954, our ranks have included everything from
bestselling authors, award-winning poets and professional editors to self-
publishers, memoir writers and those who write just for the joy of it. We
gather monthly to listen to a guest speaker and exchange news, tips and
advice. In addition, there is a poetry group and a feedback group that
get together once a month, and we meet up regularly for informal get-
togethers and meals out.
Interested? For more info visit us online at [Link]
or email secretary@[Link].
See you soon!

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

Before Covid, I had dabbled in various local leisure centre, which I thoroughly
forms of writing – collaborative play- enjoyed. I’m now focusing on writing
writing and song-writing for local festivals, book two in the trilogy, rather than
and factual articles for national and direct sales, but the book can still be
local magazines related to my own niche bought online, as print or ebook, from
interests, writes subscriber Suzanne Stewart. my agency Silverwood, and other online
Come lockdown, I was determined to book retailers.
finish a YA novel I’d begun which was set Retailing the novel has been quite
in Bronze Age Britain and called Rowan a learning curve for me. For example,
The Dreamweaver. I acquired beta readers I saw it as alternative history, but
to whom I forwarded a chapter at a time everyone related to it as fantasy fiction:
– very good for making sure each one this was a positive, because it is really a
ended on an intriguing note. book for all ages above primary school,
They gave me a lot of helpful feedback, and people relate to this because that’s
including the view that they thought like the Harry Potter series, or the
the story should be able to find a Narnian chronicles. I also didn’t realise
publisher. However, I was so desperate booksellers could pick up a book and
to feel I was going to produce something concrete from this advertise it online without letting the author know until I
difficult time, I decided to self-publish with the help of a phoned Writing Magazine last summer regarding an online
local agency (Silverwood Books). An artistic young relation Zoom course, and a helpful member of staff said, ‘Oh, I
produced a fabulous cover design! The first print run came see Waterstones is advertising your book’ – I thought it
out in December 2021, and responses have been very must be a mistake until she started reading me the blurb!
gratifying, a few of which are visible on my author Facebook My novel was also picked up by music publishers, which
page, set up for me by an IT-literate daughter, facebook. my publishing assistant said had never happened with their
com/rowanthedreamweaver. other authors: but music does come into all fiction I write,
I sold getting on for 200 books directly at community and even my surname for it, Stewart, is the surname of a
events, becoming an unofficial writer-in-residence at my grandma who was a singer!

[Link] JANUARY 2024 37

 F R EE

ADVENT CALENDAR
RANGE
writing

Give yourself the Christmas gift of new writing in these

themed festive exercises from Jenny Alexander

ecember is Advent, an or hate. Give your reasons. Take five 8. Poetry

important part of the Christian minutes. Write a cheesy poem for a personalised
calendar and in modern times, Christmas card for a sweetheart or
a secular celebration too, as 4. Poetry spouse, a family member or even a
children of all faiths and none Write a Christmas haiku, a three-line special friend – you know the kind
count down the days by opening the poem with five syllables in the first of thing. Make it emotional. Make it
little doors on their advent calendars. line, seven in the second and five in rhyme. Take five minutes to do this.
Behind each door in your twelve-day the third. Take five minutes, play with
free-range writing advent is a little treat different versions, use all the time. 9. Memoir
of writing. Open one each day to give Cast your mind back to outings or
yourself a breather from the Christmas 5. Memoir events that you’ve enjoyed in the run-
chaos and feel the benefits of a daily Think about objects you associate with up to Christmas, such as a panto or
writing practice, or binge them like a Christmas, now and in the past. Choose school play, a carol concert or poetry
naughty child, scoffing all the chocs. one. Close your eyes and picture it, as reading, a visit to Santa or a Christmas
There’s really only one rule: stick to the focal point in a whole scene on the Eve dinner at the local pub. Choose
the timings. front of a Christmas card. Describe the one and write about it for five minutes.
card as you imagine it, the image and What happened? Who was there? How
1. Memoir the message inside. Who would you do you feel now, remembering?
Think about things you used to do send it to? Take five minutes.
in the run-up to Christmas at various 10. Fiction
times in your life, such as making 6. Fiction You can find a story by placing a
decorations or going out carol singing, Imagine a moment in a Christmas character in a situation and seeing
filling your children’s stockings, celebration – a church Christingle, a what happens. The situation in
cooking a Christmas dinner. Choose family gathering, an office party, a school this story is someone is travelling
one and write about it for five minutes. nativity play. Take your time; use all your somewhere for Christmas. Who?
Finish with a reflection – looking back, senses. Describe the setting – not the And where are they? For example, in
how do you feel about it now? story, just the place where the story is an airport, on a train, driving alone
unfolding. Write for five minutes. or with somebody else, or walking.
2. Fiction Where are they going? What are their
Somebody hates Christmas. Who? 7. Non-fiction hopes and fears for when they arrive?
Why? Make some notes on this This is a research task, research being Don’t tell the story, just describe the
character and their backstory. Feel the one of the joys of writing non-fiction. character and the situation for five
way that getting to know them and Look up advent traditions from around minutes, noticing how ideas about
their situation sparks story ideas – what the world – besides advent wreaths, what might happen next start coming
might happen that could change the candles and calendars you might to you.
way they feel? Take five minutes. stumble upon skating Santas, talking
pets and who knows what else? Then 11. Non-fiction
3. Non-fiction write for two minutes, reflecting on the Create an affirmation for your writing
Review a Christmas film you love experience of discovering new things. life as a Christmas gift to yourself.

38 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

Affirmations express something you aspire to as if 12. Poetry
you have already achieved it. Start, ‘Right now…’ This poem is like an advent calendar for someone
What are your writing ambitions for yourself? For you love, alive or dead, a numbered list of little
example, ‘Right now, I am a published novelist’, Christmas gifts – a favourite sweet treat, an
‘Right now, I am a competition winner’, ‘Right experience you shared, a book, a garment, a place you
now, I have filled a whole journal, writing every know that they will like. Create a sense of the person
day.’ Enjoy imagining. As Einstein said, ‘What is through your choice of gifts, and let the poem express
now real was once imagined.’ If you can’t imagine something of the relationship between you. Take as
yourself doing something, you will never achieve it. long as you like.

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[Link] JANUARY 2024 39

WRITERS’ CIRCLES

MYTHS & LEGENDS Use folk myths and local legends to inspire new writing
in these group exercises from Julie Phillips

here are many fascinating and the ghost realise they are a ghost? What one of them? What is its purpose and
unusual myths and legends would they talk about and do they have what does it want? Write a piece where
associated with the UK and any common ground? What does the the new beast has to do something it
across the world. From the ghost want from the encounter and really doesn’t want to do, or comes
Loch Ness Monster, Big how does the eye witness feel once they into contact with humans when it
Foot to the mystery of the Bermuda realise it’s a ghost? Was the ghost known doesn’t want them to know it exists.
Triangle, there is plenty for the group to the eye witness in life or are they What happens? How do they react to
to tap into and use a legend or two to strangers? How do they communicate each other?
inspire their writing. with each other? Why did the ghost
appear to this particular person? Famed for …?
Ghosts and ghouls There are a lot of possibilities here so The place where you live might
Wherever your group meet, there is encourage the group to explore as many be well known for something, for
bound to be a good ghost story or two, different scenarios as possible. example, Ironbridge and the Industrial
so ask the group to do some research. Revolution, or cheese making in the
If they can’t find any, make them up. Famous sons and daughters Cheddar Gorge. Either go with what it
What are the specific details about the Find information on a local person, alive is already associated with, or come up
ghost? Do they frequent a certain place or dead, who has made a big impact on with a different association – the more
or are they found in different locations? the local area. They could have set up interesting and creative the better. How
What times of day or night are they a charity or be a community volunteer, did the area become known for it and
seen and who has seen them? Is there a shop owner who raises money for who started it and why? Write a piece
anyone in the area who has seen the a local cause or someone who built from the viewpoint of the inventor
ghost(s)? What is it that the ghost wants? a landmark. It could be historical or or entrepreneur who started it all.
Are they searching for their lost love, or more recent. Write a few notes down What were their thoughts and feelings
something long lost that was important about that person to share with the at the time? How did they deal with
to them? Do they seek revenge or group and discuss how that information uncertainty and setbacks? Was there any
forgiveness, and what does it say in eye- might make a good basis of a novel or opposition? Why were people against
witness reports? Maybe someone in the non-fiction piece. The family life and it? Write a scene, from opposing sides,
group has seen the ghost(s). If the group difficulties of a local business figure or where the conflict occurs.
are making one up, what elements of the builder could throw up some irresistible
locality did they use to make the ghost inspiration as long as the details and Using your local area and the myths
seem authentic? What are the features of names are changed sufficiently that the and legends connected to it are excellent
most local ghost stories that are similar? person, if still alive, can’t be identified. ways to inspire writing. Tapping into
Why do the group think this is? What local knowledge is great research that
is it that makes ghost stories, myths and Monster mash might lead to a short story, the basis
legends so appealing and last over years Take two mythical beasts, join them of a novel or poem, or a non-fiction
and centuries? together and make them into a character. piece. Challenge the group to come up
Write two pieces. The first should be Come up with an appropriate name for with more than one idea for a couple
from the viewpoint of the eye witness this beast and its characteristics. What of genres. When you meet again, read
and the second from the viewpoint of does it look like and sound like? Is it a some of the ideas out and see if anyone
the ghost. Does the eye witness know sentient being and how intelligent is it? can get their piece based on that activity
they are speaking to a ghost, and does Where does it live and is there more than published.

40 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 M Y W R I T I N G D AY

FEMI
KAYODE
The crime author and screenwriter tells
Lynne Hackles why early starts and planning
ground his writing process

emi Kayode has always had a day job, for as long where an investigative psychologist pursues the why of a
as he’s been writing. crime rather than the who. He’s been brought in to find
‘Even in university, I studied during the day out why the pastor of a megachurch is being accused of
and wrote plays at night,’ he says. ‘So, in a way, murdering his wife. There’s no body, and the pastor claims
I’ve always been structured regarding how I the wife takes personal retreats (no prize for guessing where
make time for writing. I try to be in bed by 9pm and set that came from!) and will return anytime soon, but the
my alarm for 3:30 am. To be fully present in the writing police do not believe this. It’s a heartbreaking tale of faith,
process, and declutter my mind from the stress of working self doubt, restoration and of course, gaslighting.
in advertising, I need at least six hours sleep. Less than five ‘When it comes to research I prefer more organic like
makes for a very cranky me, and very lacklustre writing. interviewing, watching documentaries and maybe visiting
‘Before getting out of bed, I check my Facebook page the setting I am writing about. I love content experts
and WhatsApp messages, trying to limit myself to forty because they can save you a lot of browsing time. As soon
minutes, then it’s out of bed, make coffee, take my as I settle on a theme or an idea, the first thing I do is look
multivitamins, walk around the house and get to my laptop for an expert in that field, even before writing a word. I
by 4:30. There’s a magical hour when I’m reminded why I also include these experts in my Beta Readers’ Group.
love writing and why it’s the best job in the world. I keep ‘Because of my training in TV screenwriting, I start a
pounding at the keyboard and boom, it happens. The book by writing my plot points but am aware that a lot
Muse arrives and I’m on top of the world. will change. The two things that don’t change are the
‘I generally aim for at least 90 minutes of writing but on beginning and the end. For every chapter, I ask myself –
a good day, have done two hours, then I walk about 6 km. what is the goal of this scene/chapter? Who owns it? What
Walking clears my head and I record my thoughts on what is revealed? And how will it end?
I’ve written or what I will write the next day. ‘By the middle of the book, I tend to forget all the
‘Weekends tend to be random. If there’s a deadline, I outline and just write. By then I’m more comfortable with
power through day and night. If not, I rest on Saturdays the story and am generally sure where I am going with it.
and use Sundays to prepare for my day job. This is my I believe we all plan our writing. We just do it in different
at-home routine. However, I write best when I take a long ways. Some do all their planning in their brains, others jot
weekend off to an Airbnb or hotel. During solo writing down, some talk to friends, others attend workshops. Some
retreats, I am extremely productive, working day and night also do it faster than others. Especially more experienced
and catching naps of an hour or two in bursts and I once ones. But we all plan. Trust me.’
managed a record 32,000 words. When writer friends pull
this stunt, they call it “Pulling A Femi Kayode”.
‘A different mind space is needed to write a novel,
and another for screenplays. When writing a novel, I WRITING PLACE
watch films. When writing a screenplay, I read novels. I ‘My favourite writing spot is the family dining table. It
prefer novel writing because of the independence. With should be called a work table as it’s used for homework, my
screenplays you’re part of a huge machine and your “voice” wife’s work, everything else but eating! I live in Namibia
tends to get lost after tons of notes and reverts. Writing a and the landscape is gorgeous. From the table I get to
novel is more solitary and when you’re blessed with brilliant see the rolling hills of Auasblick. My sons insist they can
editors whose sole aim is to help you write your best work, tell how well my work is going from the sound of my
it can be a much more fulfilling experience than writing keyboard during the night. When I go off to write, my
a screenplay. But writing for the screen pays much better only specification is a bed and a writing desk. I call this my
than writing a novel. This makes up for the downsides. starving artist mode! I even refuse housekeeping service
‘My second novel, Gaslight, is the sequel to the first, throughout my stay.’
Lightseekers. It’s a continuation of the Philip Taiwo Series

[Link] JANUARY 2024 41

 The
poetry
of music
Alison Chisholm is impressed with the musicality of a
poem where the content expresses its subject
oetry and music are sister arts. Both rely on synaesthesia of tasting music and feeling it through their
sound and rhythm to communicate their body. It ends with a coming together of instruments
message. Both have the ability to calm, to through time and space, culminating in a splendid
disturb, to frighten, to anger, or to spread joy. description of music’s magic as vital, tribal, bracing, tragic.
Because of the closeness of this relationship, The piece is neatly crafted into two ten-line stanzas,
it’s easy to see why many poets use music as a theme for with eight lines using pairs of alternating rhyme sounds
their writing. and with a rhyming couplet to finish. It is strongly
Peter Sutton lives in Malvern, Worcestershire, where metrical, with trochaic tetrameter used throughout, the
Sir Edward Elgar made his home from 1891 to 1899, metre of Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha. This pattern
and where some of his best-loved music was composed, reverses the more usual iambic foot, so that its first
including the Enigma Variations and Serenade for Strings. syllable is stressed and second unstressed, and there are
The inspiration of Elgar country prompted Peter to write just four feet in a line.
a play in 2007 to mark the 150th anniversary of the Peter describes the writing process that produced Listen,
composer’s birth. Elgar and Alice, starring Gerald Harper, explaining that when he was working on poems inspired
toured briefly and was warmly received, but it also by music in general and his Elgar play in particular, the
provided its author with a lot of material that could be title and first line of Listen introduced themselves as a
used in poetry, of which Listen is just one example. thought captured and stored in a computer file he titles
The poet points out: ‘Although the poem does not quote Poems to Write. It was while developing this train of
directly from the play, the opening lines are in the spirit of thought that the four elements of the completed poem
a passage in which Elgar tries to explain to his wife Alice suggested themselves as Listen, Taste, Feel (Touch), and
what music is and how it moves him. He begins: Music isn’t Sound or Musical Instruments. The idea of producing four
just sounds, Al. It’s tone, rhythm and pattern…’ stanzas changed, and the four areas to be addressed were
Listen is a glorious celebration of the magic of music, condensed into two stanzas.
relished through the magic of poetry. It’s a list poem, With such a dominant metrical form, it’s surprising to
with the title’s imperative moving into the nature of the learn from Peter that, ‘Originally, the poem was in free
sounds, and then exhorting readers to experience the verse, though already containing alliteration and internal

42 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 POETRY WORKSHOP

rhymes. To create these, I made much use of a thesaurus.’ usually think of slant rhyme as the mainstay of free verse,
He adds: ‘I would not claim that to be hard work, but it holding the sounds together where there is little or no full
was certainly time-consuming.’ rhyme. Listen demonstrates how slant rhyme elements
The change from free verse to a more formal can support and enhance a rhymed poem, too. The use
presentation corresponds with the poet’s altered of repetition, consonance, full consonance and assonance
preferences. ‘As time goes on, I find myself less adds to the effect of rhyme. Read the poem aloud to see
satisfied with poems that do not have regular rhythm just how well it works.
and/or rhyme. In hunting for words that meet that Two phrases in the second stanza are particularly
requirement, I often discover what I really meant arresting. Its opening words urge readers to Listen with
to say, and this can change the direction of a poem your skin, your lips. Skin is the clothing that surrounds and
fundamentally. If I am still not protects every organ of the body.
satisfied, then I give up and The very mention of it in this
start again.’ This highlights context hints at the parallel of
the subtleties of vocabulary LISTEN music enveloping us. The lips are
choice. Finding the perfect organs of communication, taking
word is not useful only for And you’ll feel the music throbbing, in food and drink and breath, and
slotting into the rhyme soaring, dipping, swelling, sighing, kissing – vital functions. So music
scheme and metre. When and the voices breaking, sobbing, is elevated from art to an essential
an altered word shifts the roaring, reeling, cringing, crying, component of human life.
poem’s direction, it can reveal sounds long silent now returning. In the stanza’s sixth line, we
something new not just for Taste them on your tongue like honey, read the apparently simple phrase
the reader but as a bonus for melting, moiling, yielding, yearning, whose message is at the heart of
the poet. spicy, tangy, dulcet, sunny, the poem; making friends across
Look at the selections in the lady’s bedstraw, saxifrage, the ages. Music is timeless, and
lists of the first stanza. The sloe and sorrel, speedwell, sage. the delight in it links us with
verbs within the first four lines fellow humans at the moment of
all fit the meaning. To describe Listen with your skin, your lips, composition and forever after.
the sounds of the music, we listen with your heels and toes, Peter describes how he
are given the expected dipping follow with your spine, your hips, worked on Listen. ‘The problem
and swelling, while the sighing where the panic piper goes, throughout was deciding whether
puts music firmly into the round the houses, round the neighbours’, the poem was finished. Until I
experience of the human voice. making friends across the ages, realised that any doubt on that
When the idea of the voice is brass and strings and fifes and tabors, score meant that it was not. I have
explored, sobbing and roaring brash guitars on makeshift stages: lost count of the versions of this
are obvious, but we need to listen to the music’s magic, poem.’ These versions arrived and
think about reeling and cringing vital, tribal, bracing, tragic. were tweaked over six or seven
a little more. To repeat: all of years. It’s no coincidence that the
these fit … but some introduce beautifully crafted result is a very
an element of surprise. There’s special piece of writing.
an attractive additional touch with the full rhyme of
soaring / roaring placed at the start of the lines, and
double alliteration in the fourth line, so that the sound
effects created are tightened and neatened.
At the end of this stanza we have another list that
includes the expected and the surprising, with some
delightful tie-ins. Having introduced the suggestion of
honey, Peter brings in the honey-coloured and scented
lady’s bedstraw. There’s another example of double
alliteration with melting, moiling, yielding, yearning.
The last line bristles with s sounds, and gives not only
sibilance, with its onomatopoeic whispering effect, but
also the wordplay of sloe / speedwell.
As well as the wealth of alliteration, there are multiple
examples of slant rhyme all through the poem. We

[Link]
FICTION FOCUS

Are you wondering about using your family’s history in your writing?
Margaret James considers the potential for mining your family tree in fiction

e have only to glance at television ‘I’ve always been haunted by the stories I heard from
programme schedules to realise that my mother’s French friends and relatives, people who
whatever our ancestors did – good, experienced the terror of fleeing with little more than
bad, heart-warmingly memorable, or they could carry, while being strafed by bullets from
maybe so hideously embarrassing that enemy planes. While I was writing Last Train from
their actions might be best forgotten by their present- Paris, these two elements suddenly came together in
day descendants – could also be of interest to people unexpected ways in my tale of two women, one in
outside our family circles. France and the other in Cornwall, doing all they could
What if nobody in your own family has ever been to protect twin baby girls during the war and then, in
famous or notorious? the aftermath, to reunite them.
This is very unlikely to matter. Novelists should ‘Of course, my novel doesn’t exactly mirror my family’s
always be ready to consider the potential of all kinds of own experiences. My mum (who was exchanging letters
storytelling material, and families often prove to be the with her boyfriend, later to become my dad, all the
happiest of hunting grounds for inspiration. time she was in France), most definitely did not return
As the daughter of an inveterate hoarder, I’m lucky to home with a French baby! My story is more a bringing-
have access to my own family’s letters, documents and together of the emotions I picked up on as a child, along
photographs, which proved invaluable while researching with my reading of the history of civilians caught up in
the background for my historical novels set during the the Blitz in the UK and the occupation in France.
first half of the twentieth century. ‘The outbreak of war in Ukraine, happening
Novelist Juliet Greenwood also writes fiction set in the within weeks of starting to write my novel, meant
early twentieth century. ‘But I’ve only recently gained my storytelling became painfully real. I found myself
the confidence to use my own family’s history in my watching the kinds of events I was writing about
novels: in The Shakespeare Sisters series, and in my stand- unfolding in front of my eyes on the news and in social
alone Last Train from Paris,’ she explains. media and, for a while, I found it too painful to carry
‘I loved writing The Shakespeare Sisters, for which I on. I was afraid I was exploiting other human beings’
returned to the landscape of my childhood near Stratford- horror just for entertainment.
upon-Avon, with its traditional village communities and ‘But then I realised these stories need to be told.
family memories of village choirs, long before TV and Also, in the past, women have so often been portrayed
social media took hold. I also enjoyed following how as simply the victims of war, rather than the ultimate
such communities survived, and were changed by, the survivors, working together to keep their families and
experience of living through the Second World War. those around them safe in the most impossible of
‘My latest novel Last Train from Paris features a story circumstances.
I’ve long wished to tell. It was originally inspired by my ‘As I’ve grown older, and as I’ve watched families
mother’s escape from France as a seventeen-year-old on fleeing Ukraine, I’ve realised that my mother taught me
the day the war broke out, when her ferry across the to understand the truth about war, and also about its
Channel was stalked by a German submarine. emotional impact on the future, even when the actual

44 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 Five quick
questions
with D E White
events have been forgotten.
‘As I wrote Last Train from Paris, I learned not
to be intimidated by my own family history. I
didn’t feel obliged to stick to the precise events and
characters. It’s the remembered emotional reactions
and experiences that are the truth at the heart of
any story, and stories have to take their own way.’
Cate Green, who was featured in the Five Quick
Questions column in September 2023, was also
inspired by a relative’s life story to write her debut
novel The Curious Kidnapping of Nora W.
Cate’s mother-in-law Norma Celemenski was 1. When and where did your journey as an author begin?
born in 1925 in what would later become Nazi- I started writing when I worked as cabin crew for British
occupied Poland. As a teenager, she was deported Airways, on long night flights across the Atlantic. I would
to Auschwitz. ‘Like my Nora in the novel, scribble down a few story ideas during my break. After my first
Norma Celemenski was resilient, determined and baby was born, I began to write more seriously, and was selected
stubborn,’ writes Cate in her Author’s Note. ‘It was for a Curtis Brown New Beginnings workshop in London.
her resilience and spirit that gave me the idea of
writing about a survivor, a woman who might take 2. What is (or has been) your proudest moment as a writer?
a personal revenge against the perpetrators of the I have just finished book twenty!
Holocaust by becoming the oldest person in the So many other moments: signing with my agent, with my
history of the world. publishers, and seeing the books acquire such a wonderful
‘Nora W is a novel about survivors of war and following.
injustice, and about their lives as ordinary people I suppose, out of everything for which I have to be grateful,
with an extraordinary past.’ I am proudest of having the courage to send my books out on
So now, thinking about Juliet’s and Cate’s submission sixteen years ago. It’s such a tough step for all of us.
inspiration for their work, I hope you do not feel
that in order to be of interest to readers, your own 3. Who or what is your greatest inspiration?
reality-based central characters need to have been My books focus on strong female characters. My friends and
celebrities of any kind? family are brilliant inspiration. I have also found so many
Maybe you could dig out those photograph friends within the book community. We inspire each other,
albums, read or re-read those letters, journals or celebrate, and commiserate when the rocky publishing road
diaries, and – above all – talk to the older members trips us up along the way!
of your families, and record their memories, while
you still have the chance? 4. What is coming up next for you, fiction-wise?
Finally, as you complete your first draft, maybe ask It’s going to be a busy 2024. You Know Her is out this month
yourself: do I need to let any members of my family and is a psychological thriller set in my hometown of Brighton,
read (and maybe comment on) my family-history- focusing on the darker side of fame. Book five in my long-
inspired story before anyone else gets to see it? running Detective Dove Milson series is out in February. I
Perhaps you do? really enjoy writing a series, but it can be so freeing to return to
my psychological thriller roots and coax those slightly different
ideas on to the page.
NOW TRY THIS
5. What is your top tip for writers still on the journey
• What pivotal event in your own family’s towards publication?
history could inspire a compelling story with an Ideally, we would all write (and work!) for love and money,
intriguing beginning, a well-sustained middle, thus feeding our hearts and also keeping our landlords happy
and a satisfying end? by paying the rent on time. In the real world, this rarely
happens, so I would say aim high, shoot for those stars, but
• What fascinating question(s) could you ask (and keep writing because you enjoy it, and genuinely love getting
of course answer) in the course of this story? those words down.

JANUARY 2024 45
TO READ THE STORY [Link]/magazine/2013/09/23/bad-dreams-3

In dreams
Helen Walters looks at the effects created by using
different perceptions and points of view in your fiction,
illustrated with a short story by Tessa Hadley

wo months ago, we that divide. Reality is typified by words the dream is that it includes an epilogue
discussed the potential like: solid; pragmatism; presence; to the book in which the characters
pitfalls of including substantial; right; clarity; truth. come to a sticky end. An epilogue
dreams in your stories. Unreality is signified by: art; dreams; which only exists in her dream.
This month we have a fiction; incantation; memory; absence; Can you read when you’re dreaming?
story, ‘Bad Dreams’ by Tessa Hadley, interpretation; reflection. Or do you find that every time your
which demonstrates an innovative use The story starts with a very tight dream features written materials the
of a dream sequence that really works. focus on a child in her bedroom as actual words blur and become impossible
It’s not a cop out, it’s a passage that she awakens from a dream. As she to pin down when you try to look
genuinely adds an additional layer of moves from unreality to reality, this at them? Apparently, there are good
meaning to the story. As always, you passage gives us some insights on the scientific reasons for this. Look also at
will get the most out of this masterclass nature of dreams. the description of how the child ‘sees’
if you read the story for yourself (www. Initially, we are told that the dream words written on the darkness in front
[Link]/magazine/2013/09/23/ seemed real in the sense that she was of her eyes. These are issues that go to
bad-dreams-3), and if you enjoy this sure that something had ‘happened’ how the human mind processes reality
story, you might enjoy the other while she was asleep. The dream felt and unreality, and the difference between
stories in Tessa Hadley’s collection, also like it came from outside of her, and waking consciousness and dreams.
entitled Bad Dreams. she forgets that she is ‘author’ of her The child, having woken, moves
In an interview with The New own dreams and therefore must have from her bedroom to other parts of her
Yorker, Tessa Hadley explains that created it herself. parents’ house. Although she is now
the story is based on an experience One of the things that makes the use awake, some elements of her experience
from her childhood when she had a of dreams in this story unusual and remain dreamlike. Again, we have a
similar dream to the child in the story. innovative is that the dream is triggered contrast between reality, underlined
So, it is based on a real event, albeit by a book (Swallows and Amazons) that by the pragmatism suggested by her
an experience that was a dream and the child was reading before she fell mother’s sewing materials, and unreality
therefore not actually real. Are you with asleep. So, the writer is combining two with the reference to Liberty Lawn
me so far? sorts of unreality – dreams and fiction – sounding like an incantation.
Whilst examining this story we will in the narrative. Notice how the meaning of her father’s
discuss the balance between things The characters in the book feel solid written words is described as being
that can be categorised as ‘reality’ to the child, as solid as the book itself accessible through her fingertips, and
and things that can be categorised as which lies against her leg. But this that her father’s words are also written
‘unreality’. As you read the story look supposed reality also raises questions, about a book – Leviathan – in this case
out for some terms on either side of because one of the disturbing aspects of not fiction, but political treatise.

46 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 MASTERCLASS

Note also how the girl describes her fiction. There are at least three sides in the way they know best, but with
parents as being more present in their to every story, Character A’s side, limitations due to their state of mind
absence than when they are actually Character B’s side and the truth – or, or level of perception. Whereabouts on
there. And that things in the room at least, the truth as far as it exists this spectrum your character sits, will
seem more substantial than she herself within the fiction of the story. The impact on how ‘true’ your narrative is.
does. This thought seems to tip her into more character’s points of view you are
behaving in a disruptive way, tipping working with in your story, the more • How much are you as the author
furniture over. angles on the truth there are. going to reveal?
At this point we switch to her Fiction is like a jigsaw where lots Another factor in how your reader will
mother’s point of view. And in switching of different pieces have to be put experience the truth of your story is what
point of view, we are of course moving together to show the complete picture. you, as the author, choose to reveal.
to a different perception of reality. All your point of view characters will In any piece of fiction there will be
While we are in the mother’s point have something to add to the story. a disparity between what the author
of view, we are offered some more And the way you incorporate that knows, what the POV character(s)
illustrations of different manifestations information depends on a few factors. and/or narrator knows, and what
of reality. We hear that sometimes the reader knows. This is important
her small son has lapses of reality in • Are you writing in first person because withholding information
which he seems not to recognise her. or third? from the reader is one of the writing
She also notes that she experiences In first person, your character techniques that builds tension and
reality differently from her husband, experiences the story through their suspense. It keeps the reader guessing
feeling that as he sleeps beside her, he is own eyes in a very immediate way. As and therefore turning the pages.
somewhere she can’t follow. Then, at the a result the reader, is reading the story The author has all the available
end of this section of the story, we see as though they are experiencing it for information. Whether they have that
her regarding her reflection in the mirror themself. This helps make your writing at the start of the writing process, or
and perceiving herself as a ‘phantom’ in feel intimate, authentic and engaging. not until the end, depends on whether
a baby-doll nightdress. Third person adds a layer of distance, the author is the sort of writer who
Then we are presented with a situation unless you are aiming for a very close likes to thoroughly plan their work or
where interpretation and reality diverge. third person perspective, which can whether they are more of a ‘make it up
Mother sees the chaos caused by feel as intimate as first. But it allows as you go along’ kind of person.
her daughter in the living room and more flexibility and objectivity, and it Regardless of the author’s process,
immediately assumes that it was caused increases the range of perspective you there will likely be information
by her husband in a fit of temper the can bring to the story. they know about their character
night before. Notice how she refers to the Whether in first person or third, which is part of their deep back
‘truth’ she’s always known and having a having more than one point of view story, and which the reader doesn’t
clarity about the future. Of course, the character allows multiple perspectives need to know and would bog down
reader knows she is wrong about this, but which will allow you to build up the pace of the story. The author
she clearly thinks she is right. your jigsaw picture. Or, to go with a may also know exactly what their
In this story, one of the things at the slightly different metaphor, to turn character looks like. They may even
centre of the truth/reality and untruth/ the kaleidoscope and create a different have a photo of them ripped from
unreality tension is point of view. picture. Alternatively, you could a magazine or found online for
Significantly, we are missing the father’s choose an omniscient (all-knowing) inspiration. But that doesn’t mean
point of view. And at the end of the story, narrator, to deliver the truth of your they need to share that information
he is blissfully ignorant of the night’s story from a number of perspectives. in detail with the reader, unless it’s
events. He doesn’t know what happened, relevant. There are things the writer
because he didn’t see it. And he isn’t • How reliable is your narrator? needs to know about the character
going to find out, because both mother To what extent is your narrator reliable? in order to write about them
and daughter have decided they are never An unreliable narrator is likely to offer confidently, but the reader doesn’t
going to tell. The reader is left wondering unreality, untruths and obfuscation. A necessarily need to know at all.
what will happen next as they all move reliable narrator is more likely to offer The job of the writer is to use the
forward in their different realities. reality, truth and clarity. decisions about perspective that we’ve
No narrator is totally reliable, discussed above, in order to present
Telling the truth but some are more unreliable than the right information to the reader in
It is often said that, in life, there are others. Some unreliable narrators are the right way and at the right time.
three sides to every story. Yours, mine deliberately twisting the truth whilst That is how the writer shares the truth
and the truth. The same applies to others are simply delivering the truth of their fiction with the reader.

[Link] JANUARY 2024 47

The rules of

If you’re writing fantasy, it’s worth making an effort to create the logic that will ensure your magic enchants
young readers. Amy Sparkes sets out a checklist for you to follow

F
antasy is one of the GIVE MAGIC STRUCTURE magic make life a little harder for your
most popular genres in • LIMITATIONS protagonist throughout the story?
children’s fiction. It offers Giving your magic some kind of • Do you have enough conflicts along
pure escapism from a framework to work within can the way which cannot be solved – or at
troubled world, boundless help keep it under control, and least, easily solved – by magic alone?
imagination, and a safer place than ensure it serves the story instead of
reality to explore dark and difficult overpowering it. Think about what • RULES
issues. Although the genre is extremely the limitations are of the magic in When thinking about the limitations
competitive, it is also very much on your storyworld. It’s important that you need to impose on the magic in
the wishlists of publishers and agents not every problem can be solved your story, consider the rules. Creating
because they know the potentially with magic, otherwise this can have a rules will help with the consistency
huge commercial value of books negative effect on story – conflicts can of the world-building and ensure the
within this genre. run the risk of becoming too easily magic doesn’t get out of control.
When you’re writing a fantastical resolved. As well as allowing story to
or magical story, it is important to breathe, giving magic limits can also QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT RULES:
consider how you are going to use the help it feel more believable. If the • Do you, as the writer, understand
magic, and how it is going to work. magic begins to feel unrealistic and what the rules of magic are?
Even though it is something literally over the top, even within the context • Have you made it clear to your
out of this world, it all needs to of its world, then the storytelling reader what these rules are? (As far as
makes perfect sense. Anything which begins to fall apart. they need to know).
is confusing, half-baked or which the • Have you brought in this
author doesn’t really quite understand QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT understanding as soon as appropriate
will always stand out. To avoid putting LIMITATIONS: within the story to help your reader
yourself in that situation, here are • What can the magic not do? understand implications on story?
some tips. • How do the limitations on the • How, when, why and how does

48 JANUARY 2024
 WRITING FOR CHILDREN

your magic work? that the concept and the understanding QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT
• Have you given your magic too many of their magical powers is well thought ANTAGONISTS:
possibilities to feel believable? through. It doesn’t mean you have to • How is the antagonist more powerful
• Does it make sense? go into great detail on how exactly the than the protagonist?
magic is wielded. If you are writing • Why is this the case, and is this
• LOGIC magic realism (where magic is normal logical?
It is worth really ensuring that and part of everyday life), a detailed • If your antagonist is more powerful,
everything about your fantasy novel explanation will likely jar in the text, as why are they unable to defeat your
feels logical, not just the magical rules your protagonist will already be aware protagonist quickly?
themselves. Sometimes our enthusiasm of this. However, as long as you have • And is this logical?
to ‘make magic’ creates story strands thought through the details, then it • If they are able to defeat your
which feel implausible, or perhaps a should come across as confident and protagonist quickly but are
little bit too convenient. believable in the text. withholding, what is the antagonist’s
In magical or fantastical stories, motivation for this? Does it feel
the reader has to suspend disbelief. QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT believable?
But if we do not provide a logical (if CHARACTERS AND MAGICAL
fantastical!) explanation behind the POWERS: DON’T LET MAGIC OVERSHADOW
story, or a satisfying structure to back • Does everyone have magical powers? STORY
up the story, or just stretch it all a little • Is it a standard ‘power’ or are there It’s fun to play with magic, but
too far... it will all come crashing down. levels of expertise? sometimes we can have a little bit too
Yet if we safeguard all this, by • Is it a talent, a learned process, or innate? much fun! Magic should always serve
addressing areas where logic may • What are the rules or opinions the story rather than be the centrepiece
seem weak or implausible, or the within society of using or wielding this itself, otherwise the book may seem
reader may feel uncomfortable with kind of power? spectacular... but unsatisying.
what we are asking them to go along • What happens if people abuse this This doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy
with, then we can prevent this world- power – are there consequences? creating magic and featuring it throughout
crashing from happening. • Can people lose this power? the book, obviously. It just means you may
• If not everyone possesses equal have to keep it on a bit of a tight rein and
QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT LOGIC: quantities or strengths of this power, how clearly understand its purpose in the story.
• How does the magic exist? Has it is the difference in power ‘levels’ perceived
entered suddenly into our world? in the society of your storyworld? QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT
• Or has the magic always been there? MAGIC AND STORY:
Is it ‘normal’? Is it something everyone • ANTAGONIST • Does the magic in this part of the
knows about? Your protagonist may possess magical story help develop story further?
• If it enters into our world, why is it powers themselves or have access to • Does it enable a character to be
the protagonist who discovers it? magic through a companion character explored in more depth?
• Does the inciting incident feel or artefact they have acquired. However • Does it further our understanding of
believable? magical power works in your world, it the storyworld or the magic?
• If the story is set in our world, and it is usually helpful if your protagonist • Does it cause further trouble or
has always been there, why have other has less power than your antagonist. An conflict for the protagonist?
people not discovered this magic before? antagonist who keeps the upper hand • Would the story work just as well
• Can this magic realistically be kept through most of the story is going to without magic in this part of the story?
secret? (If secrecy is required). feel more believable. It will also generate • Does it distract the reader from the
• Does magic solve problems instead of more conflict and push your protagonist main narrative drive too much?
the protagonist? to make increasingly desperate, bold or • Is the reader being bombarded with
• Does the magic ever feel a bit interesting choices. All good for story! new magical things without purpose?
‘convenient’? Does something magical As before, giving your antagonist • Is too much time being spent
ever turn up out of nowhere without limitations in the power they can wield is exploring the magic rather than moving
much explanation before or after? also helpful. Otherwise, the reader might on the story?
question why they don’t just overcome
• CONSIDER MAGICAL your protagonist simply and quickly. There is a lot to consider, but it is
CHARACTERS An alternative could be providing clear worth investing the time and making
Sometimes characters are magical reasons why your antagonist does NOT your fantasy story work effectively.
themselves and can directly or indirectly want to completely overcome your Analyse your magic, make it work
wield magic. If this is the case with protagonist, despite having the magical tighter, and you will reap the rewards in
your story, it’s important to make sure competencies and strength to do so. your writing. Good luck!

JANUARY 2024
FA N TA S T I C R E A L M S

NEW YEAR,
new approach
Want to explore new frontiers in your genre fiction, and give a fresh twist to
horror, sci-fi and fantasy stories? Alex Davis encourages you to think
about experimenting with your storytelling in 2024

he New Year is always a time for us to reflect on Playing with chronology

where we are, where we are going and of course It seems to be a current trend for more and more books
a chance to start with a clean slate each January. to tinker with time itself, eschewing the traditional, linear
As you read this, 2023 will very nearly be in the means of storytelling for an approach that sees characters
rear-view mirror, and you may already be giving and events jumping through time. This can serve a wide
some thought to those New Year’s Resolutions that are going range of purposes, and of course take many forms – you
to push you in the right direction in 2024. could present a story in a dual or even triple timeline, with
Perhaps hanging that fresh calendar on the year is an a number of linked plotlines playing out that all impact one
excuse to try something fresh with your storytelling – and another – something we have been seeing a good amount
in this article we’re going to explore some ways you can look in Gothic fiction of late for one. You may be telling a single
to break out of old habits and try some new approaches to story around a single character and cutting from one phase
writing in 2024. of life to another, allowing you to unravel the story in a more
interesting and dynamic way.
Epistolary storytelling Using this sort of approach can allow you to pace your
This is something I’ve always been a fan of in fiction, though story in a very different way – for example one thread of the
some writers are a little wary of it. Employing epistolary story may contain more drama and tension while the other
elements means that you have items or documents in your unravels more slowly. It may enable you to build mystery
writing that are ‘in-world’. An epistle refers to a letter in and hints in one storyline that eventually pay off in another.
particular, but in this case it does not need to be a letter It can be a great attention-getter for a reader, immediately
(though of course it could be). You might also give some capturing their attention and keeping them guessing as the
thought to text messages, emails, social media posts, newspaper timeline progresses in that non-linear fashion.
reports, or indeed anything else that you can think of!
These sorts of things can be great for adding an alternative • QUICK TASK: Pick a random scene from any point in a
approach to a piece, showing more of what is going on in story and write it as though it is the first chapter. Does it work
the world around our characters, creating a further sense of where it is or not? What might be the benefit of you starting
realism and believability for your story or indeed allowing there as compared to the chronological opening point? How
you a way to show what people beyond your central would placing it at the start affect how the rest of the story
protagonist are feeling without having to explore them in would be told? If you don’t like it at the start it can always go
lengthy narrative sections. into the story later on as per your original plan!

• QUICK TASK: Imagine one character in your story Second person

writing a letter to another. What would it say, and When discussing the perspective we tell our stories from, we
how would you capture the character’s voice and the only tend to reel off two possibilities – first person (telling
relationship between the two individuals in that letter? the story from a character’s POV) or third person (telling

50 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 FA N TA S T I C R E A L M S

the story from a neutral and omniscient POV). Those two will have found helpful that might have surprised you – so
are certainly the most familiar, but it does leave a somewhat why not experiment with your own fiction in the same way?
forgotten third option in using second person – telling Here’s a few ideas that you might wish to employ to bring
the story using ‘you’, as though the reader is the character something fresh to the table:
themselves. As someone who grew up in the age of Fighting • Could you only use a limited number of words in each
Fantasy and Choose Your Own Adventure, it was always a sentence?
thrill to place myself in the role of the heroic lead – and • Could you allow yourself only a limited number of letters
readers of a similar vintage might feel a similar nostalgia! per word, setting yourself a maximum (or a minimum)?
As much as second person is often a key component in • Could you not use a certain letter for the duration of a
interactive fiction, it can also be used in more traditional chapter, or even longer?
fiction – perhaps not as something done in large chunks, and • Could you write a scene or a chapter without using one of
even more rarely is it deployed throughout a full novel. But the senses at all – taking out sound, sight or smell entirely
doing this in sections can be highly compelling for a reader, could be an unexpected twist for sure! You might consider
who can no longer divorce themselves from the action of writing a story set entirely in the dark.
the story or see themselves as an observer. By using ‘you’, • Could you write a whole story without any dialogue at all?
the audience finds themselves feeling close to things in what And would an audience go along with it?
might be an uncomfortable way.
I’m not going to lie – sometimes you give these things
• QUICK TASK: Select a scene in one of your stories that a go and they fall flat, but that is of course the nature of
you feel has strong tension or emotion within it – something experimentation. If there are some flops along the way,
you would consider dramatic physically or psychologically. they will hopefully be alleviated by those times they come
Rewrite this in the second person, placing your reader in together beautifully!
the role of the lead. You may have to make more significant
changes than switching ‘he, ‘she’ or ‘they’ to ‘you’! How The New Year is always a great time to consider what’s next
does the scene read differently, and has the switch worked to in life and to think about breaking out of old habits – and
make things less ‘at a distance’ for the reader? we can of course find ourselves lapsing into particular writing
habits over time, sometimes without realising it. So taking the
Future tense opportunity to push yourself beyond that and try something
While I’m on the topic of ‘lesser-used third options’, let’s different can only be a positive as a writer – even if it doesn’t
spare a little time for future tense. Again, the vast majority always work, by expanding your skillset and your writing
of stories will use either past tense (describing plot events mindset you are bound to open up more possibilities in the
that have already happened) or present tense (describing longer term.
plot events as they unfold, happening ‘live’ as we read). But But before we wrap up I do want to sound a slight note of
there is another angle you will sometimes see – that of future caution – I’m all for writers experimenting, and many writers
tense, describing events that have yet to happen. Rather than have made a fine career of going beyond what other authors
‘he was’ or ‘he is’, we need to write ‘he will be’ or ‘he will’ to may be willing to do. With that said, there is a chance that
show that things here have yet to play out. experimentation can slip into gimmickry – simply doing
As per second person, this might be something that you something different for the sake of it in a desperate attempt
would tend to use in small doses, but it can certainly have to stand out. It’s important to remember that not every
its place. You could use it as visions or dreams, or perhaps story needs to be experimental, nor is every story going to
even predictions of the future. You could use it as part of a benefit from the approaches above. But I hope that in taking
broader play with chronology as described above – and it on these quick tasks there will be lessons to be learned,
would likely be possible to tell a very good short story using whether those particular challenges yield something useful
the device throughout. for you or not. It may show you where you want or need to
experiment, or it may serve to show the places where that
• QUICK TASK: Take the finale of a short story you have sort of boundary-breaking is not really going to work.
already written and switch it from past or present tense to Find out the means of trying new things that you personally
future. How do you feel different about it presented this find effective and look for the opportunities to employ them
way? Does it still work as a conclusion, and is it something that seem natural and fitting – crowbarring them in is always
you might wish to use again? liable to backfire on you as a writer and damage the story.

Artificial limitations Alex Davis has taught over the last five years at both
While this might sound like a strange one, many a writing undergraduate and MA level. You can follow him on
exercise is born out of the idea of giving authors artificial Twitter at @AlexDavis1981 and see his forthcoming
restrictions on what they can do as a writer. No doubt you literature events at [Link]
have done a task along these lines at some stage that you events-17318878423

[Link] JANUARY 2024 51

AUTHOR PROFILE

Daniel Hurst
Margaret James talks to the psychological thriller writer about plotting,
planning, and unusual things happening to ordinary people
t’s always interesting to learn about how writers actually housewife seeking revenge on her cheating partner, but
become writers. things escalated quite quickly, and it was great fun trying to
As a result of nature or of nurture? By accident or by strike a balance between keeping her likeable and turning
design? Do they come from families (or even dynasties) her into a villain.
of playwrights, novelists and/or other creative people? ‘My favourite characters to write are the ones who turn
Or are they the first to make it into print? out to have much more going on beneath the surface than
‘If you’d asked me this question a year ago, I’d have said first meets the eye. So, by the end of the story, readers may
I was the only writer in my family,’ says bestselling novelist feel a little conflicted about whether or not they should
Daniel Hurst, a prolific author of psychological thrillers. have been on the protagonist’s side.
‘But my father has recently written his first book, and has ‘I find writing female characters comes more naturally
shown me many story notes he’s made over the years. This to me. I guess that’s why I write psychological thrillers as
tells me I have clearly inherited some kind of writing gene opposed to more traditionally masculine action thrillers.
from him! I was always writing as a child, although I can’t Because I write such strong female characters, I have had a
say any of those early stories are worth reading.’ few readers ask me if I am secretly a female author pretending
Does Daniel write stand-alone novels or series? to be male. But I have assured them this is not the case.
‘I tend to write stand-alone books, but my novel The ‘As for new directions, I have no immediate plans, but I have
Doctor’s Mistress is the final part of a trilogy,’ he says. ‘Last notebooks and notes on my phone that are full of all sorts of
year The Doctor’s Wife, the first book in the series, topped ideas in all genres. No matter what the genre, a new idea is
the chart in the UK Kindle store, which was a pleasant always exciting, and gets my imagination whirring away.
surprise for me. Luckily, I had plenty of material to add ‘I try to write in the mornings, and then I’m flexible
to my original story, and it was great fun to explore the about either carrying on into the afternoon, or having
characters further.’ some leisure time with my wife and daughter. If the sun is
As Daniel’s career has developed, have his working shining (although that doesn’t often happen in the North
methods changed and, if so, how? of England) it’s nice to get out, particularly in summer.
‘When I first started writing novels, I always used to jump But I’m very much a night owl, and occasionally I will stay
straight into the story, because planning never seemed to up late and write into the evening, which is actually my
be as much fun as actually writing,’ he says. ‘I’d come up favourite time to write because it’s quieter. It also reminds
with a title, then try to make up a story. When I wrote The me of the time a few years ago when I was writing around
Woman at the Door, for example, all I had was the title, and my nine-to-five job. So now, if I’m sitting at my computer
I wrote what came to me as I tried to answer the questions at 10pm, I think back to those earlier days, and smile to
in that title. Who is the woman? What does she want? myself because all those late nights have somehow paid off.
Whose door is she at? How will the people she is visiting ‘My non-writing life underwent a big change last year
respond to her arrival? because our daughter was born. So dad duties now take up
‘Once I started working with publishers, however, they a lot of my time, which I love because my daughter always
wanted to see outlines before I put pen to paper, so I keeps me on my toes. Being an author allows for a lot of
became more of a planner, and that’s how I work nowadays. flexibility. So, thankfully, juggling family life with my writing
‘My genre is the psychological thriller, which is all about has not been too problematic.
unusual things happening to normal people, basically asking ‘I’m aware that sitting down at a desk for too long isn’t
readers: how would you react if this happened to you? What the healthiest thing to do. So I go for walks every day (with
if you caught your partner cheating? What if you were the pram, of course) and I also play tennis two or three
framed for murder? Asking questions like that can instantly times a week. I’m a huge sports fan. So, if I’m not playing
spawn a story idea and, once I have the seed of an idea, my it, I’m watching it.
imagination runs riot.’ ‘My favourite authors within my genre of psychological
Does Daniel have any particular favourites among his thriller are Adele Parks, Louise Candlish and Gillian
characters? McAllister, although sadly I don’t read as many
‘Fern, the title character in The Doctor’s Wife, has been psychological thrillers as I used to simply because I find
a fun one to write,’ he says. ‘She started off as a betrayed it hard to switch my brain off after writing them all day!

52 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 DANIEL’S TOP TIPS
Away from that, I have read all
of Ben Mezrich’s books and I • The biggest tool you need to be a writer is perseverance. If you never give up,
love how he puts a fictionalised then you will always stand a chance of achieving your writing goals.
spin on real-life events. He’s
usually my go-to author if I • These days, there are so many ways to be an author, and self-promotion is a big
need a pool-side holiday read, tool that perhaps wasn’t available as easily to writers in the past. By creating
and one day I’d love to be your own newsletter, you can communicate directly with anybody who enjoys
that kind of writer – one who your stories, which is a brilliant way to build a loyal fan-base and speak to them
researches a real-life event, gets more personally, rather than relying on a publisher or a PR guru to do it for you.
close to the people it happened
to, and then writes all about it • Remember, if you have a real passion for storytelling, there are plenty of people
in a fast-paced, fictionalised way. who would love to read your tales.
I also have a bookcase full of
sports autobiographies, which I • If you ever worry about coming up with story ideas, think how many people there
delve into when I want a break are in the world. Each person has their own story. That means there are eight billion
from fiction.’ potential stories to be told. So you have no excuse to run out of ideas!

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[Link]
 Simon Whaley chats to book industry expert Mark Leslie Lefebvre
about the art of being a relaxed writer

T
he start of a new year is a great Two years ago, Mark co-wrote The publishing, or some combination of the
time for setting our writing Relaxed Author with Joanna Penn. The two routes. Writing, as most authors
goals for the coming months. idea originally came about during one already know, is not a quick-and-easy
Perhaps 2024 will be the of Joanna’s popular podcast episodes. thing. It can take years, and plenty of
year you finally get that book written. ‘We’d made a passing reference to blood, sweat, and tears.’
Then what? Do you self-publish or seek the stress that authors constantly find ‘First, be patient,’ Mark recommends.
a traditional publisher? Perhaps you themselves under,’ explains Mark, ‘and ‘Realise there’s no way you’ll be able
should start a mailing list or learn how we quickly shared how we each tried to to absorb it all. And that’s okay. It’s
to master Facebook Ads? Then there’s remain relaxed despite all that intense important to learn and to listen to more
the admin of registering for PLR and pressure. Then we made a joke that we than one perspective, as perspectives in
ALCS and, if self-publishing, setting should co-author a book on that topic. the industry can be varied. If you talk
up with the British Library for Legal Over the following week, Joanna kept to five different people, you’ll likely get
Deposit . . . the list goes on. getting comments from her listeners at least three different bits of advice on
The business of writing can feel that they wished such a book existed, a single matter.’
overwhelming at times. The word because they definitely needed one. Next comes practice, and the best
should is often bandied about. You ‘But then, Joanna and I realised that way to do that is to break steps down
should be on social media. You should we needed one as well. Despite the way into manageable chunks. Mark reminds
be advertising on Amazon. You should we continually tried to relax, or take a us that we don’t have to do everything
be publishing wide. And while there deep breath, we found ourselves caught at once.
are some aspects of the business of back on that treadmill.’ ‘For example, looking at publishing
writing that can’t be avoided, such as an ebook means having to figure out
maintaining financial records to keep Stress-free small steps Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook,
the tax inspector happy, it’s also worth There is so much information available Apple Books, Rakuten Kobo, Google
remembering that our writing business about being a writer that it can quickly Books, and Smashwords, to name just
is exactly that – our writing business become overwhelming. It’s only natural the six largest retailers. It’s okay to not
and nobody else’s. to feel swamped because there’s so understand all of them at first. Start by
Mark Leslie Lefebvre (https:// much we feel we ought to be doing learning just one platform first to make
[Link]/) is a Canadian author to develop our writing business. This it a bit simpler and more manageable.
who’s written over twenty books. His makes it difficult to identify the next Then, once you understand one,
publishing experience includes being step, or hone in on what is most investigate another platform.’
President of the Canadian Booksellers important for us. While some writers upload to all
Association, director of author relations Mark suggests relaxed writers take a these different platforms individually,
and self-publishing for Rakuten three Ps approach. that’s not necessarily right for everyone.
Kobo, as well as director of business ‘I’ve long told authors that Patience, Again, take the relaxed approach and
development for Draft2Digital. He Practice, and Persistence are three of the do what’s right for you at this time. As
knows how stressful being a writer can keys to a long-term writing career. And self-published authors, we can change
be. He also knows that it doesn’t have that holds true whether an author takes the way we do things whenever the
to be this way. the traditional publishing, the self- time is right.

54 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 THE BUSINESS OF WRITING

With Mark’s experience as director of A book like The Relaxed Author is for Relaxing recommendations
business development for Draft2Digital, writers; and in particular writers who ‘The key message I want authors to
it’s not surprising that he recommends might be feeling overwhelmed with not understand is that we all get stressed
using the distributor to push ebooks to just having to write books, but figure out,’ says Mark. ‘Even though I
the various platforms. However, he still out what to do with those books, along co-authored this book with Joanna, I
takes a relaxed approach to this. with all the business and marketing to consistently find myself getting stressed
‘I often advise going direct to one or do when they self-publish. Even though and freaked out about the smallest
two places, and then using a distributor Romance is the single best-selling thing. It’s because we’re human. We
for the rest. That way, you don’t have ebook category, and has been, by far, make mistakes. We forget to follow
to manage six or more different logins, for more than a dozen years, it would our own advice. But we can also learn,
which, in itself, can be overwhelming.’ be a waste of time for Joanna and I to adapt, and evolve.
His co-author, Joanna Penn, often market The Relaxed Author to readers ‘I remind myself to take a deep
comments on her podcasts that this is who only read romance. It doesn’t breath, and consider how anything
what she does. She uploads her ebooks matter how many books they buy and that is stressing me out might factor
to the platforms she wants direct read, the book is not for them.’ into the long-term goals and plans
control over and uses Draft2Digital to I have for my overall writing career.
distribute her ebooks elsewhere. It’s her Future fears It’s that long-term perspective
business, and that’s how she maintains a An awful lot has changed in the writing that often helps me calm down
sense of control over distribution. world in the last twenty years. And and realise that the small thing
Finally, Mark’s third P is for sometimes the constant change puts I’m facing right now, which seems
persistence, and that often means additional pressure on us. Often, it is the insurmountable, might actually just
experimenting, and failing, until you early adopters to new formats, platforms, be a stressful moment. In time, that
find the way that works best for you. or practices who benefit most, which too will soon pass.’
‘The key is that there’s not one way puts an additional pressure on the rest of Ultimately, being a relaxed writer is
of doing anything, so fretting about the us to learn and jump onboard. about having a clear idea of what we
right way versus the wrong way won’t However, when a polarising issue, like want to achieve with our writing. That
help. There’s only the right way and the Artificial Intelligence, comes along, it can way, we’ll know whether we’re on the
wrong way for you. You’ll only figure add further stress to our writing business. right path.
that out over time as you experiment. Again, Mark’s advice, particularly with Mark makes one final point for us to
You will make mistakes. We all do. That’s AI, is to slow down, consider everything, consider. ‘It’s important for authors to
okay. But the great thing is, we can learn and put things into perspective. always remember that there’s no one
from our mistakes, and we can adapt and ‘Often, seeing things in black and path. There’s no one right thing to do.
change our approach. It is, after all, not a white versus the various shades of grey You can and you will make mistakes.
sprint, but more of a marathon.’ can provide a tremendous amount But you can always change the route,
of stress and unnecessary angst. At change the plan, and adjust the path
Should slip-ups every single stage in the evolution of that you’re taking.’
The problem with doing what we think publishing, technology has consistently There’s no escaping the fact that
we should be doing means we often offered more opportunity than being a published writer in any
end up making more mistakes. Taking ever before to authors. Authors are format means we’re in the business
a slower, more relaxed approach to very likely already using AI in their of writing. But as we head into a
our writing business means we’re more daily lives without ever realising it, new year with new goals and dreams,
likely to remember the basics. such as the grammar-checking that perhaps now is the time to think
‘One of the most common mistakes is automatically built into most about taking a more relaxed approach
authors make,’ says Mark, ‘is they email services and word processing to our writing business.
begin to market their books without documents. It saves me and you time,
first ensuring that they completely and is something we’ve both leveraged BUSINESS DIRECTORY
understand who their book is for. To to help us.
use a recent example, many jumped ‘So, take a breath. Have a look at MARK’S RELAXATION TIP
into TikTok because they heard that what’s available. Listen to people ‘Hang in there, and keep your head
you “had to” to sell books. But selling who understand and have adapted up. It’s not only good for your
books starts with knowing who your it. And see if there’s some nugget of posture, and your mental well-being,
book is for.’ usefulness that you might find helpful but it helps you see much further
‘Consider the reader,’ he continues. on your own journey. But it’s also down the road, and the potential
‘What problem does your book solve okay if you look at it and say, “No, that always exists on that horizon.’
for them? With non-fiction, it’s easy. that’s not for me.”’

[Link] JANUARY 2024 55

RESEARCH TIPS

CASE
STUDY
METHOD
Learn how to do in-depth research on cases within a
specific context with advice from Tarja Moles

he case study method involves gathering ideals, biases, motives and life philosophy.
and presenting detailed information about When you’re able to shed light on these kinds of aspects,
a ‘case’. This case could be an individual, a you start to understand the person from their own
group, an organisation or an event. Unlike viewpoint. It is through this depth of understanding that
research methods that focus on uncovering you’re able to start breathing life into your writing, be
universal or generalisable truths, the case study method able to describe your real-life or fictional character in an
focuses on exploring, describing and analysing cases within engaging way, and draw your readers in.
their specific contexts.
You might not have come across the term ‘case study Research techniques
method’ before, but if you’ve ever delved beyond the There are various techniques that you can employ in
surface details in order to learn more about a person or a order to get into the mindset of another person. For
community, you’ve essentially already applied this method. example, you could use informal and formal interviews;
Here are some pointers for how to go about researching direct observation; participant observation (ie observing
individuals with the help of the case study framework. people while being actively part of a group they belong
to); reading people’s diaries and other personal records;
The aim inviting them to write self-reports; examining photos,
Researching a case allows you not only to dig deep, but videos, memorabilia and other artefacts; and finding out
also to have a sharp focus. This means that it’s an ideal what other people have said about them, for example, in
approach for studying people – either for the purpose of obituaries, local newspaper articles or other media.
biographical writing or basing your fictional character(s) It’s best to combine as many different techniques as
on thorough research. possible because this will help you build a more rounded
The primary goal of the case study method is to gain an picture of the person. Having said this, each case is
in-depth understanding of the person in hand. As you’re different and the feasibility of using different techniques
planning your research and conducting your background may vary greatly. For instance, if you’re researching a
reading, by all means start by getting answers to the basic deceased individual, it’s obviously not possible to arrange
research questions of ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘when’. interviews with them directly or engage in observation.
Once you’ve grasped the overall picture, move on to the Although this may seem a drawback, it may not
more interesting areas – this is to say, the questions of necessarily be so: if you’re able to access their old diaries,
‘how’ and ‘why’. letters and other documents, these can reveal a lot about
Find out how the person thinks, feels and behaves their private life. In fact, sometimes you can find out more
in relation to their family, friends, social groups, local intimate details in diaries and letters than if you were to
community and society at large. Then explore what arrange interviews.
their reasons might be for such thoughts, emotions and As you’re researching people’s private matters, pay
behaviours. Figure out what the cultural norms, moral attention to ethical considerations. Be sensitive and
code and community values mean to them. Uncover their respectful, communicate in advance how you’re planning

56 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

to use the information you’re gathering, and
always ask for people’s informed consent. Behind the tape If you have a
query for Lisa, please
send it by email to
Complementary reading Expert advice to get the details lisacuttsenquiries@
To be able to look at the world through someone right in your crime fiction from [Link]
else’s eyes, it can be helpful to study the broader serving police officer Lisa Cutts
societal context in which they have grown up
and lived. This is particularly important if you’re
researching an historical figure or someone living
in another culture. Q [Link]
arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing an under-aged
to name others involved in an abuse ring.
Reading relevant books and journal articles Would the man be transferred from the local police station to the
can provide vital insights into the contextual nearest prison or regional headquarters whilst awaiting interview by
constraints and freedoms that have shaped the the CPS/prosecutor? How soon after being transferred would he be
subject’s experiences. Furthermore, understanding interviewed, and a decision made?
the context can help you interpret the more Michael Chambers
personal information accurately.

A
Neither the CPS nor a prosecutor would interview him about
Reliability of information it – it would be the police. If you can make the evidence look
Critics have raised concerns about the reliability a little uncertain in your novel, such as times or facts appear to be
of data collected by the case study method. It’s sketchy, the chances are that he would be interviewed and bailed
true that much of the information uncovered pending further inquiries, both relating to him and the allegations
is subjective and, therefore, not necessarily he’s made.
factually accurate. After all, memories are fallible, If he were to be interviewed at the police station, charged and
people’s biases colour their narratives and some remanded, he would go to prison and await trial. The police can
individuals even tell blatant lies. visit him in prison and interview him there, although they need
However, it’s important to note that the permission to take recording equipment into the prison. For a formal
primary aim of this method is not to gather interview, it’s more likely they would take him to a police station.
factual data per se, but to delve into an
individual’s subjective world. This means that
factually incorrect information is not necessarily Q Asomewoman is murdered – the crime remains unsolved (actually for
years). At which point, if ever, would jewellery the victim
a problem: even data that are far removed was wearing (which might have fingerprint or DNA implications) be
from reality can provide valuable insights into passed on to a family member (the beneficiary in her will)?
an individual’s perspectives, thoughts, feelings Patrick Forsyth
and behaviours. No doubt, the various Donald

A so wasn’t worn at the time of the attack. Even so, it would be

Trump biographers have embraced this notion. The jewellery would be returned if it wasn’t deemed evidential,
Of course, you need to be aware of the
potential errors and you need to be able fingerprinted and photographed by the Scenes of Crime Investigators.
to determine where the line between fact If it was considered evidential, before its return to the next of kin,
and fiction lies. When you know this, you it should be sent to the lab for DNA extraction, perhaps particles
can use the information you have gathered of skin or small dried blood flakes are present in the design/stone
appropriately and communicate your findings settings. Dusting for prints can jeopardise DNA opportunities so the
to your readers in a way that they also order of forensic capture would need to be considered.
understand which pieces of information are Once that was done, there would be some sort of assessment
subjective and which are objective. carried out by the Senior Investigating Officer regarding its return,
The case study method offers a thoroughly but ultimately it would be hers or his decision to justify later on.
fascinating approach to research as it allows you
to view the world through different perspectives.
Enjoy your journey!

If you’d like to learn more about the

case study method, Writing@CSU has a
great guide at [Link] It gives
an overview of the method and provides a
list of further sources.
Lisa Cutts is a crime fiction author and retired detective sergeant, having spent most
of her career within the Serious Crime Department. She has returned to work as an
Investigating Officer on historic crimes. Her novels are published by Myriad and Simon
and Schuster.
A S K A L I T E R A RY C O N S U LTA N T

How long should my novel be?

Monica Chakraverty of Cornerstones Literary Consultancy tackles a
common question that doesn’t have a simple answer

T
his is a question I’m often asked, and it’s certainly not that enables the writer to connect with the reader for maximum
the same answer as how long a piece of string is! So, impact, allowing the story, characters and setting to shine
how long should your book actually be? through rather than becoming obscured.
If we work backwards, from a production department point A professional edit of an overlong novel can reveal a number
of view, a book of approximately 100,000 words will come in of issues that are resolved with skilful cutting, which can be
somewhere between 300 to 400 pages, largely depending on transformational. Pace and tension are tightened to refine the
type size and page style. This is plenty for a typical author’s book, story and strengthen the flow; inner voice can be secured,
particularly a debut one. I’d suggest that 80,000 words up works along with eliminating repetition, overlong descriptions and
well, occasionally stretching to 120,000 words on rare occasions. superfluous information.
Shorter texts are less daunting for an agent to submit rather than In terms of content, it’s important for an author to prioritise
a block of manuscript so aim to make your publication path easier. the key themes in the book; is everything of equal importance
There’s an implication that a standard book length should have a and does everything need to be included? Allow your reader to
tighter handle on pacing, with pages turning faster and the reader piece together information you delicately work through your
more readily drawn in. The tension line of a book is its beating text and shun excess scenes and information, revealing instead
heart and it’s frustrating for an agent when the book sweeps along at what’s needed to keep that tension pulsing. Be brave as you cut
the outset, only to stall in later pages as the pulse is lost. back on the superfluous, keeping a backup copy of your novel
In turn, an overlong novel often indicates to a publisher that just in case you change your mind.
there’s potentially extensive editing work to be done by them. Work intuitively, from the heart, keeping secrets for as long
Longer books are more expensive to produce and are harder as possible so the reader is compelled to read on. In this way,
to sell in, so it increases their risk. A publisher needs to create a reader will readily connect with your words and, with a firm
a profit and loss sheet on a book before they can green-light a handle on length, your novel will have increased its chances of
project and offer a book contract – it’s a business like any other. commercial publication.
If there are additional costs due to editorial time and paper costs,
with potentially fewer sales due to a daunting doorstop of a
book, the numbers simply don’t add up.
Books do have different thresholds according to genre, so CORNERSTONES
speculative or historical fiction could more comfortably sit near LITERARY CONSULTANCY
the 120,000 mark, or longer if need be. Literary fiction can head
in the other direction, with 60,000 words still offering a feeling Are you thinking about submitting to the trade?
of fundamental worth to the publisher and reader, with an Do you want to learn the art of self-editing?
implication that the text is highly developed.
Children’s fiction is a different game and alters with age “Thank you [...] for developing such a
so that books for younger children can begin with 20,000 challenging and rewarding course. I have been
words, heading into an approximately 50,000-word limit for searching for four years for this level of
middle-grade fiction for those aged 9-12 years old. Young adult excellence!”
literature, which has had so much recent success, can head up – EYN course alumna
from there into the 80,000-word range.
Yes, there are exceptions to every genre but these are generally Based on the #1 bestselling book ON EDITING, our
rare. We recently chatted with an agent who went out with two Edit Your Novel online course is designed to help
simultaneous submissions for adult commercial fiction: one was you perfect your submissions package whilst
32,000 words long and the other 200,000 words long – quite a equipping you with all the tools you need to
become a confident editor.
contrast. She strongly felt that both books were perfect as they were
and she was right, successfully placing both of them with publishers.
Next course begins: 19 September 2022
More commonly, issues over length tend to highlight that Open for applications now!
pacing is an issue, be it too long or too short. Overwriting, in
particular, can be an issue for many authors, especially those
+44 (0) 1308 897374
who are developing their voice. They might find it hard trusting
[Link]
that their words hit the mark or can struggle to express their
ideas clearly, using complex language that detracts from the flow
of the book. Successful writing contains a clarity of thought

58 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 GET PUBLISHED You’ve read the advice – now get into print! Find the most up-to-date calls for
submissions, writing competitions to enter and publishing opportunities to suit
you and your writing in our easy-to-navigate news pages

NEW PUBLISHING STREAM

By Gary Dalkin
Crystal Clear Books is a new British independent publisher based in Weymouth,
Dorset, which specialises in inspirational non-fiction and fiction in the mind-body-
spirit, well-being, health, and healing genres. 60 Anthology opportunities
Founder Linda Parkinson-Hardman says that the company’s aim is to seek out those Have you got a suitable story for these calls?
voices weaving a different story from the current mechanistic view of our world. With
over 20 years publishing experience, Linda is seeking works that look beyond the
obvious into the heart of what it means to be human, that enlighten, entertain, and 60 Development opportunities
inform, and which give insight into living from a spiritual and holistic perspective. A brand-new bursary for Black British Caribbean
The company seeks to ‘support new and emerging British writers’ and accepts writers
un-agented and agented authors. Books should be innovative with something
interesting to say about the world and share an uplifting and positive message centred
around a well-developed concept. 61 Fiction competitions
Currently Crystal Clear Books is only accepting submissions from UK authors. Win prizes for flash and crime stories
They are particularly looking for fiction, poetry and non-fiction, including, but
not limited to: mind-body-spirit; health and healing; spirituality; ecology; personal
development; metaphysics. 61 Novel competitions
Email your submission to linda@[Link] (you can also send enquiries to this Big prizes for writers of full-length fiction
address). Include ‘Crystal Clear Books Submission’ in the subject line. Include a query
letter in the body of the email with full contact details, the title of your book, a single-
line pitch, a three-paragraph synopsis, the genre, a 150-word author bio and a list of 61 Non-fiction competitions
your social media accounts/websites/mailing lists if you have any. Contests for memoir, essays, arts journalism
Add three sample chapters as a single attachment Word or PDF attachment, and more
double-spaced in a standard 12pt font. All pages should be numbered and have the
title and your name in the header or footer.
Payment is a 50/50 royalty split. Books may be published in print and/or digital 63 Writing for children competitions
formats. Response time is around 12 weeks. Full guidelines: [Link] Two big regional prizes to be won
[Link]/submissions/ FAQs: [Link]
Postal address: 43 Malthouse Meadow, Weymouth, DT3 4NS
63 Script opportunities
Chances to get your work staged
WANTING WELSH YA
By Gary Dalkin 64 Non-fiction opportunities
Welsh publisher Graffeg, which publishes beautifully designed illustrated books, is launching a Non-fic markets from finance to freedom
new imprint in 2024 focusing on Middle Grade titles in English with uniquely Welsh content.
The company is keen to develop Wales as an important literary setting for children’s
books, and plans to identify high-quality titles (both fiction and creative non-fiction) either 65 Going to market
set in Wales or involving characters from Wales, and which are preferably written by authors
with strong connections to Wales. 66 Poetry competitions
‘Middle Grade is one of the most crowded areas of publishing’, says Graffeg’s publishing
A bumper crop of contests for you to enter
director, Matthew Howard, ‘and there are already some tremendous books out there for
readers in the 7-12 age group. But what we’d like to do is establish Wales as the true home
of good writing and great storytelling, a place that children can see every day in the very 68 Small press opportunities
best books they read.’ Indie presses on the lookout for new work
Assisting Graffeg will be an expert panel representing key areas such as retail, education
and academia. The company also has support from the Books Council of Wales. Their aim
is to publish around 12 titles a year. 68 Humour submissions
If you have a book you think might be suitable, use the submission form at https:// Is your wit a good fit for this call?
[Link]/pages/submissions. You will need to provide a synopsis of up to 500 words,
an outline of the book and target audience, the approximate word count and a list of
chapters or sections, describe something of your experience which led you to write the 69 Travel writing know-how
book, and then upload the complete manuscript.
You can send enquires via the form at [Link] or email
croeso@[Link]. Phone: Llanelli: 01554 824 000 or Cardiff: 02922 404 971. Postal 69 General news
address: Graffeg Limited, 24 Stradey Park Business Centre, Mwrwg Road, Llangennech, The latest from the book world
Llanelli, SA14 8YP, Wales, United Kingdom.

[Link] JANUARY 2024 59

WRITERS’ NEWS

ANTHOLOGY OPPORTUNITIES
PDR LINDSAY-SALMON

The Fiction Desk Arithmophobia:

The Fiction Desk publishes anthologies of new short
fiction and features ‘a diverse range of established award-
winning authors and newcomers,’ and leans towards
An Anthology of
‘general’ or ‘literary’ fiction.
Currently submissions are invited for short stories for
Mathematical Horror
the ‘general’ category anthology which runs during every
submission period. It includes the range of styles and Polymath Press seeks stories for a new horror anthology,
genres that feature in all of their anthologies. Arithmophobia: An Anthology of Mathematical Horror edited by
The Fiction Desk also invites stories for the annual Robert Lewis, of horror stories with a mathematical theme.
ghost story anthology. All types of story are welcome, Stories must have ‘some kind of mathematical content’ with
but The Fiction Desk prefers ‘psychological chills and the mathematical ideas clearly featured in the story. Submit
unexplained mysteries rather than in-your-face gore.’ stories, 3,000 to 15,000 words.
Submit stories between 1,000 and 10,000 words, preferred Payment: US$0.01 per word plus a paperback copy for first
lengths 2,000 and 7,000 words. rights. Deadline: 31 December.
Payment is £25 per thousand words plus two Website: [Link]
complimentary paperback copies. The Writer’s Award of
£100 is given for ‘the best story in each volume, as judged
by the contributors.’
The deadline is 31 January.
Website: [Link] Chicken Soup Anthologies
great weather Chicken Soup Anthologies’ current call is for the annual
‘December Holiday Season’ Anthology. Submit stories

for MEDIA Press about the entire December holiday season, including
‘Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and New
Year’s festivities too.’
The editorial team want international submissions for their Submit stories and poems online. Use a first person POV
new anthology. There is no theme, but ‘great weather for and remember that stories must be fact not fiction.
MEDIA editors focus on the unpredictable, the fearless, the Payment is US$200 plus 10 copies for first rights.
bright, the dark, and the innovative.’ Think experimental. The deadline is 30 April.
Submit one prose/creative nonfiction piece, no more than Website: [Link]/story-submissions/
2,500 words. Payment is a copy for first serial rights. possible-book-topics/
The deadline is 15 January.
Website: [Link]

DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES
The Joy Brandon Bursary 2024
The bursary, funded by award-winning author Sara Collins, is for
Black British Caribbean students of creative writing at ICE.
The new Joy Brandon Bursary will offer financial assistance to a
student embarking on a part-time, two-year Master of Studies in
either creative writing or writing for performance at the University
of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education.
The bursary will cover 80% of the fees. ICE is matching Sara’s
donation which means that two bursaries will be available.
Sara Collins, the author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton,
was a student at ICE, graduating in 2016. ‘The MSt in Creative
Writing at ICE was the first door I opened towards becoming a
novelist,’ said Sara. ‘Since I graduated, I’ve been thinking about
doing what I can to give back.’
Applications from Black British Caribbean writers are open
until 17 January.
Website: [Link]/bursary-application

60 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 FICTION COMPETITIONS
Fish Flash Fiction Prize 2024
The Fish Flash Fiction Prize is inviting entries of original,
unpublished stories in 300 words or less.
The prizes are €1,000, €300 and an online writing
course. The top ten entries will be published in the Fish
Anthology 2024. The judge is Michelle Elvy.
The fee is €14 for the first and €9 for any subsequent entries.
The Glencairn The closing date is 28 February.
Farnham Glass Crime
Website: [Link]/competition/flash-
fiction-contest/

Flash Fiction Short Story

Competition Competition
2024 2023
The Glencairn Glass Crime
Short Story Competition is an
New Writers Flash Fiction
The competition for 500-
word stories has a first
international contest inviting
entries of original, unpublished
Competition 2024
prize of £100. crime fiction under 2,000 words New Writers is inviting entries for its Flash Fiction
The Farnham Flash Fiction on the theme ‘A Crime Story Set Competition, which is for short fiction on any theme up
Competition from Farnham in Scotland’. The competition is to 300 words.
Literary Festival 2024 is being run by Glencairn Glass in The first prize is £1,000, and there are second and third
inviting entries of original, association with Bloody Scotland prizes of £300 and £200. The three winning entries will be
unpublished flash fiction up to and Scottish Field. published on the New Writers website. The head judge is
500 words. The winner will receive £1,000 Stephanie Carty.
There are prizes of £199 and the runner up, £500. Both Any writer may enter. All entries must be original and
and £25, and a special prize of winners will also receive a set of unpublished.
£25 for the best flash fiction bespoke engraved Glencairn glasses. There is an entry fee of £8 for one flash fiction, £15
featuring Farnham. The winning entry will be published for two and £22 for three. £1 from each entry will be
The entry fee is £5 per flash in Scottish Field and online. donated to First Story, the creative writing charity for
fiction. The closing date is 31 young people. A limited number of free entries are
The closing date is 1 December. available for low-income writers.
February. Website: [Link] The closing date is 31 January 2024.
Website: www. com/crime-short-story- Website: [Link]
[Link]/ competition/ competition/

NOVEL COMPETITIONS
The Lucy Cavendish The Plaza Crime First
Fiction Prize 2024 Chapters Prize 2024
Now in its 14th year, the major prize for Win a £1,500 first prize for the opening of a
undiscovered female writers is inviting entries. crime novel up to 5,000 words.
The Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize is given The Plaza Crime First Chapters Prize is
annually for novel manuscripts by unpublished, inviting entries of the beginning of an original,
unagented women writers from the UK and unpublished or self/indie published crime
Ireland that combine literary merit with fiction manuscript in any crime sub-genre.
unputdownability. Novels may be literary fiction There is a first prize of £1,500 and second and third prizes of
or fiction in any genre, and may be for adults, £300 and £100. The winner will also receive feedback from the
young adults or children. judge, crime writer David Mark. Winners will be published in
The winner will receive £1,500. All shortlisted writers will receive a Plaza Anthology 2.
one-to-one meeting with an agent at the Prize’s sponsor, Peters Fraser + To enter, send the first 5,000 words and a synposis.
Dunlop where they will be given feedback on their entry. The entry fee is £20 for the first entry and £10 for any
Novel manuscripts may be finished or unfinished. To enter, send the subsequent entries.
first 40-50 pages and a synopsis of three to five pages. The closing date is 31 January.
The entry fee is £12. Only one entry is permitted per person. Website: [Link]
The closing date is 9 February. crime-first-chapters-prize/
Website: [Link]/fictionprize

[Link] JANUARY 2024 61

WRITERS’ NEWS

NON-FICTION COMPETITIONS
Fish Short Memoir Prize 2024
Win a first prize of €1,000 in the annual contest from Fish
Publishing.
To enter, send original, unpublished short memoirs up to
The Observer/Anthony 4,000 words. Memoirs may be written in any form or style.
The winner will receive €1,000. Two runners-up will receive
Burgess Prize for Arts an online writing course and €300. The best ten memoirs will be published in the
Fish Anthology 2024. This year’s judge is Sean Lusk.
Journalism 2024 The entry fee is €18.
The closing date is 31 January.
Website: [Link]/competition/short-memoir-contest/
Win a £3,000 first prize for new writing on
the arts.
The Observer/Anthony Burgess Prize for
Arts Journalism is an annual competition for
arts reviewers.
The Plaza Memoir:
The first prize is £3,000 and publication in
the Observer. Two runners up each get £500. First Chapters Prize 2024
To enter, send an original, unpublished 800-
word review of new work in the arts (ie, work The Plaza Memoir: First Chapters Prize is for the first chapters of original,
produced since 1 January 2023). Subjects unpublished or indie-published life writing.
might include an album, book, concert, The first prize is £1,500. The winning memoir will be published in an
exhibition, film, play, live stream, social media anthology and the writer will receive a one-to-one tutorial and detailed feedback
entertainment, TV show, or any other artform from judge Nicole Treska. There are second and third prizes of £300 and £100.
or cultural activity that offers the opportunity To enter, send the opening chapters up to 5,000 words and a 300-word
to write a lively, thoughtful piece. synopsis of the memoir.
The entry fee is £10. There is a free-entry The entry fee is £20.
scheme for writers on low incomes. The closing date is 31 January.
The closing date is 29 February. Website: [Link]
Website: [Link]/ chapters-prize/
observeranthony-burgess-prize-arts-
journalism/

The Leah Leneman

Essay Prize 2023
The competition from Women’s History Scotland is
for essays on an aspect of women’s or gender history.
To be eligible to enter, writers should either
be resident in Scotland or enrolled at a Scottish
university, or enter a piece focused on Scottish history. The competition was
The Nature Chronicles established in 2002 in honour of Leah Leneman, a leading historian of women in
Scotland.
Prize 2023/24 Essays should be between 8,000 and 10,000 words, and may be focused on any
aspect of women’s or gender history. Entries may be undergraduate, postgraduate or
Win a £10,000 first prize in the biennial international independent research.
contest for contemporary nature writing. The winner will receive £200.
The Nature Chronicles Prize is given for essay- The closing date is 18 December.
length, non-fiction nature writing that responds Website: [Link]
to the world we live in and if necessary, challenges
established notions of nature writing. The prize is a
memorial to nature writer Prudence Scott, who died
in 2019. Her trust sponsors the prize.
The winner will receive £10,000 and five runners My Writing Journey Winter 2023
up will each win £1,000. All winning entries will be
published in an anthology. Enter your best writing tip in the free-entry
To enter, submit original, unpublished non- competition to win a prize worth £100.
fiction prose on any aspect of what the writer The My Writing Journey contest from
considers to be nature writing, between 2,000 The Writers College is for original 600-
and 8,000 words. Essays, diaries and extracts from word writing advice pieces on the theme:
unpublished books may all be submitted. ‘The best writing tip I ever received’.
The entry fee is £15 per submission, which The winner will receive $200 NZ (£100 and blog and newsletter publication.
includes a copy of the resulting anthology. Entry is free.
The closing date is 15 January. The closing date is 31 December.
Website: [Link] Website: [Link]/my-writing-journey-competition/

62 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 WRITING FOR CHILDREN COMPETITIONS
Hachette Children’s The Kelpies Prize
Novel Awards 2024 for Writing 2024
The Awards for debut
writers are part of the 2024 This year’s competition is the 20th To submit, send either the first
Northern Writers Awards anniversary of the contest for new five chapters or the entire picture
from New Writing North. children’s writing accessible to children book, a one-page synopsis or
The Hachette Children’s living in Scotland. summary of the book, and a short
Novel Awards are for debut The winner will receive £500, piece of writing for children between
authors of full-length nine months of mentoring, and 1,000 and 3,000 words that begins:
middle-grade children’s fiction and early teen fiction. consideration for a publishing ‘Suddenly there was an enormous
Writers entering the Awards must be debut authors contract with Floris Books. bang. What on earth was that?’
resident in the North of England. Entries may be fiction or non- To be eligible to submit, writers
Two winners will each be awarded £3,000 and a fiction, and should be either a must be based in Scotland.
programme of mentoring activities. picture book aimed at readers Entry is free. Each writer may
To submit, send the opening of the novel between 3 and 6, an early-reader submit only one entry.
(between 3,000 and 6,000 words) and a synposis. chapter book for 6-8 year olds, a The closing date is 29 February
Entry is free. novel for 8-11 year olds or 11/13 2024.
The closing date is 4 January. year olds, or a non-fiction book for Website: [Link]
Website: [Link] any of those age groups. [Link]/kelpies-prizes/

SCRIPT OPPORTUNITIES
Scripts against intolerance
Develop your Sohaya Visions and Mukul & Ghetto Tigers have got together again for the RAFTA (Rise
playwrighting Against Fanaticism Through The Arts) Scriptwriting Competition, writes Jenny Roche.
Writers must be over the age of 18 years to enter and scripts should be original pieces of

career work that are not being submitted elsewhere for production. Script submitted for the 2021
competition are not eligible.
Submit a script of 25-35 pages which is suitable for a one-hour production. There are no
Unsolicited full length playscripts are restrictions on style or any historical, future or regional context so long as it fulfils RAFTA’s aims
welcomed by London’s off-West End ‘to tackle extremism, intolerance and xenophobia’.
Finborough Theatre, which is interested The winner will receive £500, paid in two instalments after being contracted to develop their
in both playwrights and plays, writes work, and their play will be produced for the stage. Five runners-up will have their plays read
Jenny Roche. out during rehearsed script readings. Winners must agree to work with the production team and
If a play is selected for further commit to occasional mutually agreed days for script feedback and development. Rehearsals are
dramaturgy they have a writers’ likely to be in London.
development programme to help train Scripts should be emailed with a cover letter of a maximum 200 words saying why your script is
writers in stagecraft and to develop their suitable for RAFTA. Email to both sohayavisions@[Link] and mukul_tigers@[Link]
unique theatrical voices. The Theatre also The deadline for submissions is 20 January.
has the Finborough Forum, which is an Website: [Link]/rafta2023
invitation only group of theatre creatives
who meet monthly for a Q&A with guest
speakers and to socialise with other theatre
practitioners.
Royal Court scripts
Although playwrights of all ages around London’s Royal Court Theatre has a commitment to find and support new playwrights
the world are invited to submit their and rather than offer feedback on submissions their Literary Office is looking for an
scripts, only plays written in English, Scots opportunity to ‘spot your ambition, theatricality and unique perspective on the world’,
or Scots Gaelic will be considered. writes Jenny Roche.
There is no restriction on subject or Submit a full-length theatre play of a minimum 50 pages, or 25-30 pages for a
themes for submissions and amongst a list monologue, as a PDF or Word document of a maximum 10MB. What is wanted are plays
of particular interests are music theatre and, ‘that ask bold questions about the way we live now’.
unusual for a small 50-seat theatre, plays Eligible submissions are forwarded to a script reader who will write a report which will be
with large casts. considered by the literary department. Writers will then be notified as to whether their play
Submit your play as a PDF document. will be taken no further or will be given feedback to help develop either the script or the
Include a short synopsis and a one page applicant’s writing. Plays may however be given a second read, which may lead to various
CV or summary of your background and opportunities including plays being developed for commission or production.
writing experience. Submit one play only by email to: literary@[Link]
Submit one play only per year by email Check out the website for full playscript submission details and for links to writing
with your play title in the subject line to: exercises and blogs: [Link]
literaryteam@[Link].

[Link] JANUARY 2024 63

WRITERS’ NEWS

NON-FICTION OPPORTUNITIES

Art market
insights Human rights issues
By Gary Dalkin Aiming to show human rights issues in the UK from the point of view of the
people and communities directly affected, the Inspired Choices series is produced
The Abundant Artist is a US web by Each Other, a UK charity using ‘independent journalism, storytelling and
platform founded in 2009 by artist filmmaking to put the human into human rights’, writes Jenny Roche.
Cory Huff dedicated to giving The charity was recently awarded a grant to continue producing the series,
artists the knowledge they need which consists of opinion pieces of 400-800 words which highlight an issue and
to make a good living from their show actions that need to be taken to address it. Writers from a wide range of
creative work, and particularly, backgrounds and life experiences are invited to pitch ideas for content. Aspiring
to sell it online. The website has and young writers looking to get into the media are particularly welcome.
a community of over 30,000 You must be based in the UK to submit and you should first pitch an idea of a
registered members, and the site’s maximum 300 words. This does not need to be detailed and does not need to be
blog receives over 200,000 visitors about ‘reactive breaking news’. Long-lasting relevance is preferred. It does need to
per month. be a story of your own personal experience and to be backed up by the evidence of
The editors are looking for independent research.
original, previously unpublished Payment for published pieces was £100 but this may depend on continued
posts from either professional funding. Check website for further details. Early career and aspiring writers will
artists or people who work in some however be given detailed feedback to help with honing and developing their craft.
aspect of the art industry. They are Submit your idea by email with ‘Pitch: Inspired Source’ in the subject line to:
currently particularly interested editorial@[Link].
in pitches for posts about: What’s Website: [Link]
working in art sales right now?;
stories of artists successfully
transitioning from offline to digital
sales; how to sell art on Instagram
– specific, unique takes, going
beyond the basics; getting the

Divine write
best out of newer platforms like
Clubhouse, TikTok, or exploring
recently introduced features on By Gary Dalkin
older social media; stories about
artists doing remarkable things in Power for Living is a free weekly US print publication produced by the major
their marketing and sales; pieces on Christian publisher David Cook, with stories that offer encouragement, insights, or
how to sell online art courses. They a new perspective on how a personal relationship with God impacts every aspect of
say that their most popular posts life, including relationships, careers, health, parenting (or grandparenting), finances,
tend to be guides to particular overcoming fears or challenges, and pursuing personal growth.
platforms or about specific ways of Each eight page issue includes one feature article and several shorter pieces; a
selling art. column, devotional, or poem that portrays the power of God in daily life. Pieces
Examples of popular posts include: must reflect (or at least cannot contradict) a biblical perspective and worldview. The
‘How to Write a Killer Sales Page for readership is primarily aged 50 and older.
Your Artist Website’; ‘How to Prepare The editorial team are currently looking for feature articles between 1,200-1,500
for an Art Show’; ‘Writing an Artist’s words. These should be first or third person stories that portray the power of God
Statement That Doesn’t Suck’; and a in someone’s life. They might describe a dramatic out-of-the-ordinary experience, or
breakdown of how one artist made divine intervention or insight in the midst of everyday circumstances. They must be
$50,000 selling art on Facebook. Not about real experiences of real people. Payment is $375 US. Columns are also required
wanted are general articles, reviews or on the same subjects, but may be lighter in tone and up to a maximum of 750 words.
opinion pieces about the art world or Payment, $150.
profiles or interviews with particular Also required: Devotionals. Word count: 400 words. Include a relevant Bible
artists unless they focus on the verse. Payment, $100. Poetry. Maximum 20 lines. Payment, $50. No essays, reviews,
commercial aspect of the business. biographies, sermons or opinion pieces.
Payment is $150-$300 per post. The editors work 12-18 months ahead of publication, so are considering multiple
Make sure to read the blog at issues at once, and are always on the lookout for well-written seasonal pieces related
[Link] to US holidays and special days including Christmas, Thanksgiving, Veteran’s Day,
blog/ and the full guidelines at Memorial Day, and Independence Day.
[Link] Follow the full guidelines at: [Link]
write-for-us/ then use the form on guidelines/ then send your submission or pitch to powerforliving@[Link].
the same page to make your pitch. You can see the full range of the sort of material the David Cook publishes (in 150
languages, distributed to 120 countries worldwide) at [Link]

64 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 G O I N G TO M A R K E T

GET PUBLISHED
Long views for Long Now
By Gary Dalkin

The Long Now Foundation is a San Francisco-based nonprofit organisation

co-founded by the ambient musician and composer Brian Eno to foster long-term
thinking and responsibility. They seek to encourage imagination at the timescale
of civilization – the next and last 10,000 years – a duration they consider to be
‘the long now’. The editorial team for the Long Now website is accepting pitches
for ‘Ideas’, a ‘living archive of long-term thinking’. Wanted are essays, reported
features, interviews, book reviews, shorter articles, fiction and poetry.
The editors note that there is wisdom and clarity to be gained from taking the
long view. By this they mean, at minimum, decades, but ideally, millennia. They key The awkward
questions Long Now Ideas stories address are, how did we (meaning ‘civilization’) get
to now, and where might we go from here? Stories should apply this civilizational lens
to inspire, educate, and surprise across a variety of subjects and disciplines: climate
stage
change and the environment; the preservation of knowledge; the rise and fall of
civilizations; the longevity of institutions; biotechnology and artificial intelligence; the
history of science and technology; architecture, design and urbanism; the nature of It is important to judge
time; space travel; globalization; migration; economics; governance; maintenance; and
infrastructure (both physical and intellectual). follow-up time, says
Submissions are welcome for the following sections: Reported, argument- Patrick Forsyth
driven essays (1,200-3,000 words). Recent example: ‘Are We Ready to Normalize
Depopulation?’ Long-form reported narrative Features (1,200-3,000 words): First write then pitch. Or sometimes
Recent example, ‘How We Might Secure Our (Digital) Data So That It Survives for pitch and then write. The sequence
Generations.’ Conversations: (2,000-3,000 word) interviews with thinkers, artists may vary but pitching is a prime
and makers whose projects and ideas foster long-term thinking and responsibility. activity for many writers. Doing it
Recent example: An interview with Hal Hershfield about his book, Your Future Self. can be awkward but following it up
Short-form science journalism, news and history. Articles (500-1,200 words) about can be even more awkward. Not every
the latest long-term thinking: Recent example, a report on new research about pitch is even acknowledged, much
Stonehenge. Science fiction stories: Imaginative speculations at the timescale of less agreed. That is how it is, we need
civilization. Stories that take unexpected angles on the future and the past, honing to accept it and let it prompt us to
in on details that emerge from a longer view (1,000-4,000 words). Poems that do more. As Oliver Miller said: When
engage with long-term thinking and time. No restrictions on form or length. (You a person says I’ll think about it and let
may submit up to four poems at once.) you know – you know. As I say, it can
Send pitches to ideas@[Link]. For fiction and poetry attach your be a difficult stage.
submission as a file to your email. Essential to follow the full guidelines at https:// It may be best handled by
[Link]/ideas/pitch-guide/. dividing your pitches into two
Payment ranges from $25 US per poem to $300-$600 for interviews, reviews, categories: first those to people
short-form journalism and news articles to a minimum of $600 for features and you know and maybe have been
essays. Response time aims for three weeks. published by, and others with whom
Before pitching or submitting explore at [Link] where every you have had no prior contact.
article ever published by the site is available to read for free. Editors are busy people and
Follow on Facebook: [Link]/longnow/ certainly those you do not know
X/Twitter: @longnow are under no obligation to reply to
speculative pitches (realistically it is
no different from you tossing things
from your morning post straight in
the bin). However, some will reply,
Money, honey and others may put something you
send aside to consider.
A follow up reminder is worth
If you can write first-person finance stories where mind, heart and money meet sending and with email only takes
then the Junei website would like to hear from you, writes Jenny Roche. a few seconds and costs nothing. It
Example stories might be ‘the thrill of the first sale, the insomnia inducing may be useful to add a new thought
debt or the pressure to fend for your family’. It is emphasised that you need to be about what you suggested – but keep
real and honest about the facts of money, no matter whether that be a failure or it brief. Judge how long you leave
something that has been learnt. it carefully, too long and any slight
The fundamental principles of writing for this site are that stories have first interest your initial contact prompted
person intimacy, satisfy a reader’s curiosity and have a lot of detail about the will have evaporated, too soon and
amounts of money involved. it may be viewed as annoying or
Stories should be 800-1,000 words long. Payment rates are £120 per story with inappropriately pushy.
‘additional details to be mutually agreed upon during the commissioning stage’. Chase those you know but do
Pitch your idea for a story by emailing a short paragraph of the story, and if you always chase. If the idea was worth
are a journalist/writer 2-3 examples of your writing, in the body of the email. putting out there in the first place it
Details: Email: hello@[Link]; Website: [Link] is worth pursuing and can produce
share-story. useful feedback – or, better still,
commissions.

[Link] JANUARY 2024 65

WRITERS’ NEWS

POETRY COMPETITIONS

WoLF Poetry Competition 2024

Now in its seventh year, the contest from Wolverhampton Literature
The Edward Thomas Fellowship
Festival is inviting entries.
The WoLF Poetry Competition is an international open contest for
Poetry Competition 2024
poetry on any theme. The Edward Thomas Fellowship is inviting entries for the Edward
Enter original, unpublished poems up to 40 lines. Cawston Thomas Prize.
There are first and second prizes of £400 and £150, and three third Enter original, unpublished poems on any subject, no longer than
prizes of £25. An additional £50 prize will be awarded to the writer of 40 lines.
the best poem by a writer living in a WV postcode. This year’s judge is The winner will receive £150. There are two runner-up prizes of
Romalyn Ante. £75 and up to six highly commended prizes of £25. Winners will be
The entry fee is £4 for one poem and £10 for three. invited to read at the AGM in Hampshire in March. The judge is
The closing date is 31 December. poet Jane Draycott.
Website: [Link] The entry fee is £3 per poem. Writers may enter up to three poems.
The closing date is 7 January.
For full details see the website. Website: [Link]

Tower Poetry Competition 2024

This year’s prize for young poets has the theme of ‘Mirror’ and a first prize of £5,000.
The competition is for poets between 16 and 19 in full or part-time education.
The prizes are £5,000, £3,000 and £1,500. Ten runners up will each win £500.
The judges are Will Harris, Jane Yeh and Mishtooni Bose.
Enter poems up to 48 lines on the competition theme.
Entry is free. Each entrant may submit one poem.
The closing date is 23 February.
Website: [Link]/tower-poetry/enter-tower-poetry-competition

Sabine Baring-Gould Poetry

Competition 2024
Shepton Snowdrops The competition is in honour
of the centenary of the writer’s
2024 Poetry Competition death in 1924. There are two
categories for entry. One is for
The theme of this year’s contest is ‘Nature Unbound’. poems based on any aspect of
The 2024 Shepton Snowdrops Poetry Competition will be judged by Sabine Baring-Gould’s life or
nature poet Wendy Pratt. There are prizes in three categories: writing, ie his book of Fairy Tales
• 18 and over: £300 or collection of folk music. The
• 12 to 17: £100 other is for poems that include
• 11 and under: £50 a reference to any of the novels
Enter original, unpublished poems in any form, no longer than 30 lines. he wrote featuring Devon or
In the adult category, entry is £4 per poem, and entrants may submit Cornwall.
up to five poems. The young poet categories are free to enter, and There is a prize of £50 in each
entrants may submit one poem. category.
The Shepton Mallet Snowdrop Project includes the 2024 Snowdrop The entry fee is £5 for one poem and £2 for any
Festival between 12 and 18 February 2024. subsequent entries.
The closing date is 7 January. The closing date is 31 January.
Website: [Link] Website: [Link]

66 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 GET PUBLISHED
The Teignmouth Poetry
Festival Competition 2024
Win a £600 first prize in
the open contest that will be
judged by Malika Booker.
The Teignmouth Poetry
Festival Competition is an
annual international prize
for original, unpublished
poems on any subject, up to
40 lines. The Kent & Sussex Poetry
In addition to the £600
first prize, there are second Society Open Poetry
and third prizes of £300
and £200. The top three
Competition 2024
commended poets will each The Kent & Sussex Poetry Society is inviting entries of
win £25. original, unpublished poems in any style and on any
All entries with a Devon postcode are automatically entered subject, up to 40 lines.
in the Graham Burchell Award for Devon Poets, which will be The first prize is £1,000, and there are second and third
judged by Graeme Ryan and has prizes of £200, £100 and £50. prizes of £300 and £100. Four runners up will each receive
The top three commended poets will each win £25. £50. This year’s judge is Kathryn Gray.
The entry fee is £5.50 for one poem and £3.50 for any The entry fee is £5 per poem, or £4 each for three or
subsequent entries online, and £5 for one and £3 for each more poems.
additional for postal entries. The closing date is 31 January 2024.
The closing date is 31 January 2024. Website: [Link]
Website: [Link]/[Link]

Wales Poetry
Award 2023
The Wales Poetry Award from
Poetry Wales magazine invites
entries of single poems from
writers wordwide.
The first prize is £500 and a
residential course or retreat at
Literature Wales’ Ty Newydd
Writing Centre, a Seren book bundle and publication in Poetry
Wales. The second and third prizes are £100 and £50 plus a
Seren bundle and publication. There will be ten further highly
Magma 2023/2024 commended prizes. The judge is Denise Saul.
Enter original, unpublished poems up to 70 lines. Writers
Poetry Competition may submit up to five poems.
The entry fee is £5 per poem. Entry is free for writers from
low-income backgrounds.
Entries are invited in two separate categories for short The closing date is 5 February.
poems and longer poems. Website: [Link]
The annual poetry contest from Magma poetry journal is walespoetryaward2023/
inviting entries. The categories are:
• The Judge’s Prize for poems between 11 and 50 lines.
This year’s judge is Raymond Antrobus.
• The Editors’ Prize for poems up to 10 lines.
In each category there is a first prize of £1,000, a
The Plaza Poetry Prize 2024
second prize of £300 and a third prize of £150. All six Win a first prize of £1,000 in the competition for poems
winning poems will be published in Magma. Winning and in any form.
commended poets will be invited to read their poems at a Enter poetry up to 60 lines.
Magma competition event in spring 2024. There are prizes of £1,000, £300 and £100, and the ten
The entry fee is £5 for the first poem, £4 for the second shortlisted poems will be published in The Plaza Prizes
and £3.50 for the third and any subsequent poem. Anthology 2. The judge is Tim Liardet.
The closing date is 31 January. The entry fee is £12 for the first entry, and £6 for any
Website: [Link] subsequent entries.
poetry-competition/ The closing date is 29 February.
Website: [Link]
the-plaza-poetry-prize-60-lines/

[Link] JANUARY 2024 67

WRITERS’ NEWS

SMALL PRESS OPPORTUNITIES

PDR LINDSAY-SALMON

THAYER Hiraeth Publishing

THAYER is an independent press operating out of New York City’s Hiraeth Publishing is an indie small press producing the best in
East Village. It runs a coffee house/shop meeting place for readers and speculative fiction: science fiction, fantasy, horror, paranormal, ‘anything
authors, publishes a biennial magazine of short fiction, poetry, and out of the ordinary.’ The team publishes novels, novellas, chapbooks,
photography, and now publishes novels. colouring books, anthologies, collections, even short stories, and is open
Submit short fiction, poetry, photography, and novels. Rights and to submissions of novels, 70,000 to 110,000 words, novellas, 17,500
royalties are discussed with the contract. to 40,000 words, collections of stories, at least 40,000 words and
Website: [Link] collections of poems, at least 40 pages. For novels submit a 500-word
synopsis and the first ten pages of the novel. For novellas please submit
a 200 word synopsis and the entire novella. Query first for poetry and
Sapphire Books Publishing short-story collections.
The current anthology, Here There Be Dragons is needing subs of
Sapphire Books Publishing calls itself ‘the gem in lesbian publishing.’ prose and poetry.
It publishes fiction, non-fiction and biographical lesbian literary works With a deadline of 1 January, or when filled, submit dragon-themed
of art and welcomes high-quality unsolicited manuscripts by lesbian stories 3,000 to 6,000 words and poetry, 10 to 24 lines. Response time is
authors. On the current wish list is romance, mystery/intrigue with ‘reasonable.’
romantic elements and young adult books. No poetry or short stories. Payment for books: royalties. Anthology payments: stories, 8 UScents
Novels should be at least 50,000 words. The team prefer stories a word for the first 3,000 words and 3 UScents/word thereafter. Poetry,
with a HEA ending. Include a story summary, with ending, under US$1.00/line and art, US$30/piece, US$300 for a cover.
750 words. Website: [Link]
Rights and royalties are discussed with the contract.
Website: [Link]
The Horror Tree
Thinking Ink Press The Horror Tree is not so much a small press, more a resource for
genre and speculative fiction publishers and authors. Whilst publishing
Thinking Ink Press is a small press based in the San Francisco Bay Area anthologies themselves, they also create a cache of ‘all of the latest horror
that publishes ‘traditional books and also limited edition small-format anthologies and publishers that are taking paying submissions.’ The
books and postcards.’ current anthology the HT team will publish is Trembling With Fear.
Currently open for submissions, editor Keiko O’Leary wants poems Submit short stories, no more than 1,500 words and drabbles of exactly
or flash stories for postcards. Story length is 100 to 300 words and 100 words. They publish online weekly, then as print once a year. Check
poetry length is 30 lines or fewer. She also wants standalone stories, the themes and calls for ‘serials and unholy trinities;’ details at the website.
500 to 1,500 words, with strong narrative arcs for the Instant Books. Submit speculative fiction, horror, dark S.F. and fantasy, and more.
For the 4-page flexagon (A flexagon is a flat piece of paper that can be Theme stories are no more than 2,500 words. Valentine’s stories should be
folded and twisted to reveal hidden surfaces), stories or poems need sent by 31 January, Summer horror holidays by the end of July, Halloween
to be divided into four pages and read as a loop, with no enforced stories 13 October and the Christmas horror tales by 7 December.
beginning or end. Simultaneous submissions and reprints are okay. Payment is US$5.
Email submissions for Keiko with Keiko’s Calls in the subject line. Website: [Link]
The book team publishes ‘children’s health, writing inspiration,
diverse science fiction, flash fiction and poetry, and short story
collections and anthologies’ and is currently open to submissions for Roundabout Press
the Neurodiversiverse science fiction anthology of short stories, flash
fiction, poetry, and art exploring encounters between neurodivergent Roundabout Press is a small, American independent press that wants
people and aliens. Queries for non-fiction books of writing advice/ ‘writing that breaks with tradition and challenges the status quo.’ Always
inspiration/reference books, and full-length fiction, short story open for fiction manuscripts, the team are seeking ‘literary excellence.’
collections, and anthology pitches are also accepted. Submit by post the first 20 pages, a one- or two-page query letter and a
Submit queries by email. self-addressed, stamped envelope.
Rights and royalties are discussed with the contract. Rights and royalties are discussed with the contract.
Website: [Link] Website: [Link]

HUMOUR SUBMISSIONS
Witty writing wanted
Humorous stories with ‘wit, word play, political satire are not wanted. For more to your name.
absurdity and inspired nonsense’ are information on the kind of humour Email your piece as an attachment. In the
invited for Witcraft, which is published wanted, check out the website. body of the email include a brief bio and any
online weekly, writes Jenny Roche. Stories Stories should be 200-1,000 words long. site or social links.
which are gratuitously offensive, snarky No payment is made for contributions Details: Email: submit@[Link];
diatribe, fake news or based on current although you will gain a publication credit Website: [Link]

68 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 GET PUBLISHED
E L W RI
V T

Wide horizons,

IN
TR

G
deep dig

W
N

K
O W-H O
Landscape writing can help travel writers make the most of
description, says Patrick Forsyth

T
ravel writing spans a wide range. A focus on a journey, on a the writer to consider not just what is visible in front of them but
place or with a light shone on one individual detail. Always also what is recalled from the past and going beyond that: what
what is recorded is somewhere, though the geography may about history, myths, and geological, deep, time?
vary from an urban scene to, say, a wide-open desert. One implication of this is imagination. Often travel writing is
Often the landscape is an important part. We want to show seen as straightforward reportage, but some of it, certainly that
readers what a place was like, what it felt like to be there and often intended to paint a dramatic picture, can be fueled by imagination.
what went on while we were there (or thinking about or recalling it) Thinking about and imagining how a landscape came to be, both
– the events, the people and more. in terms of geological time and something like recent erosion, may
A certain kind of writing is known as landscape writing. Here enhance your present view. As may thinking about any people,
the focus is primarily on the surroundings, in a literary manner myths or legends associated with it, its simple history and its future
that some may regard as overstated. The geographer Doreen Massey history – what will it look like in a hundred, or a thousand years?
says: ‘landscape is provocation, prompting speculation about various All may change and enhance your perception of it and influence
temporalities: it is a space formed by geological time and inhabited what you write.
in human times.’ There are lessons here for travel writers. Other things mentioned in this column, not least the events
The first is the classic advice to use all the senses and particularly and encounters with people that occur as you visit somewhere, are
to go beyond what you can see. I recently reviewed a piece I had important and may predominate, but if you want to maximise your
written about an eastern street market and rapidly concluded that it descriptive powers, taking a leaf out of the landscape writers’ book
was too close to exclusively visual; more about the sounds and the can be useful. It is the blend of all this that creates a good piece –
smells improved it. So far so obvious (even if this is difficult to keep something that combines vision with more, not just the other senses,
in mind). Another lesson from landscape writers digs deeper, urging but deeper thinking, imagination and perhaps also investigation.

GENERAL NEWS
Royal retreat
World Fantasy
Awards winners Stephen King is moving
from his famous house
The winners of the World at 47 W. Broadway,
Fantasy Awards for 2022 Bangor, Maine, where
were announced at the World he and his wife Tabitha
Fantasy Convention in Kansas have lived since 1979.
City at the end of October. The 4,952 square feet
Best Novel, Saint Death’s property, from the
Daughter, C.S.E. Cooney front gate of which is
(Solaris); Best Novella, decorated with images
Pomegranates, Priya Sharma of bats and spider webs,
(Absinthe); Best Short will become a repository
Fiction, ‘Incident at Bear for the King archives
Creek Lodge’, Tananarive (Tabitha is a novelist
Due (published in Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology); too), while the property
Best Anthology, Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative next door, which is
Fiction, edited by Sheree Renée Thomas, Oghenechovwe currently a guest house and is also owned by the Kings, is being
Donald Ekpeki, Zelda Knight (Tordotcom); Best transformed into a writers’ retreat. Up to five writers will be able
Collection, All Nightmare Long, Tim Lebbon (PS to stay at a time.
Publishing); Special Award – Professional, Matt Ottley, The Kings will now divide their time between their summer
for The Tree of Ecstasy and Unbearable Sadness (Dirt Lane); home in Center Lovell, which is also in Maine, and their
Special Award – Non-Professional, Michael Kelly, for winter home, in Casey Key, Florida. A version of Bangor
Undertow Publications. Peter Crowther of the UK’s PS renamed Derry has featured in many of King’s works, first being
Publishing was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement mentioned in the 1981 short story, ‘The Bird and the Album’,
Award, as was the American editor John R. Douglas, who before providing the setting for Insomnia, Dreamcatcher, and
died in August. GD most famously, It. GD

[Link] JANUARY 2024 69

 GET PUBLISHED
GET PUBLISHED
CREATIVE WRITING OPPORTUNITIES
IF in print
Flash of
The classic US science fiction magazine Worlds of IF, which originally
ran for 175 issues from April 1955 to 1974 (titled If – Worlds of Science frogs
Fiction in its early years), is being relaunched in February by Starship
Sloan Publishing, writes Gary Dalkin. Original flash fiction of a
Justin Sloane is editor in chief and publisher, and Jean-Paul L. Garnier maximum 1,000 words is invited for Flash Frog, an online
of Space Cowboy Books is deputy editor in chief. The inaugural issue magazine first published in January 2021, writes Jenny
will be available in print and as free downloadable PDF, and promises Roche. ‘We like our stories like we like dart frogs,’ says
to include works from multiple generations of SFF authors, artists, Editor in Chief Eric Scott Tryson, ‘small, brightly coloured
and poets. The editors plan to continue the magazine’s tradition of and deadly to the touch’.
experimenting with new forms and styles of SF and showcasing new Once a story is accepted for publication, an original
authors. No submission details were available at the time of writing, but piece of artwork will be created for it.
visit [Link] Submit one story only and email this with a third person
1955-free-webzine-reissue-new-bonus-content/ for updates, and to bio of a maximum 100 words in the body of the email.
read a digital version, including a story by Philip K. Dick, of the very Payment for published work is $25 payable via PayPal.
first issue of the magazine. Details: Email: flashfroglitmag@[Link]; Website:
[Link]

Write a Blood exchange

pocket novel The Blood Project is a US non-profit educational website
dedicated to advancing knowledge about the blood’s
The People’s Friend magazine is a well connection to human health, disease, and therapeutics,
established and popular magazine writes Gary Dalkin. The editors are currently seeking
which also publishes larger-print pitches from freelance writers and welcome pitches
Pocket Novels, writes Jenny Roche. from anywhere in the world. These can range from case
They are aimed to appeal to studies, FAQs, essays, poems or creative writing. The only
readers of the magazine and popular requirement is that your proposed piece touches on blood
genres are romance, cosy crime, in ways that further understanding of its place in medicine
mystery, drama and family stories. All may be set in the past or present and society.
day and anywhere in the world. The UK is popular although with Creative approaches are encouraged, and work should
readers in Australia, New Zealand and Canada these areas are popular be written with minimal jargon and be comprehensible
too. Bad language or over-intimacy are not wanted. It is advised you to educated non-physicians. Find out more about
read a few of the novels or the magazine before submitting. submissions at [Link]/submit-
Larger-print Pocket Novels have a word count of 37,000-39,000 to-tbp/ then download the PDF guidelines for essays,
words and payment for published novels is £300, payable on acceptance. creative writing and poems.
Authors retain all copyright to their work. You can send enquiries to [Link].
Initially email a brief synopsis (eg one side of A4 paper) of your com/contact-us/ Pitches should be sent to either the
proposed Pocket Novel to Tracy Steel at: tsteel@[Link]. project’s founder, Dr Bill Aird, MD by emailing waird@
Fiction editor Lucy Crichton has a regular blog which gives lots [Link] or Editor-in-Chief Charles Bardes
of news and information for anybody wanting to write for The at Clbardes@[Link]. Payment is 50 cents US
People’s Friend or Pocket Novels: [Link] per word.
[Link]/2023/09/28/fiction-eds-blog-pocket-novels-qa/

BOOK COMPETITIONS
The Next Generation
Indie Book Awards 2024
The international awards programme for indie authors and second and third prizes are $750 and $500.
independent publishers is inviting entries. The 2024 entry fee is $75 per title for the first category entered,
The Next Generation Indie Book Awards have more than 80 and $60 for each additional category.
entry categories, and offer $100 cash prizes in each. The closing date is 14 February.
The first-placed winner in fiction and non-fiction is $1,500. The Website: [Link]/

70 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 From the
OTHE R SIDE
OF THE DESK

ALIEN INVASION
As AI makes inroads into the publishing industry, literary agent Piers Blofeld
proposes measures to protect the human creative element

t was a laconic New York publisher the fun: part of the eccentric loveability willingness to blur lines about
who, on a business trip to the States of publishing. AI changes all of that. authorship when it comes to ghost-
a couple of years ago leant back Penguin Random House made two written books. Publishers love to sell a
and remarked, ‘it’s a publishing seemingly unrelated announcements last brand because then the brand does all
meeting, no one gets to leave until week. One was that they are making a the heavy lifting for them.
everyone is unhappy.’ raft of redundancies, the other that they At the moment the only real fly in
I was reminded of their words reading have already started to incorporate AI the ointment for them is that copyright
Katy Loftus’ excellent piece for the into their decision-making process. I’m laws do not yet protect the work of
Bookseller in which she reviews her not suggesting the two are explicitly machines. But the lobbying process for
decision to leave the world of corporate linked, but it’s hard not to wonder if that has started…
publishing a year ago and asks if it still they aren’t twin harbingers of the future. So, what is to be done? Well, the
seems like the right decision. Spoiler From a business perspective a first thing to say is that if in the end
alert, it does. publisher is a manufacturer of written the consumer does not care if books
I have commented quite regularly (and illustrated) entertainment are written by machines then it doesn’t
on how publishing isn’t very good at products. Provided that product is really matter what we think. But just as
looking after authors or its editorial popular they have no inherent interest people do care about the ethics of food
staff. There are all sorts of structural in where it comes from. Indeed production (say) so, probably more so,
reasons for this, but one I have never authors and the editorial staff required does it matter that human culture is
really touched on is that there is an to service them are time consuming produced by, err, humans?
inherent tension in the role of editor and expensive and for the first time in I propose a ‘Campaign for Real
that will always lead to a degree of the history of the industry are (almost) Authors’ (sorry CAMRA) which
conflict with the business people who no longer essential. would have two objectives. The first
run publishers. Publishers have long fantasized about is that any book which is not wholly
Editors are almost without exception generating more ‘content’ in-house and the work of the human named on
passionate about what they do. You cutting out agents and authors: it’s an the jacket be clearly labelled so
have to be, the job combines high obvious way of growing their margins. that consumers are able to make an
stress with low pay: no one’s favourite It never really works, but AI does hold informed choice.
combination. But it gets worse. The out that prospect as never before. AI Secondly that we need to
very best editors, the ones who love is not very good at sequencing events immediately start to lobby for a
their jobs the most, may be employed at length, but over a few pages it’s global conference to redraft the Berne
by publishers but the people they are astonishingly proficient and it really Convention for the Protection of
really working for are authors. is not very hard to imagine some Literary and Artistic Work to exclude
Their bosses know this and they commercial genres being ‘written’ in for ever the work of machines because
kind of hate them for it. Or to put it house by an editor and a team of AI if that is allowed all creative activity
another way, there is a permanent cloud inputters, with all copyright and all will be in service to ‘brands’ and
of suspicion over them and it is a big benefits being the publisher’s and the the future of writing will be as wage
part of the reason why they are so keen publisher’s alone. slaves servicing the content creation
to set sales, marketing and publicity in The most basic business logic dictates departments of global corporations.
oversight roles. The idea that ‘everyone that this is a desirable outcome for But it’s no good me calling for it.
has to buy into the book’ is really them, despite whatever bromides they The only people who have any real
another way of saying ‘we don’t trust say in public about respecting authors power in this – because they are the
editors not to go feral.’ and creativity. The lie to that is given people who have power over publishers
Historically this was all just part of in the way that there is such ubiquitous – are the big authors.

[Link] JANUARY 2024 71

WINNER

LAST SATURDAY NIGHT

BY LYNDA GREEN
double time after midnight had quaffed a bit then wouldn’t you, what with
their last pints and been delivered to the growl, the strange smell and his
their respective homes, swaying gently disorientation, you’ll think I’m thick,
and swearing loudly, whilst trying to get but you know, in my town, some of our
in their front doors. In the stillness of customers are monosyllabic and not too
the night you can hear them. sweet smelling, and they don’t always
A motley career including clerical, So, anyway, last Saturday, this man know where they are, especially after a
catering and craft work behind her, growled Newquay and I half turned skinful at the White Hart, or a lock-in
Lynda now drives a cab in the South and said, you know it’s after twelve at the King’s Head.
West. She has taken many odd people and double time and he just grunted, The police car and I parted company
to their destinations, but never a which, at that time of night and after as the lights glowed green and I picked
wolf. She writes short stories on a session on the town, many of our up speed when I got on the bypass. I
many subjects, often with a surreal customers do; to be honest some do it gave myself thirty minutes tops to get
element as real life does not always twenty four seven. to Newquay.
charm her. She has been published The half turn afforded me a quick Then my phone rang. It was Harry, one
but never won a major competition, look at him, but all I’d taken in was the of our drivers. Harry looks out for me,
so is delighted with this win. She’s an long black coat, the upturned lapels, the reckons women shouldn’t work nights
avid reader, a passionate cook and a trilby jammed on a biggish head and the and if they do then they need someone
moderate allotmenteer. Sahara-coloured suede gloves. It was only to keep an eye out for them, Harry is my
a glance after all, and my expectations self-appointed personal minder.
have never included wolf. Would yours? “You’re on loud speaker,” I said.
ou meet all sorts when you What I thought was, wow. I’ve always “Ok,” he said, “Shirl, your sister says
drive a taxi for a living. I been a sucker for a snazzy dresser; age hello, I’ve just dropped her off.”
drove a wolf to Newquay has not diminished my appreciation of That’s our code for ring me soon as
last Saturday night. Not the finely dressed male. you can.
that I knew he was a wolf. After tailing an irritating police car He sounded concerned.
I thought he was simply a well dressed, through town for a couple of miles, it We drove on in silence. Harry’s
taciturn stranger; after Harry rang to was doing twenty seven miles an hour, tone had worried me, I looked in my
warn me, I thought he could be the for spite one can only assume, I did mirror, the guy had his head sunk into
escaped felon from Dartmoor. It was wonder if my passenger had a bad case his chest. I could see he probably had
only on my way back from Newquay of halitosis or whether he’d stepped in a beard, but at a glance that was all.
that wolf entered my head, you’ll see something. I wound the window down Apart from a faintly canine odour, there
why. And before you scratch your head a couple of inches. was nothing to suggest lupus.
and wonder how I could have not At the lights, behind the police car, I I kept driving; there wasn’t much on
realized, picture this, a dark night, me radio’d in, “Rank to Newquay.” the road. A fox ran out in front of me
parked at the back of the taxi rank, well “Good night?” I said conversationally but I managed to slow down. I heard a
not even the back, beyond back, on the to my passenger, waiting for the lights whine from the back seat and looking
double yellows, where the last street to change. over, saw him twitch a bit. So, we were
light can’t quite reach. He must have He must have dozed off, because I both jumpy.
come out from the old people’s flats felt him start. A few minutes later, I looked in the
across the road, or up from the little car “Goodnight,” he said, and put mirror. My passenger seemed to be
pack further round. his hand on the door handle. “How sleeping so I phoned Harry quickly
I had just tuned into Radio 3 much?” who said that there was a rumour that
thinking how many cabs were in “What, no, no, we’re not there yet.” someone had escaped from Dartmoor
front of me, when the back door was I did wonder what planet he was on, and could be heading for Newquay, he
flung open and this guy jumps in and couldn’t he tell the difference between was known to have family there.
growls ‘Newquay’. Well, I was grateful the dull glow of Mcdonald’s at the traffic “You don’t think that’s who you’ve got
someone was getting in, that I wouldn’t lights and the neons of Newquay? on board, do you?” he asked.
have to stop start my way to the front Course, I didn’t say this, and all I “No, I don’t know.”
of the rank. It was ten minutes past got was a low growl as he settled back “Stay calm, keep the radio on, I’m
midnight, those of our patrons who in his seat. sure it’s ok. Did you get the money
think it’s beyond the pale to have to pay You’d think I might have wondered up front?”

72 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 WM OPEN SHORT STORY COMPETITION: JOURNEY

“Oh shit,” I said, which is not a code not for any amount of money. Then
personal and usually means something he stumbled out of the hedge and fell
has been pointed out to you which you heavily into the back seat.
should know and have overlooked. “Sorry,” he sort of slurped.
Then I dropped the phone because My heart was pounding as we pulled
I was tapped on the shoulder. I almost up outside the Black Cat night club.
shot out of my skin. The meter said £71
“Could you stop for a minute, “Just give me fifty,” I said.
please.” It was higher than a growl but I watched him take out a pigskin
lower than the average man. wallet and count three twenties. He
“What, here?” I croaked. folded them over in the way you do
We were in the middle of nowhere, when you don’t want change and
in a dip. I looked in my mirror, a feral passed them to me. He was still
glint danced across it like the Northern wearing the gloves.
Lights. A shiver crawled up my spine The lights of Newquay were behind
and threatened the follicles at the nape me when I remembered Harry. I pulled They melted away, ashen features in
of my neck. over again. the blue neon. But even that steely hue
“Just stop the car.” “It’s me, I’m on the way back, no couldn’t disguise the colour of the swirl
‘Oh God,’ I thought, it was black out trouble, he was a bit weird though.” of fabric draped over the officer’s arm,
there, not even moonlight, the sort of “Well, it wasn’t the escaped guy,” it was red, red as a Southwest sunset.
night you could get murdered. said Harry, “they’ve picked him up at That was my lightbulb moment, the
I realised then that fear, real fear, Bodmin. Glad you’re ok anyway.” odour, the hairy silhouette, the flashing
tastes of blood, like your cheeks are I wasn’t going to admit I’d wondered eyes in the mirror. I shivered and
haemorrhaging. I tried to appear calm, if I was going to be murdered. I was wondered if I should run over to the
and pulled over. Maybe he needed to calming down now. uniforms and share my suspicions.
relieve himself. I wondered whether to I was just climbing out of the But how can you say you think you’ve
just leave him there, but he hadn’t done same dip where we’d stopped when just dropped a wolf in Newquay? I’d
anything wrong, being hairy wasn’t a something flapped on the road in front be in their car on the way to a nice
crime, nor was halitosis, though I was of me and then plastered itself onto my safe cell, don’t you think? I looked in
beginning to think it should be, and windscreen. I couldn’t see a thing and the back of my cab, it was as it should
then there was the question of the had to stop the car. Next thing, blue be, no wiry hair on the seat, no mud
money. So I sat there and watched him flashing light heading towards me, car on the floor, although, there was
push his way through a low hedge. I breaking, heavy footfall, door yanked something, it was just visible, nearly
could see the outline of a bungalow or open, torch, bright torch. under the seat. I couldn’t reach it, and
barn on the horizon. “Are you alright madam?” thought it was probably a pen or a roll
I decided I’d give him five minutes, “No, I mean yes, Officer, I think so, up. Whatever it was, it could wait.
it was twelve thirty three. Keep calm, I had to stop, couldn’t see in front of When I reached home I decided to
I told myself. Twelve thirty eight. me.” call it a day, and told Harry.
Twelve forty, ok I was off, he’d probably His partner peeled a wrap or a cloak, What I didn’t tell him was that I had
done a runner, probably lived in that something in fabric, off my windscreen. found something in the cab that closely
bungalow, and I wasn’t about to follow “As long as you’re ok. We are just on resembled the remains of a finger, a
him up there, not on this dark night, the way over to Newquay.” little finger, perhaps a child’s.

RUNNER UP AND SHORTLISTED

The runner up in WM’s Journey Short Story Competition Also shortlisted were: Terry Baldock, Evesham, Worcs; Sandi
was Alexis Cunningham, Peterborough, Cambs. Johnson, Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire; Paul Mantell,
You can read her story at: [Link]/ Wem, Shropshire; Damien McKeating, Newcastle-under-
writing-competitions/showcase/ Lyme, Staffordshire; Chris Morris, Dundee; Sharon Treganza,
Box, Corsham.

[Link] JANUARY 2024 73

MACHINE SHORT STORY WINNER

BY NIKA JELENDORF
They came into the forest one after another,
Nika moved from Zagreb through some of them men in suits and some boys with
Berlin to London, where she now dead eyes. A procession of them, each parking
lives with her partner and their their own machine behind another. They left
growing number of cats. In her the cars looking out of place, like a row of shoes
job, she listens to the narratives arranged in the middle of a road. The last one
people tell about themselves, and who came drove a Renault Dauphine to the end
in her free time, she reads the ones of a line. It was an elegant, rounded, powder
they put on paper. This is her first blue car with silver bumpers. The front had a
published work. small crest with a crown relief in it. The man
who abandoned the vehicle should have been a
boy. He locked the car and walked back to the
base, where he would get on a boat and return
to where he came from. The premature lines on
his face spoke of his reasons, but the forest didn’t
know how to read them and wouldn’t have
cared even if she could.
For a little while, the forest ignored the
cars. Animals circled them, knowing the cars
didn’t belong. The machines were unmovable,
soldiers standing at attention, waiting for
a hand to guide them. The fourth time it
rained that summer, a fox was passing nearby.
Having just eaten a frog, the fox was pleased
with herself and wanted to enjoy that feeling
instead of getting her fur wet. She crawled
underneath the Dauphine and took a nap,
cosy and dry. The rain fell gently around
them. Clusters of mushrooms enjoyed the
soaking, calling for their peers to come out of
the ground and join them. For this afternoon,
the Dauphine was content.
After this, the forest started to eat the vehicles.
She was slow at first. Specks of moss were the
first to lay their claim, growing where the rubber
RUNNER UP AND SHORTLISTED seals met the bodies of the cars. Weeds started
germinating in the front and rear cowls under
The runner up in WM’s Machine Short Story Competition is the windshields, taking nourishment from the
John Moralees, Washington, Tyne and Wear. You can read his story piles of rotting leaves accumulating there.
at [Link]/writing-competitions/showcase/ The men who left the cars picked a hidden
Also shortlisted were: Dominic Bell, Hull; Lucy Brighton, spot, but eventually, someone stumbled
Barnsley, South Yorkshire; Alana Beth Davies, Swansea; Melanie onto it. The first to come was a couple who
Francis, Harrow, Middlesex; Christine Griffin, Hucclecote, were delightfully shocked. They wandered
Gloucester; Deborah Hugill, Northallerton, North Yorkshire; Rob through the metal maze, enjoying each other’s
Molan, Edinburgh; M Stewart Smith, Burley, Leeds; Sharon S amazement and trying the doors until they
Summervale, Bridgwater, Somerset; Sarah Turner; Rayleigh, found an unlocked Citroën they disappeared
Essex; Gill Wilson, Norwich. into. They emerged half an hour later looking
sombre and didn’t return, and there were no

74 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 SUBSCRIBER-ONLY SHORT STORY WINNER

weeks ago. The air was escaping the tires, front windshield of the Dauphine. A small more like mounds than cars. The forest
making the cars sink into the forest floor, circle spread across it, mirroring the spider took some casualties, but she was winning.
sometimes at an angle, as some tires were web underneath it. It burst almost a year And then different people started to
older than others. The paint started to later in the middle of the day. The glass appear. Photographers with multiple lenses,
flake away like sad confetti. exploded inwards over the moss-covered clicking. People with placards, yelling into
The next human to visit was a man top dashboard, glistening like diamonds on their phones. The occasional person in a
who inspected every car slowly and a velvet bag. suit, frowning into a camera. Decades after
methodically. This one did return, in a car The Dauphine wasn’t always alone. the machines were left in the forest, people
of his own and with a toolbox and started The spider had left quickly, but field mice were paying attention to them again.
taking parts away. From the Dauphine, he moved in at some point, thrilled to nibble Finally, two people arrived, an older man
took the crest with the crown, the radio, on the leather seats and snuggle in the with a face like a tree bark and a woman
the stick shift, and the motor, leaving the stuffing. They dug labyrinths inside the with a clip chart. The man walked around
car feeling naked and uneasy. He went for car, where many generations of their family touching the cars, and the woman kept
the steering wheel too, but he noticed it slept, mated, and were born until the rot making notes. They started at the opposite
was cracked and smudged in places, so he forced them to move out and abandon end from where the Dauphine was parked,
let it be and left the doors open. The man her for a more hospitable home. By now, so her spot was the last they came to. The
came for three days in a row, and then he lichen stretched out over the Dauphine, man walked around her in a circle, once
never came again. But soon after him, a making her look like a dried-out mermaid, to the left and once to the right. Then he
spider saw the wheel and decided it was a powder blue peeking out from under ash turned to the woman.
great place to build a web. He abandoned green. The forest liked that look. “Shit, man, this won’t work unless I fell
it when it became evident that not many Some seasons later, a forgetful squirrel the tree” he said.
insects wandered into the machine, but buried an acorn underneath the Dauphine. “Can you get the motor out?” she asked.
by that point, the car began to realise that The acorn was lucky – the hood stood The man bent closer to the tree and
being inhabited was no longer her role. open at just the right angle, giving it a put his fingers against the bark, pushing
Slowly the cars began to rot. Covering balance of shade and sun, letting the as if he expected it to give way under
them in moss and rust, the forest had water drip but never soak the earth. The his fingers.
painted their outlines in colours that suited acorn grew. At first, it was a sprout, but it “It’s in the back” he said, and nodded,
her better. The Dauphine went much endured, then it was a sapling, and still, it to whom it was unclear. He popped
quicker than her sisters in arms. The edges grew until it became a real tree, proud and open the back hood with a crowbar
of her were the first to go. The joints secure in its standing. It knew it was going and looked at the empty space where a
between the doors and the frame, the front to outgrow the car. The tangled branches motor once existed. The woman looked
and back hood, and the arches above the slowly started pulling the Dauphine apart. over his shoulder.
wheels became serrated like a breadknife. First, it bent the bodywork, weakening “Leave it then? The paint is almost gone
The rot spread quickly, and the front every joint. The back left door gave way anyway.” She said, and they walked away.
hood, weakened by the man who stole her and fell off, even though neither the car The man returned later with many
crown, popped open. She yawned wide nor the forest would have expected it to be others and vans full of screwdrivers,
and ate the rain, leaves and dandelion fluff the first to go. As the tree pushed out, the hammers, chainsaws, and chisels. They
that fell into her mouth. Dauphine pushed back in. The hood was walked around, attacking the cars,
Some of the cars fought back against the thin and had teeth carved into it by the shouting at each other from across the
forest. They dripped iridescent poison on rust. It bit into the tree. But the rest of her forest. One of them brought a speaker
the earth, killing plants, weeds, and insects. couldn’t fight much longer. Over the years, and played music even though most of
They infected their surroundings with the tree shot up, and the hood rose with them wore headphones. The noise was
chips of paint, which dissolved into heavy it. People were coming more often, mostly deafening. It took them a few days, but
metals. They shed rubber dandruff from hikers and adventure hunters, oohing and they cut, chopped, and sawed, and soon,
their tires, letting it spread out on the wind aahing at the scene. the forest looked just like any other forest,
and reach far beyond their resting spots, All around the Dauphine, the others for the most part.
killing birds and fish. They dropped broken were defeated by the forest too. Most of As the new vehicles left carrying away
windscreen wipers, sunroofs, and bumpers them had long lost their shape and colours. parts of the old ones, the tree that was part
on the ground, destroying anthills. And They were now smaller, painted the Dauphine waited for the night to fall.

[Link] JANUARY 2024 75

 COMPETITION LAUNCHES
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Writing Competitions, Writing Magazine,
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£250
TO BE
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OPEN: 500 WORDS
This month’s challenge is to tell
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 ST I L L T I M E TO E N T E R
OPEN: OPEN FIRE POETRY: CAUTIONARY TALES
Enter fireside stories between Enter poems warning about the dangers
1,500 and 1,700 words. of bad behaviour up to 40 lines.
Prizes: £100 and £50
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Entry fee: £7.50/£6 subscribers
Entry fee: £7.50/£6 subscribers Closing date: 15 January
Closing date: 15 January Ref code: WRO/WRO/DEC23/
Ref code: WRO/WRO/DEC23/OPENFIRE CAUTIONARY

How to enterCompetition Rules

Competition Entry
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publish winning entries in any form during those twelve months.

[Link] JANUARY 2024 77

UNDER THE COVERS

Time for a
p a l a t e - c l e a n s e ?
Wondering if writing in a new genre would refresh her creativity is not,
repeat not, a way of avoiding her edits, says Gillian Harvey

uess what? Today I plan to write a thriller. the day (OK, so I’m struggling with it, but honestly, I wasn’t
Or at least I plan to plan a thriller with looking for an excuse to do that. Promise).
the intention of writing it over the next Many writers I speak to have a genre they prefer to write
few days. in, or that they’re now known for. But most of us have
It’s not what I should be doing. I’ve just written in or had a go at other genres over the years – and
received edits back for The Bordeaux Book Club from my I’m no exception. My very first novel was of a haunting – so
editor. It’s due for publication sometime next year and I have scary that my readership (or to be more precise, my younger
three weeks to work on it before sending it back. So what I sister) found it difficult to sleep after reading.
should be doing is re-reading and tweaking and perfecting It didn’t get published, so I moved on to the next. I
that manuscript so I can meet that deadline. decided to steer towards the humorous partly as a result
Or if I’m not editing, I probably should be doing of life experience (I stopped reading crime and thriller
something from my ‘To Do’ list – such as work out some books altogether a few years back because I found the 10
sort of social media strategy, or (if desperate) dusting. (Side o’clock news/my Facebook feed quite horrifying enough).
note: my to-do list currently has 60 undone tasks on it. I My humorous debut secured me my agent, and a publisher
read recently that if you have more than three tasks on your signed me up for more of the same.
to-do list, you don’t really have a to-do list, but I digress). I really enjoy writing my current novels. But that doesn’t
So, back to the thriller. In my defence, I’m not talking a mean I never wonder ‘what if ’? What kind of thriller might
novel here. Just a little teeny short story. What’s a couple of I write? What might happen if I tap into my ‘dark side’? And
thousand words between friends? do I really want to find out?
I got the idea for trying something left-field when reading Who knows? I might find a new string to my bow, a new
an interview with a writer known for her darker books, direction. I might decide eventually to write a whole novel in
who also pens the occasional ‘rom-com’ on the side under this new genre – become a Gill of two trades.
a fluffier pen-name. She sees writing these as the ultimate Alternatively, this could mean days of frustration, writer’s
palate-cleanse – a way of resetting her brain before returning block, trying and failing as I realise I’m just not up to the
to the dark side with fresh eyes. job. It could lead to a substandard story and rejection by
It made me wonder whether she finds it easy to go from the magazine, and maybe even remonstrations from my
one genre to another. Does it require a phenomenal effort readership (most likely once again, my long-suffering,
to turn her prose from dark to light, and back again? Does sleepless sister).
she find herself describing the hero leaning in for a kiss in But even so, I’m determined that it won’t be time wasted.
a rom-com finale only to discover she’s turned her heroine Having now written six novels in the uplit genre, back-to-
into a demon? Does she describe her protagonist opening back, the palette cleanse should – at the very least – make
the door to a long-deserted and potentially haunted house, way for new ideas, a fresh perspective once I return to my
only to find it decked out in pastel colours and chalk- comfort zone.
painted pine? Just as a little lemon sorbet, a slice of apple or (according
Or can she put all elements of one genre aside and focus to a quick Google search) a lovely bit of pickled ginger serve
completely on the job in hand? as a great way to clear the mouth of residual tastes to make
How difficult is it? How closely related are the two genres way for something new and delicious.
and the skills required to write in them? I was left with so Then I’ll get on with my edits in time for my deadline.
many questions, I had to abandon the WIP altogether for Honest.

78 JANUARY 2024 [Link]

 Dive into the depths of
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 How To
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