I've recently taken
advantage of a couple of writing workshops in the Nottingham area so
I thought I'd share my experiences with you.
Sue Moorcroft
Writing Commercial Fiction
Thursday 20th
October Waterstones Nottingham
Award winning novelist
and short story writer Sue Moorcroft was in Nottingham for the launch
of her latest novel The Christmas Promise which was to take
place that evening. In the afternoon she took a group of us through
the stages of getting a book published. She reminded us that in order
to sell we had to entertain and that we must assess our readership in
order to hook them to our story.
A particularly
encouraging piece of information from Sue was that it is an advantage
to have been published in magazines. Amongst other things it gives
you publishing credits, you become accustomed to rejection and it
gets you an audience.
She went on to talk about
pitching, literary agents and attending literary festivals. She
explained about what to put in a cover letter and then talked about
building your internet platform i.e. website, Twitter etc.
A very worthwhile three
hours.
Stephen Booth
Crime Writing Workshop
Saturday 29th
October Long Eaton
Award winning writer of
the crime series featuring police detectives Diane Fry and Ben
Cooper, Stephen Booth was booked by Erewash Writers for a whole day
of creative writing.
Stephen taught us how
important characters are to a story. He explained how it is the
character that drives the plot – not the other way round. He gave
us some examples of questions we might ask about our main character
as a way of finding out what sort of person they are. e.g. What kind
of car do they drive? What books do they read?
He told us that if we
want to imagine how to commit a murder we must inhabit that person.
He also covered point of view and story construction.
He related a few tales of
how involved the fans of his books become with the characters and the
comments they make either via e-mail or in person at book
conventions.
Apparently there is a
hierarchy of murder victims according to how sympathetic readers are
to the characters. Top of list are cats, dogs and other animals.
Readers get most upset if an animal is hurt or killed. Next come
children followed by teenagers and then women. It appears that male
murder victims do not evoke much sympathy from readers and so the
author has to work very hard to arouse any feelings that they might
feel for the unfortunate person.
It was also interesting
to learn that he doesn't plan his novels.
Again, a very productive
experience.
I recommend that you
watch out for any writing events in your area. You can always learn
something from successful authors.
