Spoiler alert: You don’t need to go to university and spend thousands of pounds on a creative writing degree to write a book.
Now, I DID do that, and I don’t regret it, because I was such a lost little lamb I needed those professionals around me to guide me in the right direction.
But you’re not. You’re out here on the internet searching how you can do this thing all by yourself, and for that, I applaud you.
So, to give you a leg up, here are the five most important take aways I took from my Creative Writing Masters…
1) Get feedback ASAP
If you’re going solo the temptation is to hide away in your little den and not show anyone your work until it is a complete, finished product.
But this is going to do you no favours.
On an MA you’re forced to show your peers excerpts of your book as you go along. And as scary as this is at the start of your degree, it is a golden opportunity. Think about it.
Would you rather find a plot hole buried in chapter 3 when you’ve already poured your blood, sweat and tears into a 20 chapter manuscript, or would you rather it be picked up on the same week you’ve written it while it’s fresh in your head and you can go back and fix it?
Several of my chapters have been completely scrapped and rewritten thanks to me putting my ego aside in my degree to say, ‘guys can you read this chapter because I feel like it’s important but don’t think it works,’ to be told, my hunch was right. They didn’t work with the tone of the rest of my book and I didn’t need them at all.
2) Edit, edit, edit the first chapter
After we all submitted our first 3 chapters to the group, one of the first things our lecturer told us to do was delete the first paragraph, if we could.
Then, if the start of the book still made sense, delete the first 3 paragraphs. And if there’s still lot’s of background and ‘scene-setting’ going on, keep going. Some people found they could delete the whole first chapter and their story still made sense!
Get to the action as quickly as you can. It’ll draw the reader in and pick up the pace.
Yes, you need to have the back story of your character in your head and outlined for your own personal reference, but every detail doesn’t need to be in the book, especially not at the start. In this short-attention span world, it’ll just turn readers off.
Spill the tea quick, honey!
3) Keep the structure simple to start
It can be tempting to write a multi-perspective, non-chronological book to show off because your favourite writer wrote this great one once with 4 different main characters so you must too…
But did your favourite writer write that for their debut novel? Really?
Some may have, and you might even get this book to that version eventually, but for version one, try and keep it simple.
Writing a whole book is hard, and I’m guessing, you’ve got other things going on in your life too, so to get the idea out there on the page, keep the structure simple to go easy on yourself.
If it’s a good story, you don’t need to sneak in clever writing tactics to make it original. It’s better to focus on the strength of your voice first.
4) Use the snowflake method
Speaking of structure, I started using the snowflake method when I happened across it online and, low and behold, a few weeks into my degree what method was suggested by our lecturer?
Yep, you guessed it, it was the snowflake method!
Start by writing a one sentence summary of the novel you want to write.
Then, expand this into a full paragraph, highlighting the disasters and ending of the story.
Do this for each character too.
Then, go back to your first paragraph and keep expanding the story by expanding on each sentence.
I’ll link the snowflake method here, and I’ll be doing this for my novel’s sequel, so I’ll give you a lil’ behind the scenes of how I use it.
5) Get a community around you
The best thing about doing a degree is you’re forced to share your story with like minded writers, and you’re forced to be candid with each other.
If you aren’t investing in the degree, you need to get pro-active about building that community around you who will hold you accountable for hitting deadlines and sharing parts of your book.
Luckily it can be easy to find your tribe in today’s well connected world.
TikTok and YouTube are great places to start BUT, connections here can often be superficial. We know that to network online we need to put in the work to engage with people, and not just put content out there. Many creators will reply to comments and comment on other creators’ content.
But to really build a community, you need to comment more than an emoji and an ‘OMG SAME HUN!”
And so if you’re really serious about making the story in your head a real, tangible reality, I have a little activity for you…
Homework
Head to the comments section on this video below. put your genre, a top level summary of your book, and where you are in the world. Comment on other peoples’ comments whose books you’d love to read.
Set up a zoom call with the people who comment, and if you vibe with each other, and feel like you can trust each other, swap your first chapters with each other and set a deadline where you can share your feedback.
If you do this and stick to it every few weeks, you’re facilitating the same workshops people pay thousands to attend in a university setting.
Sound scary?
I’ve heard dozens of ideas and excerpts in my time since my degree now and rarely do I think an idea is bad! Even if it’s out of my genre, I want to read it, and I’m still wondering what happened to the characters I met on my degree.
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