12 OFF THE PAGE

Introduction

Julia Bell

‘I could sway people with words! Strange and magic words that welled up from within me, from some unfamiliar depth. I wept with the joy of knowing.’

EMMA GOLDMAN, LIVING MY LIFE

Milan Kundera says famously in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting that we are becoming a culture of writers but not a culture of readers. As if we are becoming a society of babblers, endlessly talking at each other without listening. The great mountains of unsold books tell us that there is too much text in the world, and yet we keep on writing. After all, there’s gold in them there hills. It could be you.

Perhaps, as Kundera suggests, we just all have too much experience; our urge to record ourselves has increased in accordance with the strangeness of our times. But this proliferation of print creates new readers as well as new writers and there is, if you want one, an audience out there for your work. The trick is finding the right one.

Deciding what to do with what you’ve written depends in large part on what you’ve written and why. Clearly it would make sense not to send a horror novel to a romance publisher or sci-fi to a literary editor. But more importantly than that, you need to be aware of your own progression, where your own writing is at. The writer’s ‘radar’ that Hemingway refers to. It’s hard to judge these things for yourself when you feel as if your nose is squashed against the page. This is where an audience can help give you a fair idea of the effectiveness and coherence of your work.

When I was younger I used to think my work would become magically transformed by the Royal Mail into a work of genius. I knew in my heart it wasn’t up to much, but I kind of hoped that my latent, undiscovered prodigy self would be spotted and championed by some top editor.

The world of writing is full of many valid and functional parts, and being published by a London publishing house may not be the best route to your ideal audience. If you really want people to read your work, give it to your friends, read it out loud in a pub, publish it in a small magazine. Dip your toes in the water tentatively, don’t be dazzled by Lottery-like dreams of millions; the glittering prizes come to a very small percentage of writers. You think writers are glamorous? Go see them read. They’re usually on the edges of poverty, badly dressed, in need of a haircut, slightly red-eyed from too many late nights and too much coffee.

If you are starting, start small. Join a local writing group, find out if there are readings, get yourself a slot, read a few pieces aloud in public. If that is too daunting, find out what magazines there are in your area and offer to write for them. Local arts boards will be able to help. They usually have details of local publications, readings, magazines, workshops, and will have a literature mailing list you can join.

Some national magazines and journals publish short fiction and poetry (for example London Magazine, Rialto, Stand, Pretext, etc.). Look in The Writer’s Handbook for the current list. There are competitions you can enter – the Stand Short Story Competition, the Bridport Prize; for women, the Asham Award.

If you are struggling with postbags of rejection slips, perhaps it’s time to get some editorial advice. If you can’t attend a workshop, try one of the editorial services like The Literary Consultancy, who will be able to give you insight and feedback into what’s going wrong and, of course, what you are doing right, too.

Tenacity is part of the package; John Updike famously claimed to have had over 200 rejection slips. Is this a sign of his undiscovered genius or that he was still in training, still practising, still learning his craft? Two hundred editors won’t have been wrong about his work. Chances are it was still pretty rough and ready.

If you’ve already had a few hits, some short stories, poems published here and there, it might be time to seek out an agent to develop your work further. Some of the bigger, more corporate agencies aren’t particularly interested in developing new talent, so you may find a smaller agency is more suited to your needs. Again, all these are listed in The Writer’s Handbook. Be aware that most agents will prefer you to be writing a novel. Unless you are already a high-profile story writer, publishers won’t be interested. Collections of short stories don’t sell. Allegedly.

Another, perhaps more radical, alternative to seeking a publisher is to become one yourself. Publishing your own work is part of a long tradition of creative production that can be traced through Virginia Woolf right back to Caxton. In the early 1990s a whole wealth of authors was brought to greater attention through magazines such as Rebel Inc, Pulp Faction, Verbal and Duncan McLean’s Clocktower Press. Irvine Welsh, John King, Gordon Legge, Nicholas Blincoe, among others, all started out publishing in these small magazines and books.

Self-publishing forces a more rigorous critical approach to your own work and there is a real, tangible sense of achievement to a successful self-published work. Of course, you are damned by the critics because ‘you’re not good enough to go anywhere else’ or because ‘all you do is publish yourself and your friends’. But in this game, if there’s a critical angle, someone will find it, and what’s really important to self-publishing is the integrity of the product. If you are doing it to inflict your 1,000 page opus about aliens from Pluto on the world, then it may be doomed to collect dust on your embarrassed friends’ bookshelves. If you are publishing because you are part of a group of writers that wants to reach out into the local community with its writing, then you have every chance of gathering the goodwill and support of your local reading community.

John Betjeman said that an artist should be a part of and be used by the community to which they belong. Small publishing ventures are beneficial because they offer up a written reflection of the community from which they come. Alan Mahar has described how Tindal Street Press in Birmingham is a startling example of how a local writing group turned to self-publishing out of sheer frustration with being ignored by London publishers. All it took was a Lottery grant, a computer and some stories from Alan Beard to create a literary sensation. Since then the press has gone on to flourish for nearly fifteen years. Titles published by Tindal Street Press were recognized by many prizes and listings, including three Booker nominations, and two Costa First Novel of the Year awards. They published first novels by several Midlands-based writers, including Anthony Cartwright, Paul McDonald, Clare Morrall and Catherine O’Flynn.

The response in Birmingham was overwhelming; people were pleased to see their city reflected in print, to feel as if where they come from is worth writing fiction about.

If you are part of a writing group, investigate the funding possibilities in your area. Contact your local arts board for details of available grants. Technology makes the actual production of a book cheaper and easier than ever before. The laborious typesetting process Virginia Woolf struggled with is thankfully a thing of the past. Perhaps, if your writing group has enough members, you could pool your resources to pay for publication.

At this point it’s vital to make a distinction between self-publishing and the vanity publishers who will produce your book for a hefty fee. Avoid these charlatans like the plague. They are interested in your money, not your welfare. You will get boxes of your books back but they will give you no help to distribute or sell your book. There are many disappointed writers who have spent money to get their work printed only to be left with stacks of books going mouldy in the garage. Not a happy ending for your hopes and dreams.

The internet offers many exciting possibilities for writers to find an audience for their work. You might think that the Net is the poor sister of the printed page. That it only exists for the truly unreadable manuscripts or cult fiction, which has a very small audience. However, there are signs that writers are using the internet more and more as a resource. In the US there are several websites that promote new stories to the film industry. If you want to set up your own site, a stringent editorial policy will be the key to its success. Only publish good stuff, don’t use it as a dumping ground for the stories you can’t sell. Perhaps collectively your writing group can use the site to show work to prospective publishers and agents. Why not send them your URL as a calling card from your writers’ group?

Genre fiction is worth mentioning here. If you are a horror freak or a sci-fi nut or a sex-and-shopping fiend, chances are you are already familiar with the market, with the publishers who print the kind of writing you admire. If not, study the market. Publishers such as Mills & Boon offer guidelines for their prospective writers to follow. Again, The Writer’s Handbook will list the publishers who take your kind of work. If you are going commercial, really think about why someone would want to read your book. How is it different from other books in the genre? What’s your angle? What makes your story fresh and exciting? Genre fiction survives on mutation, on new angles to old stories. Keep your synopsis short and sweet and highlight the elements that make your book unique. A successful synopsis will entice the agent or editor to pick up the book, a bad one will get you a rejection slip.

If you’re trying for an audience for your poetry, you may find plenty of small local pamphlets and magazines that will consider your work or local reading nights that would be pleased to let you have a go on the open mic. If not, set one up. Some of our creative writing students at UEA started putting their poems on flyers and handing them out for free around the university. Poetry has a long and honourable tradition of small presses: Bloodaxe, Anvil, Carcanet all publish new work, as do Faber & Faber, and Picador. Again, for an up-to-date list of who’s publishing what look at The Writer’s Handbook for details.

The most important thing to remember when venturing towards the spotlight with your work is not to expect too much. Heady dreams of millions will only set you up for disappointment and perhaps put you off the idea of writing altogether. Despite the old clichés of writers struggling in lonely garrets, writing is a communal activity. Working collectively not only helps to smooth out the rough edges in your work, it also generates an audience. My grandma once wrote a children’s story in a little black notebook that smelled of the plastic of the faux-leather cover. She read it to all her grandchildren in turn. She never even bothered to type it up. It was enough that we were entertained, that we were delighted, that we listened.

How to Cook a Book

Julian Jackson

General Ingredients:

• Content

• Equip

• Cost

• Edit

• Style

• Design

• Tweak

• Proof

• Print

• Publish

These ingredients can obviously vary, but this is a good solid recipe for a basic publication.

Content: What Do You Want to Publish?

What and why you want to print should dictate how you decide to publish. Is it text? Text and images? Text as images? Is it colour? Black and white?

How are you going to get the text? Is it ready already? Do you need to advertise for submissions? Do you need an editorial board? If you are going to advertise for submissions who is your target market? Students? Children? General public?

Are you going to sell it? Or will it be free? (If you are going to sell it, the printing and production costs can be higher than if you are giving it away for free.) Are there going to be restrictions on word length or subject material? For example, in the UEA anthology LAVA we asked for submissions of between 2,000 and 5,000 words. We chose six pieces in all, amounting to 90 pages, roughly 200 words per page. Deciding on length is vital at this stage as it will dictate costs later on. Remember to allow for readability when calculating your desired length; squashed text will be unreadable, too much white space scrappy, too large and it will run to hundreds of pages. Look at other publications for ideas.

This is the planning stage of your publication. It might be useful at this point to make a timescale sheet so you know exactly how long you have to put the book together. A traditional book publication takes months, even years, from acceptance to publication. A small pamphlet can be done in a couple of days.

Equip: Do You Need to Equip Yourself?

To publish, all you need is a typewriter and access to a photocopier. Some students have produced books by gluing and sticking and photocopying. For more formal publications you will need access to a computer with desktop-publishing software, for example InDesign, QuarkXpress, Pagemaker, Microsoft Word, Claris Works, etc. Any software that allows you to manipulate the layout of the words on the page. Coupled with that, image-editing software like Photoshop or Illustrator is useful for cover designs and images. Access to a scanner can prove useful for importing images and text.

This is probably one of the major costs of publishing. But a computer with DTP capability need not be that expensive. (For example you can buy a second-hand Macintosh computer with DTP facilities for under £500.) Also, you may well find plenty of people with computers that have these facilities that aren’t being utilized. Most computers can cope with basic DTP software.

Using the software isn’t as complicated as it may seem. If you can use a basic word-processing package then you will already have some of the skills needed to use DTP software. Alternatively, we produced an anthology of work by photocopying the student typescripts to make a fanzine.

Cost: How Much Will it Cost?

The cost of your book will depend on what you want to produce. With the rise of digital technology, it’s never been cheaper to publish a book. From uploading your work to digital platforms to building a website, you don’t need to make a huge investment to get your book in front of readers.

Traditional litho printing is what publishers use for huge print runs, but for a small-scale run of a few hundred or thousand copies print-on-demand can produce much more cheaply and quickly. There are many printers who will now print any number of copies and who will accept uploaded files that you can make on even the most basic software. There is lots of choice with colours and sizes. For a few hundred pounds you can have a few hundred copies of a full-colour book. If you have no money to invest you can even use pre-formatted templates to publish work on a digital platform such as Kindle.

The cost will essentially be as much as you are willing to spend.

Edit: How Are You Going to Choose and Correct the Work?

An editor should control the actual content of the book, deciding on what gets published and where. If you have a book of short stories, for example, what order will they be in?

You may want to employ a copy-editor at this point, someone who will check your manuscript for inconsistencies and grammar and help you stick to your house style.

Editing a text is a personal choice about content, grammar, style and audience. The editorial process involves allowing for proofreading and copy-editing to ensure that the text is clean. Decisions about spelling – American or UK or intentional misspellings – need to be taken, however pedantic or petty they may seem.

Style: What Do You Want Your Book to Look Like?

Are you publishing one book or a series of books? If it’s the former then you need to ensure consistency throughout the text in terms of grammar, layout, pagination, etc. If it’s a series then you will find that you will need certain design consistencies, usually called the ‘house’ style. Style sheets allow you to double-check every publication for things such as spaces after full stops, protocol for commas and full stops and a typeface that suits your requirements. There are lots of different styles to choose from; you will want something that reflects the content and potential market of your publication. Something that is easy to read is always a good idea.

Design: What Do You Want Your Book to Look Like?

At this stage you may want to find a designer or, if you are doing it yourself, to decide what you want the whole book to look like. Cover design is all-important if you are aiming your publication at the bookshops. You’ll want it to stand out, look professional, have a desirable ‘feel’. We use a matt laminate on some of our covers to give them a silky, tactile quality – it makes people want to pick them up and handle them. At this point it’s useful to try to visualize your book as a three-dimensional object, not just two-dimensional images and text.

How big will your book be? A paperback? A hardback? A magazine? Will it be perfect bound (like most paperback books) or stapled? Will your cover be full colour, duotone, or black and white?

You will want to choose a printer who suits your requirements, too. With 1,000 copies of a 250-page book with a full-colour cover you will need to use litho printing. For pamphlets or booklets, photocopiers or design and print shops can cope with small print runs.

How your text looks on the page will be vital to the readability of the text, how the cover looks, to its potential sales. Point sizes and line spaces are vital. Look at these examples:

This is too small.

These lines are too close together

These lines are too close together

These are too far apart

These are too far apart

Consistency in your story headings and page numbers is vital, too – choose a font and a size that will match the body style of your text.

Also, you might want to choose the paper you are going to use to print the books (any printer will send you a set of stock samples). Brilliant white paper makes text hard to read and can make the overall effect quite cheap, off-white or recycled paper often looks much better.

Tweak: Are You Happy with What You’ve Got?

At this stage in the production you may want another opinion on your book. If you’ve been looking at it for weeks it might be hard to see any mistakes in it. Pass it around your friends for an opinion, get feedback on the cover design and the layout. Once the book has gone to the printer it will be too late to change anything. If you are not happy with something, however trivial, it’s always a good idea to double-check it. ‘Tweaking’ your cover and your layout will ensure that you get what you want.

Proof: Is it Perfect?

This is the last stage of the production process. Proofreading is boring, labour-intensive work. You need to read through the text to ensure that there aren’t any mistakes that have been missed at an earlier stage. Is it 100 per cent? Are you sure? Are you happy with it? It might be useful to look at a book about proofreading and copy-editing to familiarize yourself with the shorthand symbols that professional editors use.

Of course, there are always going to be mistakes in your book – there are in the books in Waterstones – but to make something both satisfying and professional, attention to the detail of the text is vital.

Print: Who Will Print My Book?

For a big print run you will want to use a litho printer who will make plates of your book and print onto rolls of paper. With a small print run print-on-demand is a brilliant development for small publishers. Basically, it means that pages are photocopied (at a very high resolution) rather than printed – making it as easy to print one book as it is to print a hundred.

When you send your text and images to the printer, it is vital that you remember to include a disk with all your images and fonts as well as a hard copy of your cover and contents so the printer has something to refer to in the printing process. Make sure to include clear details of what paper you want and what laminate you want on the cover, etc. Most printers will help you choose and provide samples and details of how to send your work to them. Remember to choose a printer you like and who you feel will do a good job for you – ask for samples of other work they have done so you can see what kinds of book they do; an odd size or a complicated cover might need specialized equipment. If you get the book back and you are not happy with the job, and you are sure it’s not your fault, the printer is legally obliged to reprint the run for you.

When you plan your publication you will need to allow at least a month for your printer to turn your book around. It is also a good idea to book your slot with the printer a few weeks ahead of delivery so you get your book back in time.

Publish: What Do I Do Now?

Now you’ve got your books back. They look lovely and you are really happy with them; you’ll want to sell them. How are you going to distribute your book? You might want to use a distribution agency, and for this you will need an ISBN number (International Standard Book Number), which will register your book in the British Library Catalogues and allow bookshops to look your book up on their computers. A distribution agency is only useful for print runs of around 1,000; they will take 45 per cent of your cover price but they will ensure that your book goes to bookshops nationwide. They will expect you to submit an advance information sheet at least three months before publication, with a cover image for their catalogues, and to show that you are chasing some national publicity.

Publicity is really a question of try and try again. To promote your book to the national review pages is a question of sending out a press release, following that with a phone call and then, if you get some interest, a copy of your book. Don’t waste precious copies on people who are only going to leave them lying around the office. Who do you know? Who do your friends know? Lean on any contacts you might have for publicity. Newspapers rely on people to make stories for them, so remember to write a press release that has some ‘story’ base – something that can be cannibalized to make a good article in the papers.

Organize a book launch and a reading. Invite the local papers, get someone to take pictures; your book will sell the best in its local environment first, don’t expect to get national sales straight away.

One successful publication is likely to lead to others, so ensure before you print thousands of copies of your book that there’s a market for what you’re doing.

The Rise of Literary Consultancies

Rebecca Swift

Printing press, printer-publisher, publisher, literary agent and now the literary consultant. It is my belief that the changes in the publishing industry in the 1980s in this country, as well as the unprecedented plethora of people trying to write in various literary forms – poetic, testimonial, autobiographical, fictional and now fictional non-fiction – have helped spawn a new breed of literary interlopers, of which I became one, when I co-founded, with Hannah Griffiths, The Literary Consultancy in 1996.

We are consultants, and there are an increasing number of us, a relatively new link in the chain between author and publisher. We offer, for a fee, professional, detailed, objective attention to manuscripts before they are submitted – or resubmitted – to publishers and agents. Alternatively, if a manuscript is not ready to send out, nor ever likely to be, we will do our best to be constructively candid.

Thus we hope to help the author, either by making a link to an agent on their behalf, suggesting improvements to their work and therefore their chances of publication, or to help them face the likelihood that their work will not sell and offer constructive workshop-style advice to help their chances of improvement. We also hope to relieve the industry from the enormous amount of work it receives every day that is not suitable for publication.

What Can a Client Expect from a Consultant?

The main benefit of paying for professional advice is that an author has paid for attention to his or her work on a one-to-one basis, regardless of their relationship to the marketplace. They are paying for a consultant to assess how well a book might be working on its own terms, and they can expect the report to give their work time and energy, even if it won’t make much money. A good consultant should not only have good editorial skills but also be well informed about the marketplace, as most clients are interested to know how they would fare in the commercial industry. A consultant, however, should also know a bit about, for example, the existence of small-scale publishing ventures, internet or Arts Council-backed local publishing ventures, as well as responsible self-publishing which can certainly be a satisfying alternative to commercial publishing for a certain kind of client. If a project is worthy of some kind of publication then a consultant should help the client think about what it is sensible for them to take up.

In addition, it needs to be said that a consultant must be an empathic person who is not of the opinion that people should not write if they ‘can’t write’. Much of the work they will read will be of a pretty unsophisticated nature. Yet somebody has been driven to write it and a consultant, if they accept work from writers who do not have proven track records, will have to care that they have. The reports should be diplomatic and sensitive, and some may see one of the chief skills of the consultant as being more akin to those of a therapist than an editor. After all, the act of writing and showing your work to people is famously emotional and difficult. Individual consultants often judge for themselves what work they are happy to tackle and what not. And the client can try to assess, through conversations and word-of-mouth, if the consultant will have the particular skills they are looking for in relation to their work.

Of course, one person’s opinion can never represent that of all possible readers and is subject to personal taste. However, as far as possible a consultant should possess the experience and imagination to see where a book might suit another person if not themselves. They are there to see if the project is working as well as it possibly can, and to advise on how to improve work if it isn’t. At our consultancy, for example, we will try as much as possible to match project to reader. In other words, we would send a thriller to a reader who has an understanding of how thrillers work, as opposed to a reader whose strength may be in literary fiction or children’s fiction. In the world of non-fiction a client will be best served by a reader with an understanding of what is being written about, as well as an understanding of the market for that subject. Of course, this is setting standards high and it is not always possible to find the ideal reader; a good general editor should be able to tackle a variety of material, but in specific cases we reserve the right not to read work if we can’t do it justice.

A report should be devised on a one-to-one basis depending on the work and the client. I am not a fan of editorial services that provide pre-formatted responses which address pre-configured elements, such as ‘character’, ‘use of metaphor’, ‘structure’, ‘language’. I remember receiving a report back from a short story competition that had several boxes ticked (or otherwise) down a pre-set list of expectations. It felt as if any detail from the work had not been attended to and that it was worse than useless, it was also insulting. I think a reader should feel free to construct a report in response to the work and client, having absorbed their covering letter and the book. They devise their own list of what might be important to think about, although there are usually questions relating to structure, characterization, writing style, use of cliché, etc. Structure is a classic problem for writers, especially first-time writers, and the shape of the work often needs addressing.

Is the story being told to best effect or are great pages of irrelevant passages that the author can’t bear to let go of clogging up the works? Is a thriller giving away its plot too quickly? Is a literary work too interior to be interesting to an outside party? Has a non-fiction book been written before? Is the material well organized? A reader should address the project freshly and then have the skill to articulate that to a client. Often a report for a less well-written novel will address ‘basics’, such as repetition, use of clichés, lack of originality, poor spelling and grammar and so on; for a more competent manuscript it may be a question of focusing in detail on why a plot is falling down halfway through, why an ending disappoints us, why a character fails to impress. Readers also often use pencil annotations to make their points about the work, which is helpful to pick up details as you go. I should stress, however, that the work of an editorial assessor is not to re-edit the manuscript completely; I am suspicious of people who say they can re-edit a manuscript to a publishable standard, unless they have a secure offer at the end of the rainbow. After all, the marketplace is not an easy one to crack. Being clear about what is and isn’t likely is important at all times in this job, as so often writers have unrealistic ideas about their own work in relation to the world of publishing.

Stigma of Paying for an Assessment?

There used to be more of a stigma attached to having to get paid editorial help with manuscripts. Indeed, people are right to be cautious about people asking them for money in exchange for services vis-à-vis their writing. Many of the vanity presses have notorious reputations for providing clients with flattering reports and taking several thousands of pounds from them to publish, only for the client to find themselves stuck with thousands of copies of their badly produced book that they don’t know how to distribute or sell. I have had several clients who have either already been ‘ripped off’ in such a manner, and are now looking to see if their book really does stand a chance of respectable publication, or who have come for a second opinion before parting with their money. After all, most people only want their work to be published if it is working well and if at least some others may genuinely wish to read it.

Things have got so tough with commercial publishing, however, that certain responsible types of self-publishing are becoming respectable again. There are many cases of books that have built up reputations, the best-selling Celestine Prophecy, for example, which started with self-published volumes. Indeed, Timothy Mo and Stephen King have made their own forays into self- and internet publishing. Times are changing. The emphasis that emerged in the rationalizing 1980s, on getting the end product right before approaching agents and publishers, has meant that it makes increasing sense for a writer to invest in getting an objective opinion of their own before sending out their work. Also, as agents and publishers have less time to give any real feedback on the manuscripts they receive that aren’t immediately commercial, and as they often take several months to respond to unsolicited manuscripts, it is increasingly viewed as worthwhile to pay for a one-to-one responsible assessment with a short turnaround period.

Changes in the Industry

It may be illustrative to chart my own route through publishing. In 1987 I joined Virago Press as an editorial assistant/secretary. It was there I first became acquainted with the notorious ‘slush pile’. In the manner of many young editorial secretaries, I began with a sympathetic heart, often overwhelmed by the sheer effort so many people had put into producing manuscripts. These manuscripts were, 98 per cent of the time, in harsh commercial terms, of no use whatsoever. Either they were inappropriate for the press or simply (in most cases) not well enough written. Having begun writing a long and detailed letter back to someone I was rejecting, I was told that our job was to spend time on what we were publishing, not what we would not be publishing. Indeed, being sympathetic was often more trouble than it was worth. If one did send a detailed reply back to somebody, explaining why we could not take them on, it often had the opposite of the desired effect (to let them accept the disappointing state of affairs quietly) and had them coming back for more. For more what exactly? The answer is what all writers crave: feedback and contact.

As is well known, writing a book is often a difficult and lonely experience. This remains true whether the end product is considered marketable or not. People who make the effort of trying to write tend to want to be taken seriously. At a fee-paying consultancy they can be treated with seriousness and respect, without being dismissed as being writers of nonsense. This is not to say that a reputable consultancy will soft-soap people, just to say that at least someone who has spent the time trying to write will know their work has been read from cover to cover in a considered way.

Whilst I was working at Virago many people called to ask where they could get an opinion about their work. At that time, in the late 1980s, I did not know what to recommend. Apart from telling them to join a writing group, or try an Arvon writing course, there was nothing I knew of at the time to suggest (although I have since learnt that private consultants did exist but weren’t widely advertised). Writing groups are not always accessible and can be unpredictable and self-consoling, as well as productive and creative. Even at the excellent Arvon courses you can’t get what a consultant offers: a full, detailed read of a complete manuscript, whatever shape it is in. This is partly because such a read is an extremely time-consuming, and often laborious, job to do well. It is far easier to say something is ‘boring’ or ‘rubbish’ than it is to try to work out why something is not effective, and then explain that to the writer. The work of detailed feedback needs to be properly rewarded for time taken and expertise. Enter: the literary consultant with a professional background in editing.

Redundancies of editors from publishing houses in the 1980s and 1990s left a pool of strong editorial talent freelancing for a living. An increasing number of ex-commissioning editors offered their services in the back of writing magazines. They offered a knowledge of the industry with strong editorial skills. It was this also that The Literary Consultancy hoped to offer. In addition, we wanted to have access to a range of editors to suit different projects and to stick to tight turnaround times and good links with agents and publishers. Such we did. Another excellent source of readers has proved to be the creative writing MAs, such as those at UEA or Sheffield. There, students who are good writers learn much about writing technique and novel structure; they learn about the pitfalls common to all inexperienced writers and also learn from the inside about how those pitfalls can be best avoided or amended.

It is worth noting that the arts boards in Great Britain sometimes offer reading services at subsidized rates. A drawback may be that turnaround time is slow, and readers are not as up to date with the industry as may be useful. As from April 2001, in fact The Literary Consultancy will benefit from an Arts Council grant themselves, with which to help low-income writers of quality.

Editorial consultants at best help good writers make serious links with the agenting/publishing industry. Whilst, of course, many clients must receive a report on their work and be disappointed, such close attention, when responsibly and ably done, has also helped people to think more realistically about their work in relation to a demanding commercial marketplace.

Agents and How to Get One

Candi Miller

What do agents do?

Essentially, they sell rights related to your manuscript, and take a 10 to 20 per cent commission for doing so.

They begin by touting it around all the likely UK publishers. With their credentials they can bypass the mouldering slush piles, go straight to an editor and make the excited, ‘Didn’t you just love it?’ follow-up call. (If they don’t make that call, they don’t believe in the work, one editor reckons.) Or an agent might decide on a multiple submission to several suitable publishers and an auction of your manuscript. Thrilling for you. For a publisher, ‘always nerve-racking; always energizing; always shrouded in query and secrecy even after the event . . .’ according to Philip Gwyn Jones, Editorial Director of Flamingo.

Next, the paperback rights to your manuscript must be sold, then, with luck, the audio rights and foreign rights, and, with a lot of luck, the film or television rights, and the ones causing current consternation, e-book rights. All along the way an agent must advise the author about the best deal, bearing in mind their client’s career plan, i.e. two-book wonder or a long-term literary career that builds up a devoted readership. While a six-figure two-book deal sounds seductive, agent Lisanne Radice, a crime fiction specialist, believes it can prevent an agent from negotiating for more money if the first book does better than expected. Agent for twenty-something writers of literary fiction Victoria Hobbs believes that putting novelists under the pressure of a big advance can sink a career. ‘One must be allowed to make mistakes as a first-time novelist.’

If you are wondering how you’ll have the nous to push away the honeypot when your turn comes, relax. Only 1 per cent of literary deals involve a figure of over £100,000, an aspect of literary reality an agent should point out to a new client, along with the pros and cons of every contract they are asked to sign.

Nowadays, most literary agents do more than look after a writer’s commercial interests. They might support an author through a sticky professional or even personal patch; they might come up with that missing bit of plot or make suggestions for revision. Good agents bawl out (not too loudly) a publisher who’s not fulfilling their marketing obligations – lack of promotional effort is the biggest gripe authors have about their publishers. Jane Bradish-Ellames of Curtis Brown says, ‘My job’s a constant mix of nannying and bullying.’ From Philip Gwyn Jones’s point of view, a good agent is one who knows ‘when to rein in an author’s unrealistic or misguided apprehension of an aspect of publication’.

Once your book has been launched and royalties start coming in, your agent should check the statements, query them with the publisher if necessary, and chase up any outstanding amounts.

Handy, then, having a literary agent. But how to get one?

Unfortunately, finding an agent can be more difficult than finding a publisher. The sheer volume of the competition is one reason; subjectivity is another. One agent’s ‘To die for’ is another’s ‘No thanks’.

Increase your chances of success by keeping a file on likely agents before you are ready to submit. Watch the press, national and trade, for leads. You’ll come across reports that make you think you or your work stands some chance of interesting a particular agent. Personal introductions are valuable too. Jonathan Lloyd, Managing Director of Curtis Brown, who specializes in popular women’s fiction, gets new clients from the recommendations of existing ones.

Save yourself a lot of time and postage by ensuring you are applying to the right person. Don’t send your literary, self-conscious-new-man masterpiece to Jonathan Lloyd or your children’s book to agents listed as adults only. And you must address your submission to someone specific, not to Mr Curtis Brown or Mr A. P. Watt. Call up the agency and check that your preferred agent is still there. If not, ask the receptionist or some other initiate which of their agents deals with your type of work. Ask, too, if there are any new or junior agents. They’re usually the hungriest for new authors. Now, ascertain the specific submission requirements. It’s usually three chapters only or the first one hundred pages. Some agents want a synopsis; others can’t bear them. But everyone wants a succinct but appealing covering letter from you, containing a paragraph of pitch about the manuscript and another about you and why you are qualified to write the novel. Don’t forget the presentation basics – for all the finer details see Penny Rendall’s chapter on how to submit your work for publication – and remember an SAE.

If your pitch works, the agent will ask to see the whole manuscript. If they’re still impressed, you’ll be invited to meet.

By this stage, most not-yet-published (NYP) writers, bruised by years of rejection, are so grateful for the agent’s attention, the last thing they’ll think about is whether the person buying them lunch is right for their career. But take a long cool sip of the Perrier and summon up the chutzpah to ask the person offering to represent you at least some of these questions:

1. Why are you an agent?
2. Which aspect of your job do you like/dislike the most?
3. Which recent publication would you compare with my manuscript?
4. If you were a publisher, how would you publish my manuscript?
5. Does your agency handle foreign rights? If not, what arrangements do you make?
6. What will you be doing to secure film/TV/radio reading rights?
7. How involved will you be in my book? Will you attend publicity meetings, jacket design sessions, etc.?
8. How do you see my literary career developing if all goes well?
9. How do you work on your backlist – i.e. what strategy do you employ for keeping publishers active on past books?
10. Do you charge for incidentals – photocopying, couriering, etc.?
11. How long do you keep trying to sell a manuscript?

Interview several agents, if you are lucky enough to have a choice, and choose someone you are not afraid of. In many ways, an author–agent relationship is like a marriage. But while you don’t want to snuggle up to your agent, you do want someone you can call and talk to.

Be suspicious of an agent who tries to make you agree to a three- to four-year contract. It’s vital to choose an agent who is evangelically enthusiastic about your manuscript. Only that sort of faith and conviction will keep them making the huge effort required to sell a manuscript in an over-supplied market.

But before you get to the happy place – having an agent who believes in you – there’ll be rejection, a lot of it, probably justified. Even solicited manuscripts are rejected. The sheer volume of submissions – two man-sized postbags a day at the biggest literary agent, Curtis Brown – means agents are looking for a reason to reject your typescript. Don’t let it be because it wasn’t ready in the first place. Most NYP writers reach a point, prematurely, where they want professional input. Understandable. But don’t scupper your chances with an agent. Most keep records of submissions and their rejections. Instead, use an editorial service, who can provide a much more comprehensive report. You’ll find these services advertised in the classified section of writing magazines.

A subscription to a trade publication is a good idea for keeping abreast of the literary business. Main libraries keep the Bookseller and the Author, and magazines like Writers’ News and Publishing News are useful for updates on who’s moved where. And did you know, there are now agencies which find NYPs an agent? Helen Corner (ex-Hamish Hamilton and Penguin) of Cornerstones undertakes to place good manuscripts with an agent. No place, no pay. There is a rub: if Helen judges the manuscript needs editorial polish, she will engage professional readers to do page-by-page nit-picking or give a more general report, depending upon what you are willing to pay.

Bear in mind, aside from China, the UK publishes the most novels of any country in the world every year. With a good literary agent, yours could be one of them. But when you’ve just received your sixth, twelfth or twentieth rejection letter from an agency and are beginning to feel hopeless, remember: agents don’t write, you do. And they admire you for it. Genuinely.

You’ll see.

Final Revisions and Submission

Penny Rendall

Your novel is finished: written, rewritten, revised again. It’s the very best you can do, possibly a masterpiece. Now put yourself in the position of the agent or the publisher’s slush-pile reader who has to judge it.

Agents receive, on average, thirty to fifty unsolicited manuscripts every month, publishers even more. They have to wade through these to find the 2 per cent (that’s the usual figure given) with any spark – not necessarily good enough to be rushed into print, just those with some potential. If agents are to spend any time on their real work, representing the authors they do decide to take on, they’re not going to waste more than a few minutes on each manuscript. Nor is the slush-pile reader, whether a youngster starting out, who wants to be a hot-shot publisher making the million-dollar deals, or an experienced old hand, perhaps semi-retired. In either case he/she’ll have a very low tolerance of badly presented scripts.

Later in this chapter I’ll give some dos and don’ts about submitting your work, but first I’m going to take you back to basics. In general, the better the appearance of your manuscript and the fewer obvious howlers, the easier it is to read and, something writers often seem to forget, the less work there will be in preparing it for publication.

By now everyone must have heard the complaints that the publishing industry has been taken over by accountants. Make the logical next step, whether your book is a potential blockbuster or a beautifully crafted work of contemporary literary fiction with a likely readership of a few thousand: don’t burden the people you hope will champion your baby with extra editorial costs. Every change made to your manuscript, whether it’s to structure, content, style, spelling, punctuation, grammar or layout, takes time and costs money. Get it right from the start and you’ll give yourself a much better chance.

The idea is to keep your manuscript clean, clear, simple, without distractions.

1 Text Layout

Open any book of fiction and what do you find?

• The first line of almost every paragraph is indented
• There is no space between paragraphs
• A line space between paragraphs indicates a section break – a change of scene, of viewpoint or to show that time has passed
• The first paragraph of a chapter or after a section break is full out (not indented)
• There are no asterisks, except to draw attention to a section break that has fallen unavoidably at the top or bottom of a page and might be missed by the reader.

There are exceptions, of course, but this is the standard format.

Now look at your manuscript. The chances are, especially if you are inexperienced, that your paragraphs are full out, with a line space between them. You typed to the end of the paragraph, pressed return twice, then started typing the next paragraph. Except, perhaps, sections of dialogue, where the paragraphs might have no space between them and even be indented – but you may well have typed a random number of spaces for the indent instead of a tab.

When you wanted to indicate a section break – probably more often than you really need; remember that too many create difficulties with the page layout of the book – you either typed a row of asterisks or several paragraph returns to distinguish it from the single line spaces between your other paragraphs. Or you might not have made it any different at all, and then you’ll complain that the copy-editor has closed up all the paragraphs when the section breaks you wanted would have been obvious to any intelligent ten-year-old.

Exercise

Find out how paragraph formatting and setting tabs work in your word-processing program.

• For maximum readability, set your font to an 11- or 12-point serif font (e.g. Times New Roman not Arial).
• Set your line spacing to double (easier for agent/editor to read, for the person who has to work out the extent, i.e. the number of pages when the book is set in a given format, and leaves room for the editor and copy-editor to write suggested changes above each line).
• Choose alignment left (you may prefer the look of justified alignment, but it’s harder for the copy-editor to spot inconsistent spacing between words; alignment left also means the word processor will not introduce hyphens; it is also a good idea to turn off the automatic hyphenation).
• Make sure your page has generous margins (at least 3cm each side: space for editorial comments and queries).
• Set a single tab stop at 0.5cm or 1cm from the left margin.
• Unclick widow and orphan control (which prevents very short lines at the beginning or end of a paragraph at the bottom or top of a page; they don’t matter in manuscripts, but preventing them can leave unexplained gaps at the bottom of pages – more headaches for the extent calculator and copy-editor). And turn off ‘keep with next’ and ‘keep lines together’.
• Put ‘this page number’ in header, top right (it’s surprising how many people forget; then someone has to number every page by hand and if the manuscript is dropped first all the pages are mixed up . . . ). Don’t number pages from nought to whatever in each chapter, because someone will still have to number the script by hand.
• Put your name and the title of the book in the header or footer, in a different place from the page number (this isn’t essential but will save your work from abandonment in despair if a whole pile of manuscripts slides off the prospective agent’s or publisher’s overcrowded desk; it happens).
• Make sure the text is presented on one side of A4 paper only.

Now set these up as your standard document format for all your creative writing. If you can copy your finished novel into it before you send it out, do so.

2 Dialogue

After general layout, this is the next most obvious thing that inexperienced writers seem to have difficulty with.

In general, each person’s speech should start a new paragraph – indented, of course. That does not mean you can’t have some narrative text before, between or after a single speaker’s quoted words, as in the following extracts from Scapegrace by Jackie Gay (Tindal Street Press, 2000):

Cora stopped and whipped round. ‘I’m not going,’ she said. ‘You lot can do what you like.’

‘Where are you going then?’ said Gina.

‘To the park.’

‘Someone’ll see you.’

‘Well, I’ll go and walk the streets then.’ She said it with peculiar vehemence.

Ellie fluttered around next to her. ‘Come on, Cora,’ she pleaded. ‘Don’t let it get to you.’

In certain cases it’s quite acceptable to have more than one speaker within the same paragraph:

‘Maybe that’s what we need.’ Gina started jogging.

‘What? To get mean?’ I swung round a lamp post and dodged in front of her.

‘No, a lovelife, prat.’ She was running fast, hair streaming back, body a fuzz of moving denim. An old man she was closing in on shouted, ‘Oi, watch it, you,’ and Gina sidestepped him just in time. ‘Soz,’ she said. Someone clapped.

Use single quotation marks for all speech and quoted words within the text; double when they fall within another pair. Keep closing punctuation within the quotation marks, except occasional words or phrases, where punctuation follows quotation marks:

‘I despise you. You’re a pitiful creep,’ she said.

‘She said she despised me,’ said Peter, ‘and called me “a pitiful creep”.’

He couldn’t get it out of his head: ‘creep’, ‘pitiful creep’.

He booked into what The Times had called ‘the best “aparthotel” in Greece’.

Put a comma before question tags (‘isn’t it?’, ‘don’t you?’, ‘shouldn’t they?’, etc.) and before (or after) the name or title of someone being addressed:

‘Hello, sailor.’

‘Well, Richard, that’s a fine mess you’ve landed us in, isn’t it?’

Many of these rules for commas that young writers are determined to disregard as old-fashioned are there for good reasons.

Exercise

Consider the following pairs of sentences. Are their meanings different? Is the same person being addressed in each version? Write short dialogues including each sentence.

‘Do you know John?’

‘Do you know, John?’

‘Never mind Julia. This is about us.’

‘Never mind, Julia. This is about us.’

‘What do you think about Louise?’

‘What do you think about, Louise?’

‘I’m not daft Pam.’

‘I’m not daft, Pam.’

If you habitually omit the comma before the name, you’ll find it hard to make these sorts of subtle distinction when you need them.

If the narrative following speech describes actions other than speaking, the speech should end with a full stop (or question or exclamation mark), not a comma:

‘Brilliant!’ He grinned. (Not: ‘Brilliant,’ he grinned.)

The alternatives are:

‘Brilliant,’ he said, grinning.

‘Brilliant,’ he said with a grin.

‘Brilliant,’ he said, and grinned.

There’s a reason: you can’t grin, smile, laugh or grimace words. Your characters can – if they must – gush, sigh, sing, sob, splutter and yell them. It’s also okay to use a comma before exclaim, plead, beg, whine, retort, demand, etc. Remember, too, that anything more than he said/she said, with an occasional she told him, he replied, is irritating and distracting for the reader, so restrict yourself to a judicious sprinkling of the rest.

If narrative not describing the act of speaking interrupts continuing speech, the punctuation should normally be parenthetical en-dashes around the narrative (see Dashes and Ellipses, under House Style, below, for the difference between hyphens and dashes):

‘Oh, Liz –’ he was smiling ‘– that’s such a relief.’

She peeked round the corner. ‘It’s Ricky,’ she hissed. ‘Shit, and’ – ducking back and grabbing my arm – ‘Joe.’

Note that since the speech in the first example requires punctuation (‘Oh, Liz, that’s such a relief.’) the en-dashes go inside the quote marks. Where no punctuation is needed at the point of the narrative interruption (‘Shit, and Joe.’) the en-dashes go outside the quote marks.

Use closed-up em-dashes (double the length of an en-dash) for interrupted speech; ellipses for speech that tails off:

‘I was just thinking—’ Alison began, but Catherine interrupted her.

‘I wonder . . .’ She was gazing out of the window. ‘No, probably not. But then again, maybe . . .’

There is a trend among writers of contemporary fiction to dispense with quotation marks in dialogue. This can be very effective but is trickier to pull off than many people realize. Make sure you know exactly what you are doing before you take this step. Think through your alternative system – there has to be one – carefully.

If you use em-dashes instead of quotation marks, open every new bit of speech after narrative that ends with a full stop (or question or exclamation mark) with an em-dash. If, on the other hand, the narrative ends with a comma or semicolon, don’t put an em-dash:

—You still here? she said.—I thought you’d gone ages ago.

—Here, he said with a leer, get this down you.

This allows at least the possibility of narrative text enclosed in its own pair of dashes as in the earlier example:

She peeked round the corner.—It’s Ricky, she hissed.—Shit, and – ducking back and grabbing my arm – Joe.

If your main narrative is in the present tense, the reader has to work even harder to distinguish speech from narrative. It makes your job, and your copy-editor’s, much more difficult.

Exercise

Consider the following dialogue:

—Oh, Tom, I’m sorry. Jim thinks it’s all your fault. He—

—What do I care? He’s smiling but he’s hurting inside.

Can you tell whether it’s Tom who’s smiling but hurting inside (narrative) or Jim, according to Tom (speech)? Write out the dialogue with quotation marks, twice, to show the two different versions.

Exercise

Read the two versions of the same dialogue, below, from ‘Grey’ by Mark Newton in Hard Shoulder, edited by Jackie Gay and Julia Bell (Tindal Street Press, 1999). Ignore the ellipses in square brackets, which are there to show where narrative in the published story has been left out. Find and underline those parts that are clearly narrative in the second version but might be mistaken for speech in the first.

Phil looks around, knowing what to expect, sighs and lights a cigarette.

—Can you crash us one of those?

[ . . .]—Yeah, sure.

I light it and begin to fill my mouth with the old and new stains of today. [ . . .]

—You look like a fuckin’ corpse.

—No, I don’t. I look like River Phoenix, I say. I do. I bought a jacket just like the one he wore in My Own Private Idaho. [ . . .]

—Can you see the remote anywhere? I ask.

—Yeah, it’s over there by the bin. Phil points.

—Which bit? The whole room is a bin; it just happens to start with a plastic container in the corner. [ . . .] It’s a fucking jungle in there.

—Phil, I can’t see it anywhere. I can never find remote controls in the jungle.

Phil looks around, knowing what to expect, sighs and lights a cigarette.

‘Can you crash us one of those?’

[ . . .] ‘Yeah, sure.’

I light it and begin to fill my mouth with the old and new stains of today. [ . . .]

‘You look like a fuckin’ corpse.’

‘No, I don’t. I look like River Phoenix,’ I say. I do. I bought a jacket just like the one he wore in My Own Private Idaho. [ . . .]

‘Can you see the remote anywhere?’ I ask.

‘Yeah, it’s over there by the bin.’ Phil points.

‘Which bit?’ The whole room is a bin; it just happens to start with a plastic container in the corner. [ . . .] It’s a fucking jungle in there.

‘Phil, I can’t see it anywhere.’ I can never find remote controls in the jungle.

It’s worth bearing in mind these extra difficulties before you decide not to use quotation marks in dialogue.

3 Commas

Many writers like to reduce their use of commas to the minimum. There are, however, some instances where their use is crucial to convey the meaning you intend. Commas in modern English have a grammatical and syntactical purpose, and are no longer there to indicate breathing and natural rhythm.

Clauses, phrases or single words that are clearly parenthetic – i.e. they could be enclosed in parentheses or a pair of dashes, as here, without changing the basic sense of the sentence – require commas before and after them:

He saw, a moment later, that the game was up.

I watch them, the people who still live here, as I go back in.

They failed, astonishingly, to grasp the obvious distinction.

Many writers leave out the comma marking the end of the parenthetical phrase or clause. Sometimes they mistakenly enclose with commas phrases or clauses that are integral to the main sentence. Some also begin the parenthesis with a dash and end with a comma and vice versa. This can produce absurd results, such as:

A small girl, hair scraped tight into many little bunches pointed excitedly at the helicopter. (The bunches did the pointing?)

If you grow up, in the shadow of war, it damages your sense of security. (Growing up itself does the damage.)

I flung open the curtains – bright sunlight streaked under heavy purple clouds, and recoiled sharply. (The sunlight recoiled.)

Exercise

Compare the three following sentences, each using a phrase with ‘under’:

Her face, under its thick make-up, was tired and lined.

His life, even under the dictatorship was becoming worth living at last.

Many people were happy to spend their whole lives, under this intolerant system, without ever saying a word.

Show where one comma should be added. Find a pair that is clearly wrong. Could one pair of commas be left to personal preference?

Relative clauses using who or which follow the same rules when it comes to commas. Non-defining relative clauses, i.e. those that supply extra, non-essential information, must have commas, while defining relative clauses, which are essential to the meaning of the main sentence, must not:

The lass who lived upstairs always seemed to have money. (Defining)

Janice, who lived upstairs, always seemed to have money. (Non-defining)

This is the book which, for me, best captures the mood of premillennial tension. (Defining)

He ruffled her hair, which was unexpectedly coarse, and stroked her cheek, which was as soft as it looked. (Non-defining)

Again, the second comma in the pair is often mistakenly omitted, especially when it is followed by ‘and’. You should not be confused by the common preference, in British English, against a comma before ‘and’. In cases like the last sentence above this is overridden by the need for a closing comma for the non-defining relative clause. Similarly, while the subject of a sentence should not usually be separated by a comma from its verb, any clause or phrase requiring a pair of commas takes precedence.

Sometimes a comma is needed to avoid ambiguity:

Tea, bread and butter, and cake were laid out on the table.

Way down below, the river reflects the midday sun.

He’d tried Milletts, Marks and Spencer, and Oswald Bailey, before finally finding the sort of walking socks he needed in, of all places, C & A.

The MP admitted that she had hunted, herself, when she was younger.

Or for emphasis:

The rich, and white, citizens are pulling up the drawbridge to the sound of classical music. (Justin Cartwright, Leading the Cheers, Sceptre, 1999)

Exercise

Consider the following two pairs of sentences:

You can’t blame your dad, because he’s nice.

You can’t blame your dad because he’s nice.

I stepped out of the phone box into the still, smoky night air.

I stepped out of the phone box into the still smoky night air.

How does the comma or its absence in each case change the meaning? Construct other sentences in which a single comma can make a real difference to the sense.

The following sentence appeared in Jackie Kay’s Trumpet (Picador, 1998):

They are in a big bright yellow field.

This apparently simple sentence, part of a dream sequence, is open to a number of subtly different interpretations, any one of which could have been given priority, if the author had wished.

Exercise

Consider the variations below.

They are in a big, bright, yellow field.

They are in a big bright-yellow field.

They are in a big, bright yellow field.

How does the deployment of comma and hyphen affect the image you see? Focus on the word ‘bright’. Is it describing the field, the yellowness, the air, the quality of the light enveloping the scene (remember it’s a dream)?

Here are some other examples where the placing of a comma changes the meaning:

My first, prize-winning novel (I won a prize for my very first novel.)

My first prize-winning novel (The first of several for which I won a prize.)

My son, Nick (I have one son and he’s called Nick.)

My son Nick (I have more than one, but he’s the one I want to talk about now.)

The humble and much maligned comma can thus work two ways: if you use it inappropriately you can find yourself creating ludicrous scenarios in the mind of the reader (including the agent or publisher you are hoping to impress), as in some of the examples above; or, with proper understanding of its power, you can imbue your writing with great subtlety.

Finally, watch out for examples in your work of what is called the ‘comma splice’ – separate sentences joined by commas, where full stops (or, in some cases, semicolons) should be used. This is one of the most common punctuation errors. It is still frowned on by educated readers. In the following examples the commas should be replaced by full stops or semicolons:

The cars slow down as they pass me, I can hear their engines pausing.

Retailers are complaining of poor figures in the run-up to Christmas, many are slashing prices already.

Matthew worked in the city centre, it was a long commute.

4 Semicolons

A series of simple sentences joined by full stops can be abrupt; a string joined by co-ordinating conjunctions (and, but, then) is tedious to read. This is where the semicolon comes into its own. Two simple sentences on the same subject joined with a semicolon carry extra force.

Annemieke is multilingual; she speaks Dutch, English, German and French.

Annemieke is multilingual; Karen speaks only English.

But note that the following two sentences should not be joined by a semicolon because their subjects, though related, are actually different (Annemieke’s skill, Karen’s ambitions):

Annemieke is multilingual. Karen has ambitions as a writer.

Put like this, they can:

Annemieke is looking for work as a translator; Karen has ambitions as a writer.

Exercise

In the following, can you replace the conjunction or full stop with a semicolon?

Stephen did love her for her mind. He also wanted her body.

Stephen did love her for her mind but she had a beautiful body.

Barry was a train anorak. His flat was comfortable.

Barry was a train anorak and his flat was full of memorabilia.

Jude hated science at school. Her parents were strict.

The stairs creaked and Tony froze.

The actress had a stalker. He made her life a misery.

5 Dangling Participles (and Similar Constructions)

These are also called hanging, misrelated and unattached participles. They refer to sentences in which the subject of a participle (‘being’, ‘given’) is not the same as the subject of the main verb. They jar on educated readers (including, we hope, your potential agent) or create ridiculous pictures in their minds, distracting them from what you intend to convey. Like the comma splices explained above, they are seen as markers of careless thinking and writing. Some of the examples below are quoted in Fowler’s Modern English Usage (OUP, 1996):

Being unique, I am not going in any way to imitate him. (Willie Whitelaw, who did not intend to imply that he himself was unique.)

After inspecting a guard of honour, President Reagan’s motorcade moved into the centre of Moscow. (Reagan himself, not his motorcade, inspected the guard of honour.)

Now demolished, I can call it to mind in almost perfect detail. (Richard Ingrams on the house he grew up in. We are not supposed to think that he is demolished, but that’s the picture that comes to mind.)

Running down the road, the cherry trees were in blossom. (Energetic trees.)

Shrieking with laughter, chewing gum falls out of our mouths. (Exuberant chewing gum.)

A similar type of construction, called misrelated construction, produces equally unintended results:

Fluent in German, his position at the university was professor in . . . (A position can’t be fluent.)

John lived with an aunt after the death of his mother at age nine. (A very young mother.)

A Yugoslav woman married to a Kuwaiti and about twenty Asians were among those fleeing. (Notable example of polygamy.)

6 Apostrophes

Apostrophes seem to cause all sorts of problems. Once you know, it is easy to get them right.

There are two main uses of apostrophes:

• to indicate missing letters, as in isn’t (is not), they’re (they are), ’cause (short for because; note that bus, cello, flu and phone no longer take apostrophes as they are considered words in their own right these days);
• to indicate possession, as in Donna’s book (the book of/belonging to/written by Donna), the committee’s decision (the decision of/made by the committee).

The worst culprit, which everyone knows about, is the so-called greengrocers’ apostrophe: peach’s, banana’s, etc. Many people who would never dream of putting an apostrophe before an ‘s’ to make fruit or veg plural, still think it right to do so with abbreviations or numbers: the apostrophes in (plural) MP’s or the 1990’s are equally wrong.

The other most common misuse is the inappropriate appearance of an apostrophe in ‘it’s’. It couldn’t be simpler to determine the correct use here: if ‘its’ is short for ‘it is’, you need an apostrophe, which stands for the missing ‘i’ in ‘is’. If you can’t replace the ‘its’ in your sentence with ‘it is’, you don’t need an apostrophe:

It’s a beautiful day.

The sun spread its magic over the day.

The same basic approach will also stop you putting apostrophes wrongly in words such as ‘hers’, ‘ours’, ‘yours’, ‘theirs’, since you can’t expand the words to ‘her is’, ‘our is’, ‘your is’ or ‘their is’ (though of course you can write ‘there is’ and therefore ‘there’s’). The confusion comes from the fact that ‘its’, ‘hers’, ‘ours’, etc. carry the sense of possession. Another way to remember that they shouldn’t have an apostrophe is to think of the words missing from that series, ‘his’ and ‘mine’. If an apostrophe were needed, ‘his’ would have to become ‘his’s’, ‘mine’ ‘mine’s’, and it would never cross your mind to write that (except in the construction ‘Mine’s a beer, thanks’; the equivalents with the others would be ‘Hers is a gin and tonic’, ‘Yours is a whisky’).

Watch out for this tricky one: one’s [one is] tired of grammar; one might say one’s mind is blown. Ones and zeros are the only numbers used in binary code.

Another common difficulty is the difference between ‘whose’ and ‘who’s’. Again, it’s simple: ‘who’s’ is short for ‘who is’; ‘whose’ is the equivalent here of ‘its’, ‘his’, ‘hers’:

Peter, who’s an accountant, has a surprisingly rich cultural life.

Peter, whose work is not very fulfilling, goes to the theatre regularly.

With straightforward possessive apostrophes the apostrophe comes before the ‘s’ when the owner is singular, after the ‘s’ when they are plural: Peter’s work, the solicitors’ offices (a practice with more than one solicitor), the grocer’s (‘shop’ is understood).

There are five areas people have difficulty with:

• Irregular plurals in which no ‘s’ is required to make the plural: women, men, children, people. The possessive apostrophe naturally has to come before the ‘s’: women’s jobs, men’s families, children’s games, people’s houses.
• Collective nouns such as flock, herd, pack, crowd, and people when used as a singular entity: the people’s choice, the crowd’s excitement, the pack’s leader (but note also peoples’ movement in prehistory, for the movement of whole peoples).
• Words, usually names, ending in ‘s’: Charles, James, Dickens, Zacharias, Mrs Bridges, Mr Richards. The apostrophe obviously has to come after the ‘s’, which is an integral part of the name; the difficulty is whether to add an extra ‘s’ or not. The rules here are not hard and fast, but the general preference is related to how we say the word: we say James’s, Gladys’s, Elvis’s, Charles’s, Dickens’s, Zacharias’s, Mr Jones’s lifestyle, but Mrs Bridges’ kitchen, Mr Richards’ car. These names ending with ‘s’ become even more tricky in the plural: the Jones family; the Joneses; the Joneses’ car; the Jones car, used adjectivally; never the Jones’ car.
• Constructions such as each other’s books, someone else’s fault. The confusion arises particularly when what is possessed is plural as in the first example: the books belong to more than one person, but the apostrophe is connected to each of them in the singular, the book(s) of each other, so use apostrophe ‘s’, not ‘s’ apostrophe.
• Constructions such as four weeks’ holiday a year, six months pregnant, two days’ consultancy work, three weeks ago, in fifty years’ time. It’s not always easy to make the distinction in these cases, as they’re not obviously owned by anyone and don’t always lend themselves easily to conversion into the full form with ‘of’: holiday (entitlement, say) of four weeks. My trick is to reduce the number to one: one week’s holiday, one month pregnant, one day’s work, one week ago. If you still find yourself pronouncing an ‘s’, you need the apostrophe (after the ‘s’ when you return to the plural); if not, you don’t.

Exercise

Put in apostrophes, with or without an extra ‘s’, as appropriate:

‘Are these socks yours or Tessas? Its so hard to tell.’

‘Theyre mine. Hers havent got reinforced toes.’

‘For heavens sake. Thats the only difference?’

‘Fraid so. At least the boys are easy to tell apart. James are much bigger than Charles, arent they?’

The judges decision, after only five hours deliberation, came as a surprise. Theyd been expected to rule three to two the other way. If the womens case had come up three weeks earlier, before the publics awareness of the issues had been so dramatically raised, the court would have reached its verdict in a much more hostile atmosphere. The Williams sisters held a press conference immediately after the announcement. Mary Williams son, John, was not present.

7 I/Me: My Husband and I

A word here about when to use ‘I’ and when ‘me’. There seems to be a misconception that it is somehow posh to use ‘I’ rather than ‘me’ whenever it is linked with ‘and’ to another name or person – Sally and I, my friends and I. In fact, it is correct when the ‘I’ and other person(s) are the subject of the verb, quite wrong when they are the object. To work out which you should use, simply excise the other person(s) mentally; whether you find yourself then using ‘I’ or ‘me’, that form is correct when you restore your companions to their rightful place:

[My husband and] I wish you all a very happy new year.

They wished [my husband and] me a very happy new year.

You would never say, ‘They wished I a very happy new year.’ Nor should you say, ‘They wished my husband and I a very happy new year.’ It’s as simple as that.

I noted down the headline that appeared above a review in the Guardian of Jane Hawking’s account of her life with the famous scientist: ‘A Brief History of Stephen and I’. Checking the internet archives, I see that at some stage the headline has been changed to ‘The Physics of Love and Loss’. Aah. They must have been very embarrassed. They needed only to change ‘I’ to ‘me’ and it would have been fine.

8 Capitalization

The preference among publishers is for fewer capitals than used to be the norm. I’ll mention only two particular types of use that raise difficulties for inexperienced writers.

• When referring to my mum, his father, their aunt, etc., you should use lower case. When addressing them or referring to them using the title as a name, use upper case for the first letter:

  Since he lost his job, Dad’s always moping around the house.

  Since he lost his job, my dad’s always moping around the house.

  I’ve been staying with my aunt Alice.

  I’ve been staying with Aunt Alice.

  Is Gran feeling better, Mum?

• Names of pubs, hotels, etc., should have initial capitals on the main words, but not for the ‘t’ in the: the Dog and Duck, the Crown Hotel, the Three Tuns.

9 House Style

Publishers provide their copy-editors, typesetters and proofreaders with their house style, which is a list of spellings, guidelines on hyphenation, capitalization, layout and forms of punctuation they prefer. Sometimes they send it to authors as well, but by that time the book is often already written.

The details differ slightly between publishers (e.g. elite or élite, gaol or jail, okay or OK), and some impose their house style more rigidly than others, but I can give a flavour, listing some preferences that are shared by nearly all UK fiction publishers. There are considerable differences between UK and US standards in style as well as spelling, such as the US preference for double quotes as against single in the UK, for closed-up em-dashes over spaced en-dashes, but these need not concern us here. It is, however, worth pointing out that most house styles are based on particular dictionaries, and writers should aim to use an up-to-date one.

Spelling

all right (not alright)

any more (two words)

blond (hair, man; but she is a blonde)

biased

focused

for ever (but forever young)

goodbye

guerrilla

judgement

kerb (stone; curb = restrain)

MPs (no apostrophe)

no one

thank you

till (not ’til)

1990s or the nineties (some insist on one or the other, but never 1990’s, ’90s or ’nineties)

Nearly all prefer -ize endings in words such as recognize, realize, theorize, but note the many exceptions: advertise, advise, apprise, compromise, despise, enterprise, exercise, improvise, promise, revise, supervise, televise, etc., as well as analyse, catalyse, paralyse.

It is sensible to use your spellcheck program for basic spelling errors, but make sure it is an English not an American one. Bear in mind, too, that it won’t distinguish between words such as tire/tyre, curb/kerb, licence/license, their/there/they’re; it’s up to you to use the right spelling according to context.

There are general rules for contractions, abbreviations and acronyms. Contractions, in which the middle of the word is cut out, such as Dr, Ltd, Mr, Mrs, Ms, Revd, St, have no point. On the other hand, abbreviations that do not retain the final letter of the original word, such as Co., etc., No., and other lower-case abbreviations, a.m., e.g., i.e., p.m., pp., do have points.

Acronyms, which are words formed from the initial letters of other words, such as radar and NATO, have no points, nor do upper-case abbreviations such as BBC, EU, ITV, UN, USA.

Dashes and Ellipses

When you want a parenthetical dash, use en-dashes – which are like these, longer than hyphens – with a space before and after, as here. (En is a printer’s term, used for measuring space. It is half the width of an em, which is based on the size of the letter ‘m’ in a 12-point font.) Also use en-dashes with a space before but none between the dash and the closing quote mark when continuous speech is interrupted by narrative, as described under Dialogue, above. See Numbers, below, for other uses of en-dashes. To show broken-off speech and to introduce dialogue when no quotation marks are used, use the longer em-dash, as shown previously.

I was driving home from work when – guess what? – they pulled me over again.

—Let’s go to the beach, she said.—I want to see the sea.

‘I think, no, I know –’ she pounded the table ‘– I know what they’ll say. They’ll go on about—’

‘You’re so paranoid, Lou,’ said Viv, hoping to stop her before she got into her stride.

In Word you can find the en-dash and em-dash at Insert/Symbol/Special Characters, where it will also tell you the keyboard shortcut. If you press the Shortcut Key button on the same screen you can change it to something easier (my en-dash is simply Ctrl+-, which I stole from something else). Some programs automatically convert two hyphens to an en-dash.

An ellipsis is three (never four) points used to indicate missing words in quoted material and for speech that trails off or fades away. Publishers hate to see a lot of ellipses on a page, so use them sparingly. It is best to type a space plus a full stop, three times.

Hyphens, One Word or Two

There is a trend towards fewer hyphens.

Avoid over-hyphenation of compound nouns, such as dressing gown, dining room, washing machine, phone box, tablecloth. Try to be consistent in your spelling and hyphenation: street lamp or streetlamp but not both; ear ring, ear-ring or earring, phone call or phonecall; letter box or letterbox, door knob or doorknob, table top or tabletop, window sill or windowsill, etc. (Your copy-editor has to note every instance of every word whose spelling you are likely to vary, then choose one version and change all the others. If you are consistent, you’ll save her a lot of time. She’s likely to show her gratitude by doing a better job on everything else.)

Hyphens are, however, very useful and sometimes essential. Note the difference in meaning:

thirty-odd people (about thirty people) and thirty odd people (the people are odd)

extra-territorial rights and extra territorial rights

more-important people and more important people

This use, to avoid ambiguity, also applies to some words with prefixes:

recover (get better) and re-cover (put a new cover on)

recreation (having fun) and re-creation (creating again)

resign and re-sign (e.g. a footballer)

Compound adjectives (and compound nouns used as adjectives) usually need hyphens when they are placed before the noun but not when they stand alone:

half-open eyes, eyes were half open

a well-known fact, the fact was well known

a greenish-grey colour, it was greenish grey in colour

nineteenth-century values, in the nineteenth century

ten-year-old girl, who is ten years old today

second-hand clothes, she bought them second hand (or secondhand in both positions)

dressing-gown cord, dining-room table, washing-machine drum

Omit hyphens in compounds with adverbs ending in -ly:

an easily learned lesson; a wholly satisfactory conclusion; badly dressed men

Numbers

In fiction, most publishers prefer numbers up to and including a hundred, as well as round hundreds and thousands, to be spelt out in words, not figures. Also spell out:

• any number that begins a sentence (but try to avoid ‘Nineteen seventy-nine, when Margaret Thatcher became prime minister . . .’)
• centuries: the nineteenth century, twentieth-century wars
• ages: Darren was five years old, the twenty-six-year-old novelist (though some allow you discretion if you find this latter too cumbersome, so you can put 26-year-old, but she was twenty-six)
• numbers used in dialogue unless this is clearly impractical.

Use figures for:

• exact numbers of three or more digits: 365 (but three hundred); 22,148 (but twenty-two thousand)
• weights and measures (though some prefer, e.g., he was six foot two)
• exact sums of money: £6.99 (but five thousand pounds)
• sets or lists of numbers, e.g. the guerrillas had 10 rifles, 2 Uzis and 5 SAM missiles
• percentages: 50 per cent (not fifty per cent or 50%)
• inclusive pairs of page numbers, years and house numbers, separated by an en-dash without spaces: 11–18, 230–32; 1939–45, 1998–9, 1999–2001. Note that teens, and those following round tens, hundreds and thousands appear in full: 1914–18, 40–48, 500–502; otherwise as short as possible: 46–8, 236–9. This is how we would say the numbers out loud: nineteen fourteen to eighteen, forty to forty-eight, five hundred to five hundred and two, but forty-six to eight, two [hundred and] thirty-six to nine.

Dates and Times

Use 14 July 2000; Wednesday 14 July, 2000; on 14 July; on the fourteenth; July 2000. AD precedes and BC follows the year: AD 85; 54 BC.

There’s little agreement on times. Use five-thirty, 5.30 or half past five; five thirty-five, 5.35 a.m.; quarter to two, 1.45 p.m.; ten o’clock. Try to be consistent, at least in the narrative, throughout the book, and spell out the words in dialogue however your character would say them.

If your publisher sends you their house style, study it carefully and follow it, if not in the book you’ve already written, at least in the next. It will be appreciated.

10 Agents, Editors and Copy-editors

I’ve mentioned agents and, in passing, copy-editors, but not editors. It may be useful to clarify their different roles.

As you already know, the agent’s job is to find writers whose work they think they can sell to publishers and represent them as well as they can in all their subsequent dealings.

The editor, who works in-house at the publisher that has bought your manuscript, helps you to knock the book into the best possible shape, bearing in mind the market they are aiming to pitch it at. He/she may ask you to cut several thousand words if the book is too long, sort out problems with the plot, strengthen the characterization of a particular character, join chapters together or split them into shorter ones, change the tone of the ending. He/she may find irritating a particular stylistic quirk that recurs throughout the book, or think the name of one of your characters has misleading overtones and ask you to change it.

Once the structural matters have been attended to, your script will be passed to a copy-editor. Copy-editing is done either by a freelance, paid by the publisher at an hourly rate, or by an in-house desk editor. Her job is to correct errors and inconsistencies in spelling, punctuation and grammar, to impose the publisher’s house style and to make sure that the plot fits together properly after editing (which often creates new problems with chronology, for instance, overlooked when changes are made elsewhere in the text). She marks all these changes, as well as technical details to do with the layout, on the manuscript for the typesetter.

As publishing has become more of an industry and less of an art, however, the roles of these three people, who are so important in the process by which your manuscript becomes a book on the shelves of your local bookshop, have changed, too. Some publishers seem to object to spending time (and money) on editing. As a result, many good editors have left their jobs at publishers and set themselves up as agents. This means they may concentrate more on editing your work, but not be so good at representing you. On the other hand, your agent may be a brilliant representative, but sell your work to a publishing house that puts little emphasis on editing. In that case, the editing of your book may be left to the copy-editor, who acts as a (much cheaper) editor, but one trained to put right details rather than the bigger picture.

The worst case result of all these changes is a poorly edited book, bad reviews, disappointed readers, poor sales, lower royalties and a lower advance next time round. All the more reason to make the best job you can of revising your own work.

The publisher may send you the manuscript the copy-editor has marked up so you can check it before it is typeset. Now that so much copy-editing is done on screen, many only send proofs, at which stage very few if any corrections can be made (and they may ask you to pay for them). If you’re lucky enough to get to see the marked-up script, do check it carefully: it’s your last chance to get it right. The copy-editor will have looked out for mistakes such as hawthorn blossoming in August or weeks with eight days. She will have done her best, in the time available, to check that factual details are correct – that La Bohème isn’t attributed to Verdi, dates of historical events, the spelling of real people’s names and of trademarks, such as Coca-Cola, Hi-Tec. All this is very time-consuming and it is your responsibility to try to get things right yourself. She also suggests ways to avoid unnecessary repetition or to improve awkward phrasing.

With – or without – the manuscript, she may send a list of queries: for you to check facts she’s doubtful about but hasn’t been able to track down, to come up with a solution to some inconsistency in the narrative, or to rephrase a sentence that clearly doesn’t express what you want it to. You have the right to accept or reject her suggestions, though your publisher will generally insist on its own house style in questions of spelling, punctuation, etc. But it is important that you take the job seriously and answer queries rigorously; it’s a painful and time-consuming business for the desk editor (who might not be the person who copy-edited the book, might not even have read it) to have to follow up things that you haven’t addressed adequately, and sometimes these details may be sacrificed. Some authors feel, understandably, that their job is over, and resent having to do yet more work on their manuscript. But dealing with these final details thoroughly is important and worthwhile.

11 Submitting to an Agent or Publisher

Remember, they are looking for good, original writing, but they can easily be put off. They’re all in it to make money, probably more now than ever before. Poor understanding of such basics as how paragraphs work, basic rules of sentence structure and punctuation all take time to put right, add costs and reduce any chance of profitability and therefore of your chances of acceptance. So never send a draft.

There should be three components to your submission:

• Covering letter
• Synopsis
• Stamped addressed envelope.

Some, but not all, agents and publishers are happy to receive sample chapters as well. Check in the current Writer’s Handbook or Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook.

Covering Letter

This should be typed and short. Point out intelligently what is unusual about the book – not ‘it’s like X’. Publishers may have a tendency to leap onto bandwagons, but they’d rather be offered the next new thing than yet another imitation of the last. If your work does fall into an obvious tradition, make sure you have – and point up – a new slant on it. Show a sense of the genre you are writing in and awareness of the market. Include some biography, and mention anything you’ve had published already. If you can’t keep it short, add a separate CV. If you can convey something of your personality wittily, do so, but don’t try too hard and fall flat. Don’t boast. Avoid gimmicks. Include daytime and evening phone numbers if you can and an email address if you have one. If you can’t take calls at work, get an answerphone or answering service.

Synopsis

No more than two sides of A4. This needs to be at least as well written as the book itself – if the synopsis is poorly written, what agent or publisher will bother to read or ask for sample chapters?

Stamped Addressed Envelope

Big enough to hold your work unfolded. Ideally a self-sealing A4, folded once.

Sample Chapters

Whether you are sending on first approach or later, these should be the first two or three chapters and no more (which will at least save you postage). This should be quite enough for the agent or publisher to get a good feel for your writing style and the content. Often the first chapters are clunkiest, though. If you find you want to send later chapters, which you feel better represent the quality of your writing, you haven’t finished revising: if you don’t think the first chapters are good enough, you are not ready to send them out. You have to grab the reader in the first paragraph, whether that person is an agent, a publisher or someone who pays good money in a bookshop.

Follow the advice on layout, numbering pages, etc., at the beginning of this chapter. Finally, keep the pages together with a paperclip or rubber band, perhaps in a flat folder. Don’t staple them or use any sort of binder.

Good luck.

12 Useful Reference Books

New Oxford Style Manual, OUP

The Oxford Writers’ Dictionary, ed. R. E. Allen, OUP

Mind the Stop: A Brief Guide to Punctuation, Gordon Vero Carey, Penguin Books

The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage, ed. R. W. Burchfield, OUP

The Good English Guide, Godfrey Howard, Macmillan

Complete Plain Words, Sir Ernest Gowers, David R. Godine

Copy-editing: The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Authors and Publishers, Judith Butcher, CUP

Carrying On

Paul Magrs

As we’ve seen in the preceding essays, there are a great many things to do once you’ve got a manuscript you are happy with. As if it’s not hard enough working with actual words on pages, you’ve got a whole lot of other jobs to do afterwards.

As Penny Rendall makes clear, you really have to get your work into proper order. It’s a bit like tidying and cleaning your house up before you try to sell it. The best thing is to put yourself in the position of the people popping round to have a look. Would you buy a house that was strewn with empty coffee cups and old newspapers? You have to do justice to yourself.

In her essay, Penny is offering good, commonsensical advice about how to make your manuscript legible to whoever you are presenting it to. As she says, editors and agents receive a great many and they get through these things often at a rate of knots. Don’t make it easy for them to thrust your piece of work aside. The rules are just conventions that everyone has to abide by. Yours could be the most avant-garde piece of work the world has ever seen, but people still have to be able to read it. You need the standard rules of grammar and laying out.

Even when you have a manuscript that is immaculately set out and edited and, as far as you are concerned, completed, the choices of what to do next seem endless. You could submit it to a workshop and receive further criticism. You could revise it again. And again. You could go on a course at a college or university, you could attend a residential course and submit it for comments from another class or another tutor.

In the end, only you know when you are ready and prepared, and when your work is ready and prepared, to take it further.

You might not want to publish it. People sometimes write only for themselves, or for a few others. Even so, if they are calling themselves a writer, they will still be working their text up into a finished, polished state. Something they can be proud of. Something only they could write. A finished something, in which they have done justice to and got the greatest potential out of the material they began with. Some of the most precise and beautifully finished writing I have ever read is in the journals of the novelist Denton Welch. They weren’t published until after his death. Similarly with the letters of Katherine Mansfield, which she had ordered destroyed, but which were published in volume after volume in the decades following her death.

On the one hand, I’m saying that not everyone is writing with publication (and profit and reviews and awards and prizes) in mind. On the other, I am also saying that you ought to bring all your learned skills and techniques for writing to bear upon everything you write. The benefits of good writing practice help expression and clear thought in all kinds of ways, all parts of life.

However, if you do want to publish your writing, the real work starts here.

When it’s just a case of you and the manuscript, you only have to answer to yourself. Even if you are in a workshop or on a course, you can still ignore all of the comments you receive from others. You’d be daft to, but you still could. At that stage nothing need come between you and your work.

When you box it and parcel it up into brown envelopes and send it off to an editor, an agent or a competition, you are offering it up for public consumption. Here you have to learn to be brave. Of course you’ll get knocked back and the letters you receive won’t always be sensitive appraisals of your talent and worth. Learn to cope with getting your work sent back to you. Whoever is sending it back isn’t the be-all and end-all. However powerful they are in the publishing world, theirs is only one opinion. Buy yourself lots of brown envelopes and lots of stamps. Look in the Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook. Just see how many editors, agents and publishers there are. Enough to be going on with, at any rate.

If someone writes to you and says that though they don’t want to publish or represent what you’ve sent them, they’d like to see what you write next, don’t throw up your hands in resignation and give up. In my experience, if someone says this, they actually mean it. People in publishing or agenting don’t often have time to solicit work. If they ask to see the next thing, take it as a good sign. In all likelihood they mean it. Get back to work. Don’t rush it. Keep records of who you’ve been in correspondence with, who has what work. When you’ve got the next book or story or collection of poems finished, send it to that person.

Just keep going. There’s a lot of writing out there already published, and there are a lot of writers out there still writing and either being published or trying to be. Sometimes, as someone who teaches them, it seems there are a limitless number of people with books they are working on. When you go into bookshops or on courses, don’t let that fact depress you. Sometimes it will make you think ‘What’s it all about?’, when everyone seems to be writing like this. Sometimes it will make you wonder why you want, so keenly, to get your work out there into the world.

This is good. We all need to think about why we’re writing and why we set such store by it. It’s obviously important to all of us in different ways. The thing to remember is that we all have our own reasons for doing this and our own means of doing it. Writing itself would go on without your contribution, but it would be without your own unique contribution. If you feel you want to offer that, then go for it.