How long till I should attempt a book?

DeneBebbo

I've recently taken the plunge at writing fiction after previously being unable to go from having an idea to producing a story from it - I'm much more comfortable with non-fiction. My fiction will be short stories in the Sci-Fi/Speculative Fiction, and maybe Horror, genres. If I manage to get some stories published in online or print magazines how long do you think I should hone my skills for before attempting a novel?

LilyC

It's a very personal thing DB. Short stories are so very different from novels - the pace particularly, which can be quite difficult to sustain in a full-length story especially with horror.

I think you'll come to trust your intuition - some ideas need to be thrown out there compact and complete at a couple of thousand words. Others, you just know have a lot more mileage in them. If you've got an idea for a novel - just go for it! By the time you've finished it your skills will hopefully be well-honed and you can apply them at the subsequent editing stages.

DeneBebbo

Hi LilyC, do you know how difficult it is to get a horror novel published? I was quite surprised recently when reading a Shaun Hutson novel that even though it was a real page turner the writing wasn't especially good - if that makes sense!

Jay Mandal

Sounds like you're already thinking about a book. If so, write it! If we exclude stuff I wrote when I was at school/include stuff that's been published, I wrote a novel before I wrote any short stories.

DeneBebbo

Hi Jay, I've not got a book idea yet, only short stories so far. I'm so fed up with my job that I'm hoping to write a novel sometime, and see if there's any chance of making some money from it. Though I guess the number of writers who make a living is relatively small.

Carol

[quote=DeneBebbo]I'm so fed up with my job that I'm hoping to write a novel sometime, and see if there's any chance of making some money from it.[/quote]

Wrong attitude to take DB. Very few novelists make big money, and the average income for a standard writer is frequently not the national average-according to surveys.

And most need a job to pay the bills while they are doing their novels...

Otherwise I agree with Lily totally.

At the moment you need to get known- get stories accepted and published, and learn the neccesary skills that all writers need.
Somewhere along the way the idea for a novel will emerge, and you'll be able to apply all you have learnt in the meantime.

Liz

Average income for a writer, according to Society of Authors, is £4,000.

I know that all the full time writers I know (and I know a lot) are very poor, practically breadline, the ones who make a decentish wage supplement with teaching, tours, teaching, school visits... and very little time left to write.

dorothyd

DB, forget trying to make a living out of writing unless, like Mutley and others, you are prepared to write articles all the time and I mean all the time, to earn a living. The novel won't do it. My first novel, I got £250 advance and then nothing, as it went flat without promotion of any kind. They didn't bother. Now I am with a company who cares. The current novel out there is earning a little but not enough, so the PR machine has to be geared up to get it promoted. We are planning the schedule for next year and the year after and the year after ... (all books already written and accepted) and in addition my editor has six other books of mine to put out (in a different genre. That's the only way I will make money and meantime, I still work and will continue to work at my day job.

Shaun Hutson sells because he is Shaun Hutson and someone decided his first books were worth putting out. He gathered himself a following and away you go. His storylines are compelling, I have to agree.

So, write your short stories but, work hard at the articles, build up an impressive CV. Mine says over 200 articles and 50 short stories, that's the sort of percentages you need to work at, to show people you can write - anything.

Let your imagination play with a storyline for a novel. There's the second thing to say, it is rare that a first novel is accepted, we all write novels which are our a 'apprenticeship' (I wrote 3 in all) which show you that you can sustain the effort of writing 80,000 words and have a storyline that will span 80,000 words without the reader getting bored. Be prepared to work at it for a long time, polish, revise and polish again. Take a look at my threads, I detail the work involved in getting books out there. I've been struggling since 2006 to get this series up and running.

Does this help?

pbw

I say just dive in - deep end - start writing it and see what comes out. You can always chop it up and rearrange it later.

mct1

I was having a similar discussion last night with some friends who believed that writers earn loads of dosh. We told them - my husband had a major legal textbook published, it was commissioned by a major publishers, was in every university and college library, every local authority had a few copies. It took him about 8 years in all and he made about £5,000 in royalties. Naturally, he didn't do it for the money. Now they've asked him to update it but we think life's too short.

LilyC

DB, it's as hard to get a horror novel published as any other genre, I would imagine. Regardless of genre the quality of writing must be top notch to be considered by an agent/publisher.

I accept that some existing writers' novels don't always hit the mark (just read something very disappointing myself by a long-established author) but I guess their publishers aren't quite so concerned when the author already has an audience.

Totally agree with everyone about not giving up on the day job!!

Lou Treleaven

Just go for it! But make sure you enjoy the process - otherwise it's not worth doing, especially not for the money.

Dwight

Courage, DB. It certainly sounds like you WANT to write a book, so where there's a will...

I agree with those who say have a try. As well as enjoying the process, try and make a success of it, and to my mind, that means finding a few books which explain how to do it. The place to look in Waterstones would be the Literary shelves, or ask an assistant.

DeneBebbo

Okay, so the consensus is I'm stuck with my job! It'd be great to earn enough from writing to live on, but just getting a book accepted by a publisher would make my day, week, month and year. I'll probably never be a great writer, but have seen enough mediocre writing (speaking as a reader) to think I'm not being unrealistically ambitious in eventually aiming for a novel.

boredrobots

DB, take heed of Lily's comments, horror is just as hard as any other genre. It's sometimes perceived as easier because people like to think it's as simple as smash/slice, bit of blood here, dab of guts there, make someone scream and do the opposite of what a sane person does; then Bob's your mother's brother...a horror novel!

Plot, pacing, dialogue, setting, characters, structure and description are just as hard in horror as other genres.

As other people have said forget about the money and giving up the day job (for now!), if and when you make it then you might want to consider these a bigger part of any decisions you make, but until then you have to write for yourself. You have to accept that even if you’re going to make millions from your work, it's not going to happen any time soon.

I don’t want to take away from anyone’s success but if you DO get some stories published in small presses don’t immediately assume you’re an amazing writer and you can tackle novels in your sleep. Practice, practice, practice no matter how much you think you’re improving. You can never settle for an ‘I’m good enough now’ attitude, not in a market than changes as fast as something..that…changes fast and…often (sorry, my writing hat fell off).

Also you’ll never know how good an idea is, or how long you can sustain it, until you try it out. I’ve had some cracking ideas that seem to be whole novels in waiting but when it comes to writing them down I can’t stretch them past 20,000 words. I’ve also had some fleeting ideas that seem silly at the time but then end up as 40,000-word works in progress!!

The only way you’ll know is to try them out, and while you’re doing this you’ll be learning the ins and outs of novel writing (hopefully), so it’s a win-win situation. There is so much to learn about writing a novel, far more than anyone can learn in one lifetime, so hurry up and get learning as much as you can!

p.s What was it you didn't like about Huston’s writing? I quite like him myself.

p.p.s If you need any tips horror wise then gimme a shout. Us horror writers have to stick together :)

p.p.p.s I do like a good post-post-postscript :D

DeneBebbo

Hi bored_robots,

Here's what I wrote about Hutson's Necessary Evil on Amazon:

"Necessary Evil is the first and only book by Shaun Hutson I've read. It deserves a 4 simply because the story is gripping and makes the book difficult to put down - especially as chapters finish on a cliffhanger.

Unfortunately the power of the story is let down by several flaws. The most annoying is an amateurish writing style which I got used to but still sometimes made me stop and wonder why Hutson was writing so clunkily. The relationship between the criminal protagonist and a policeman felt like it'd been lifted straight from a cliched hollywood thriller. A part of the story where armed police rather than the SAS were used just didn't make sense, and the reason given by a character was weak. "

Helen

Hi DeneBebbo, I think you should go for it and write a novel. I think all writing needs perseverance and patience. But never forget that success can happen. You just have to work at it, learn the craft and try things out. If you are very fed up with your job, it may be worth finding a different job. Then you can be happy at work and able to write in your spare time. Enjoy the writing! :-)

Dwight

Helen has a good point, DB. I wonder if you can hit upon a job where you can write as you work, so to speak? A sedentary job with hours of tedious waiting, to be transformed into bursts of creative writing.

Helen

I do Secretarial work and would love to be a full-time Writer - I chose this kind of work as the stress is quite minimal and when it's quiet, I do sneak in a bit of writing here and there. I also don't need to take work home, so that's a bonus. :-)

LeeH

DeneBebbo, one thing you might want to think about before just jumping in with a novel is getting your name known first through short stories, one the short story medium teaches you to not use 10 words when 3 will do which helps with pace. Secondly, if you get noticed in enough good places your writers CV will blossom, which will help in snagging an agent, and then attracting the attention of publishers. I'm just about done with a novel that I hope to sell. You never know who is paying attention to eZines etc. I know three other people on here who were contacted by a top New York agent interested in whether we had novels ready after reading our shorts on the internet, sadly I rushed something for them and got the 'jog-on' rejection lol.

Also with short stories on eZines etc you get the chance for feedback which you can use to help you move along. That and you get to meet and make friends with a lot of other writers and you can turn to them for help and they in turn can lean on you, it all goes to helping make you a better writer.

DeneBebbo

Thanks for the advice everyone. At least I only work 4 days a week and so have a reasonable amount of spare time for writing. Even at work I sometimes daydream about articles or stories I want to write!

Patricia Lesley

I started a novel that turned into a first prix poem while I was doing the research.

Rosalie

The best way to hone your novel writing skills is to write novels - lots of them. Write, rewrite, edit... as others have said.

Gully

How long till I should attempt a book?

That's easy... 12.4 centimetres.
Or half a moment.

You can start a book at anytime, anywhere, about whatever you want.
There are no limits.

Of course, if you want the book to have a running chance of being published, it might be a good idea to have a good story, a good knowledge of the English language (or the language you choose to write the book), and a lot of patience and stamina.

But I'm sure you have all those already.

Have fun.

boredrobots

[quote=Gully]Of course, if you want the book to have a running chance of being published, it might be a good idea to have a good story, a good knowledge of the English language (or the language you choose to write the book), and a lot of patience and stamina.[/quote]

You have to have ALL of these??!
I give up, I'm going to be a fish farmer instead.

Gully

:-D

Oh, the smell!!

Helen

Gully, your comment made me laugh. About the smell, with being a fish farmer. :-)

boredrobots

It's the burden all successful fish farmers must suffer :D

Gully

You really are a fish farmer?

How do you do it?
I mean, farm fish?

Do you have a harvester?

boredrobots

Combine harvester does the trick, I pimped it out so I could drive it underwater.
Plus that way they're already fish finger shaped when I've finishing harvesting :D

Gully

Fancy that.
How interesting.

And, er, what do you do about the smell?

boredrobots

Stand next to someone smellier

Gully

:-D

Helen

:-)

pbw

[quote=bored_robots]Combine harvester does the trick, I pimped it out so I could drive it underwater.
Plus that way they're already fish finger shaped when I've finishing harvesting :D[/quote]

Love it!