WRITING FEATURES V. WRITING STORIES

Walking v. galloping and weaving v. unravelling

I was looking at the timeline of the publication of my books. I wrote the first five Sprite Sisters books in 30 months. The stories were each around 55,000 words – so 275,000 words in total. That was fast going. The most words I wrote in any one week were 6,000, followed by 4,000 and another 4,000 – 14,000 words in three days. I couldn’t think at all for a few days after that.

As a journalist, I was used to working to deadlines, but I’d never written more than 2500 words for a feature when I began writing The Circle of Power in May 2007. I had three months to work out and write that first story for Piccadilly Press. The other four Sprite titles I published with them followed at a similar gallop.

Then things slowed down. It took me a year to write the sixth Sprite title, The Boy With Hawk-like Eyes. It was partly because I was tired and partly because I didn’t have a publisher behind me, giving me an unmoveable deadline. It took me around nine months to write the seventh title, Magic at Drysdale’s School.

My point is that that sometimes your writing will gallop along and sometimes you need to take things gently.

Then there’s the difference between writing features (wearing my journalist hat) and writing stories (wearing my author’s hat). I find the two processes are entirely different.

With a feature, you do the interview, you do the research and you have a sense of the shape of the article before you begin. You know the length required. You know the angle and the tone the magazine is after because that’s what they’ve commissioned. As you write, you have things to draw on – quotes to insert, facts to note. Because your research is around you, the piece exists before you actually write it. You, the journalist, shape it and give it form. As you write, you draw in the elements together. Writing a feature is almost like weaving, as you pull together different strands and build new layers.

For me, writing a story is a completely different process because it exists only in my head. Having got my outline idea, I work out the general shape of the story and break it down into three parts – beginning, middle and end – then chapters. In that, the process is something the same, but where writing a feature is like weaving, creative writing is allowing something to unravel.

A story is something you have to follow. Despite knowing the concept and having an overall shape, I don’t know what will happen until the image or words drops into my mind – till I hear the characters speak them. That doesn’t happen until I get to precisely that part of the story – it’s one step at a time. Hence allowing the story to unfold.

If the part you are writing doesn’t come to you, there is nothing to write – so you can’t gallop. That’s where experience helps, as you know then to slow down and walk your idea.

And it will come – just in its own time.

Magic at Drysdale’s School, the 7^th Sprite Sisters story,

is available now as an e-book and will be published

as a print-on-demand paperback on 21^st June 2013

WWW.SHERIDANWINN.COM

SELF-PUBLISHING = SPEED

If time is of the essence in reaching your readers then take the alternative publishing route, but don’t cut corners.

There’s something exciting about being able to create a product – for your book is that – and get it to market at a good lick. It used to be a year, sometimes two, for a book to make its way through the publishing channels and out to the shops.

Nowadays, once the text is edited and formatted and the jacket illustration approved, e-publishing takes a matter of hours and print-on-demand a matter of days. It’s so darn simple. No doubt in a year or so it will be done in the blink of an eye.

The flipside, of course, is that you’re not featured in a publisher’s catalogue, so your book is unlikely be purchased by the library service. Your print-on-demand book is just that – so you are unlikely to find it on booksellers’ shelves. If customers find you, they will have to order your book. And any publicity will be all your own doing.

But – if agents keep a weather-eye on up-and-coming e-book authors, what’s the point of wasting months sending them your precious manuscript, unless you are known to them or have some kind of connection. Sending an agency your manuscript blind is the literary equivalent of cold calling – and the hit rate is miniscule. The chances are your book will join the slush pile and you’ll wait months before you receive a rejection slip.

In those months, and the months that follow as you send it out to another agency, you might as well have published it yourself. Then you can send the paperback to the agent instead.

But be warned. An independent bookseller friend told me he would never take a book that didn’t have a good jacket – even if the writing was okay. We live in a visual society, so get the best illustrator and designer you can afford (and that’s after the best editor – and a formatting expert is not an editor, whatever they will tell you).

You can publish your book for peanuts or you can see it as an investment. The global market is a big place and your book could be out there a long time. It might, even, get picked up by a top publisher. My advice is to get it out there, but don’t cut corners.

BRITISH WEATHER AND CREATIVE FLOW

Greetings blog readers from a warm and sunny Norfolk!

How long will this wonderful weather last we all wonder? This year we have waited so many months for the sun. Who knows? It could all change tomorrow. Britain is an island nation and our weather is forever changing. Subject to numerous variables, none of which is in our control, we tend to wait, anxiously, for things to improve.

Sometimes I think the British weather is like creativity. You can’t guarantee it will be there when you need it and most often it is not. I find my creativity comes in waves, and diminishes when I am tired or stressed. Some days I can write for hours. Some weeks I cannot write at all. It is not laziness, nor lack of application. I find if there is nothing to say, then there is nothing to write. As soon as I know what to say – the next piece of the plot is in my mind – I write.

One of the things I have to do when writing is to stop reading. Fiction is a no-no. Newspapers, crosswords and the odd television programme I can cope with, but other people's stories scramble my ideas. If I want to write, I need a clear head and a quiet mind.

A week ago, having finished the 7^th and final Sprite Sisters story, and in a burst of creative energy, I sat down to write the first title of a new trilogy that has been in my mind since 2006. I have made copious notes and written numerous chapters for The Earth Stories, but the ‘right time’ had not come. I had been too busy with the Sprite Sisters to engage in another big project.

Having got out the box file and looked through it, I typed, ‘The Earth Stories – Book 1 deadline Autumn 2013’, printed it out and stuck the piece of paper on the wall in front of me. I like to have a deadline.

But something surprising happened. As I sat there, staring at my new deadline, the words ‘Boudicca’s Daughters’ kept ringing in my mind. Boudicca’s Daughters, Boudicca’s Daughters . . . The words would not go away. This had been the intended title of the second volume of The Earth Stories, but I had often wondered if it would make a better stand alone novel for young adults.

So, as with the British weather and guided by some invisible force, I went with the flow. I got out a second box of notes and writing that I had done on Boudicca’s Daughters in 2010, and was surprised to see how much I had completed. Okay, I thought, I’ll write this book first.

I peeled the deadline for The Earth Stories off the wall, typed and printed out another. Now the words, ‘Boudicca’s Daughters’ stare at me from the wall, with the deadline of October 2013.

Much like our island weather, I set out to do one thing but found the pattern changed quite suddenly. I am back in ‘lock-down mode’, shutting out as much of the world around me as I can, while Boudicca’s Daughters makes its way on to the pages of my new book.

Outside the sun is shining, but I am sitting at my computer going with the creative flow.

MAGIC AT DRYSDALE'S SCHOOL

The 7^th Sprite Sister story is on its way!

It was an iron fist of a winter. For months, a biting easterly wind swept across Norfolk, chilling our bones and making us huddle indoors. When will it end, we kept asking? For months I was unwell and struggled to write. It seemed the cold would never pass and my book would never get finished.

Now, outside my window, the apple tree is covered with buds, clasped tight like tiny little pink fists. We have had the first rain in weeks – a gentle April shower. The air is bright and warming gradually. The birds are busy building their nests, the daffodils are in bloom and Spring feels as if it is finally here.

And I have finished my 7^th Sprite Sisters book, Magic at Drysdale’s School. It feels a good time to be launching what may be my final Sprite story – though I have left enough strands to carry on the series if I change my mind.

Here is the blurb for the back jacket:-

When Zak Ashworth joins Drysdale’s School, the Sprite Sisters and their cousin Verena know that trouble will follow. Zak carries within him the dark power of the screegling – one of the vile subterranean insects that he summoned to Sprite Towers and which brought terrifying danger to the Sprite family.

As Flame anguishes about having a secret magic power and Marina comes face to face with Zak, Ash is led to a mysterious stone. Soon the Sprite Sisters, Verena and Zak are drawn by an Earth power that none can escape. But where Zak goes, the screegling goes too –– and its dark magic will out.

I don’t have a jacket design to show you yet, but it won’t be long. Once that is finished, I shall publish my story as a print-on-demand paperback and as an e-book, the same as the other six titles. The magic of self-publishing is that once you have the component parts assembled, sending out your story to the world takes only a matter of hours.

The first five Sprite stories are set in one year when the sisters are aged 13, 12, 10 and 9 years. The Boy With Hawk-like Eyes – the sixth title – moves the story on two years so that Flame is now 15, Marina is 14, Ash is 12 and Ariel is 11 years old. The easiness chumminess of the sisters in the early stories has given way to teenage doubts and tensions.

In Magic at Drysdale’s School, Flame is wracked with worry about her magic power. Unable to tell her boyfriend Quinn, she feels torn between being honest – as she is, naturally, and wants to be – and having to keep secret one vital part of her being. The result is conflict.

The story follows hard on the heels of The Boy With Hawk-like Eyes and similarly the adults play a less important role. In these stories the magic must be kept absolutely secret and the sisters must make decisions for themselves.

As you might expect, much of the action takes place at Drysdale’s School. Flame and Marina are now weekly boarders at the big independent school, along with their Sprite cousin, Verena. Zak Ashworth has also joined Drysdale’s and his dark magic has followed him. Wary of Zak, the Sprite Sisters refuse to speak to him.

In the earlier Sprite stories, the sisters discovered that Sprite Towers was full of magic. They battled against the evil Glenda Glass and found the way to use their magic power to protect themselves. They discovered a plan that enabled them to travel back to the past, wrestled with an evil ghost and met a relative who had died ninety years ago. Using their magic power to travel through portals, the Sprite Sisters found a way to change the future.

In Magic at Drysdale’s School, Ash is drawn to a large stone outside the school chapel. With her power of Earth she is able to feel the power emanating from the stone. In this story, we enter the world of ley lines – known as dragon lines in China and Geisterwege in Germany. This is a story about Earth energy and magic pathways.

Will the Sprite Sisters continue? That, I don’t know at the moment. I have been approached by a production company and am confident that the Sprite Sisters will make their way to film or television in the next few years. A top Japanese agent is working hard to sell the series in Japan. Things are afoot in the world of the Sprite Sisters.

Meanwhile my creative thinking is moving to The Earth Stories. This trilogy will be set in Breckland, a wild area of West Norfolk inhabited by the Iceni tribe two thousand years ago. With a post-apocalyptic scenario, The Earth Stories will be about a small group of survivors who go back to the Old Ways and use Earth Wisdom. Their shamanic magic is challenged by another group of survivors intent on recreating technology as we know it today.

THE SPRITE SISTERS

Four sisters

Four elements

Four powers

THE WRITER'S BUBBLE

Two hours, fifty-five minutes and counting. By my reckoning I should be able to file this blog at midnight. I wrote 1200 words in 90 minutes the other evening between 9pm and 11pm. But I won’t write even 500 words now unless I can go into the bubble.

The bubble is a quiet place. It’s a soothing, yet dynamic space where the ideas and words appear exactly as you need them. You don’t fight the words in the bubble. They plip into your consciousness as if by magic. Ah yes, you think, as you type the words. Of course . . .

For me, the bubble appears in the evening. When the day’s busy-ness recedes, when the business of eating is complete and when I can find no other excuses – that’s when I sit down and write the words that have eluded me all day, maybe all week. It is time to write this chapter, I tell myself as I settle at my desk – and write it I will before I go to sleep tonight.

And, somehow, I do. I may have faffed about all day, but around 9pm my brain settles and the words begin to flow: because that’s what happens in the bubble. The words come, one by one, the sentences build and little by little the story emerges right in front of your eyes. You find yourself writing a twist in the plot that you did not know was there until the moment you press the keys. That’s a good idea, you think. I like that. I wonder where it’s leading me? And, providing you don’t rush, providing you feel the stillness around and inside you, providing that you trust the process – then the story will unfold. And, as it unfolds, right before your eyes, you know it’s the story you were seeking all along. It feels – like magic.

My bubble came as the snow fell; four inches in the first night and the world transformed. For the next two weeks, I watched as the snow deepened and the ice grew more deadly. Inside I was warm, protected and quiet. Day by day I stayed inside my bubble and each day wrote a new chapter. How my story would finally resolve I did not know, but, like a crossword being pieced together and alert to the clues in front of my eyes, its resolution suddenly became apparent.

Suddenly I was typing the words THE END. Is that the best bit? I always laugh. It seems a surprise to finish a story!

For a few hours, maybe days, you smile. The feeling of elation remains even as you print out your story, do the read-through, correct the typos and tighten pieces of writing here and there, then print it out again.

Then, carefully, you place your manuscript in a box file – and, as you do this, the elation recedes. Suddenly it feels as if it has another life. This story is not just in your head or stored on a file on your computer anymore, you realise, staring down at it. As you close the lid on the box file you know that your story is already out there.

You get into the car and place the box file on the seat beside you. Nobody has seen this story, you think, glancing down at it as you find your way through the traffic. Nobody but me knows what happens – but it has already gone, flown away. In a matter of minutes you will hand the manuscript to your editor. This story that you have owned, which did not exist until a few weeks ago has to find its own way in the world.

You drive home feeling happy, but a little empty. The bubble has faded. The house needs cleaning and you need a walk, a good long walk. Over the course of the next week you find your mind begins to empty of words. The mental clutter of life returns. But the bubble is there, waiting.

Sheridan Winn is author of the Sprite Sister stories.

She has just finished writing the 7^th title in the series,

Magic at Drysdale’s School.

http://www.sheridanwinn.com

LITERARY AGENTS AND THE DEVIL IN THE DETAIL

It might not be the most optimistic note on which to start the New Year, but I offer this cautionary tale on the subject of agents and rights. If I have one piece of advice to give – and this applies to all creative people, not just writers – never give away your rights unless you absolutely have to, and when you do give them carefully and in small pieces.

I have always tried to live my life being fair. In contract negotiation, I aim for a win-win outcome. I like to build long-term relationships and would never shaft anybody, because I believe that what you give out you get back.

In January 2007, I had the idea for the Sprite Sister books and approached Brenda Gardner at Piccadilly Press. I had worked with her before when she published my ex-husband’s first picture book in the 1980s. She liked the idea of ‘four sisters, four elements, four powers’, and a few weeks later offered me a contract for the first Sprite Sister story.

The Society of Authors helped me negotiate this, along with the second contract. I kept back the subsidiary rights such as e-book, film and television rights, which Brenda Gardner was happy about.

Then, in January 2008, as I was about to begin the third book for Piccadilly, I had an offer for a film option. This was from a producer I knew – had written a number of business features about her. However, having gone through the process of negotiating film contracts with my ex-husband for our newspaper cartoon character, I knew I would need an agent to help me. I approached three agents, all recommended by friends, and they were all interested.

As my first book hit the shops, I met with one of the agents and I liked her. She said she loved the books and would be ‘honoured’ to represent me. I was very pleased and believed we had a long, sound business relationship ahead of us. She set to work on the third book contract, but was not happy that Piccadilly had world rights to the Sprite series. Having worked for 25 years on picture books, I was accustomed to publishers having world rights: it used to be the only way they could fund the cost of colour printing. I understood that, as a small independent publisher, Piccadilly needed to make money from its rights sales. It was a break point: Brenda Gardner would not have offered the contract without world rights. That said, I had no idea of the overall ramifications of the world rights scenario.

My new agent got a slightly higher royalty percentage, but the work of placing the book had already been done. I turned down the film option offer, as I didn’t feel it was good enough and it would have tied up the books at an early stage

Fast-forward to June 2009: I was about to write the fifth Sprite Sister title, which Piccadilly said would be the last in the series. Though the books had gone down a storm in Germany (Piccadilly sold the rights to Fischer Verlag), they had not done so well here.

At this time, I was not at all well. I was having a breakdown and suffering from what would be diagnosed in 2012 as a serious and rare gastric disorder. My mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and my daughter was also very unwell. A few years before, I had gone through a bankruptcy and divorce, lost everything, and was still struggling to pay the rent. Every hour of the day was spent trying to write to survive. It was fraught – but it would pass.

On 22nd June 2009, I received an email from the agent saying she no longer wished to represent me. It came out of nowhere. There was no discussion. I mailed back, asking for compassion – but the door was shut.

It was a staggering blow, but I would cope. The long-term problem would come from the financial clauses in the contract.

You would think, would you not – from a moral point of view – that if an agent dumps you within less than 18 months that they would relinquish the right to their percentage of your royalties. Not so.

I called the head honcho at the agency and argued my corner as hard as I could. We keep the financial interest in your book rights, he told me. That is the way it is. What, even if Piccadilly sells the Sprite Sisters to the US in five years time, I asked, dumbfounded. Yes, he said, even then. But that’s not right, I said. If I dumped her, then fair enough – but she dumped me! It will preclude me getting another agent!

I could hear his shrug down the telephone.

The Society of Authors agreed with the head honcho. It was tough, but that was the way it was. The agent retains a financial interest in any rights they sell, even when the contract is terminated, they said. In my case, because Piccadilly owned world rights, it meant that any further foreign rights sales would also pass through the hands of the ex-agent. The agency financial department would check the royalty statements each year, but the ex-agent would not have to lift a finger.

In 2010, I set out to find a new agent. I approached six at literary agencies big and small and was turned down by them all. The rights situation with the Sprite Sister books was too complicated, they said. It felt as if my ex-agent had screwed me right and proper.

I knew I needed to break free of the ex-agent’s financial claim to future sales and to do that I would have to get back all the book rights. The German rights would stand: she would get her share of those sales and I would have to bite the bullet.

In Spring 2012, the first Sprite Sister book, The Circle of Power, went out of print. I asked Piccadilly if they would reprint. They said no and in the early summer agreed that the rights of all five titles would revert to me. In lieu, I bought up the remainder stock of 2000 books. At the same time, Piccadilly asked the agent to relinquish her rights in any future sales of the books and she agreed. I was free at last.

I set about re-packaging the titles, publishing print-on-demand paperbacks and e-book editions – and selling abroad.

I will have to give the agent a substantial amount of money every year for as long as the Sprite Sisters sell in Germany – and the signs are good with sales of 270,000. The experience stills galls. In October 2012, when my royalties came through, the financial chap at my ex-agency mailed me cheerily, saying, ‘We love your German sales!’ Yes, I thought, I’ll bet you do. Not bad for a year’s representation with no titles to place . . .

But I must look to the future. Recently, through the Society of Authors, I approached an agent in Japan, who is keen to sell the Sprites there. Last week I mailed an American agent recommended to me by a friend. One way or another, I will find a US agent and get them to sell the US rights.

This is an upside-down approach. Don’t have one agent – get several. Get a different agent to represent you in each territory. It means none of them will have a claim to all of your book rights.

If you have a UK agent, they will probably use subsidiary agents to sell foreign rights and you will lose another slice. If you go direct to the foreign agent, you have one slice taken off.

Brenda Gardner and I get on well and she has wished me luck in my venture. I am eternally grateful to her for giving me the opportunity to write five books for Piccadilly Press.

Occasionally I have to mail the agent and am polite. But if I ever see her, I hope she hangs her head in shame.

A few tips on rights as I see it:-

·      Read the small print: when offered a contract, get as much professional advice as you can.

·      Keep your subsidiary rights: don’t bundle them in with the book rights.

·      Negotiate a fair termination clause (if I had known, I would have tried to get a clause in which the agent relinquished their rights if they dropped me).

·      Self-publishing gives us the freedom to choose how and where we sell our work: use it to your advantage.

·      Never, ever, sign everything with one agent unless you have a very good termination clause that works in your favour, as well as theirs.

·      Be a buccaneer in your approach to self-publishing: fast, light and responsive.

·      If you agree world rights with your publisher and they sell foreign rights, it is unlikely you will see the advances from those foreign deals until the whole publisher’s advance has been earned out. Nobody tells you that beforehand.

·      If you value your sanity, remember it’s all a learning curve and there is no one ‘right’ way.

·      If you are working on a book and need financial help, ask The Royal Literary Fund. They helped me and I thank them.