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

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.

WRITING A SERIES

I am currently writing my seventh Sprite Sister title. Here are some of the things I’ve learned about writing a series for children.

One chance to make a first impression

Your series stands or falls on the strength of your first book. It’s your starting point and everything comes back to that. It defines the characters and their world, and sets up an expectation of what is to come. You have to get it right. If your readers don’t like it, they won’t bother with the second story. 

A series relies on the strength of its characters

It’s the characters you come back to. What’s going to happen to them next? They are your friends: enjoy them and listen to them. Their voices become familiar. You know what they will say and how they will react, but, like your friends, your characters are not static. They need to grow through the challenges you have set them – and you need to move with them.

Continuity

Between 2007-2009, I wrote five Sprite Sister stories in 30 months for Piccadilly Press. On signature of each contract, I had three months writing time. Each book was written in six weeks, and edited in six months, one after the other. It was quite a pace to keep up, but it provided continuity. I enjoyed working fast and it proved financially worthwhile, as Fischer Verlag bought the German rights, pushed the Sprite series and sold over 200,000 books. I’ve lost some continuity with Book 6, which will not be published until 2103 – so a two-year gap. I realise I need to get the Book 7 written as quickly as I can, to make up for lost time and keep my readers with me.

Have a formula

I write each Sprite title to around 55,000 words, with around 24 chapters. I know the shape of the story, where I want the action to arc (at the end of each third of the story), and where to have a ‘beat’. Apart from helping me, having a formula means the reader knows what to expect. For each Piccadilly title, I wrote a synopsis in which the plot was worked out until the last section. The ending came to me as I was ‘in’ the story, fighting the battle. Without the need to provide synopses for Book 6, The Boy With Hawk-like Eyes, and Book 7, Magic at Drysdale’s School (because I am publishing them myself), I’ve worked out the plots as I go. It’s proved a much slower process.

Pace

Come to the point: your reader does not want to faff about. My editor allowed description, but not at the expense of pace. My books are aimed at girls aged 7-12 years. Young readers like detail, especially if it’s quirky or funny, but they want the story to move along at a lick. Action sustains interest.

Play to your strengths

I love reading thrillers, but I’m not sure I could write them as they require such detailed plotting. My strength, I believe, is writing family drama. I come from a big family and understand the dynamics of a group of people pushing and pulling against one another. I hear the conversations and arguments in my head, as I write them. It feels natural.

Consistency

The idea for the Sprite Sisters come to me in a sentence late one night: ‘Four sisters with magic powers, east, south, north, west – fire, water, earth air’. The stories developed as I wrote them, one by one. I didn’t make copious notes on filing cards, as I didn’t feel I had time to stop. Inevitably, I forgot some of the character and location details I had written in earlier books. By the time I got to Book 4, The Ghost in the Tower, the editor and I were tracking back and forth to find what I’d said about this and that. What colour are Quinn’s eyes? Did the girls open the portal in the East or West Tower? If the map is the secret of Sprite Towers, then what is the Crossed Circle? You need to know: readers spot inconsistencies.

Multiple points of view

How do you manage them? You listen. I believe it’s about balance. In my case, I have a good ear. I seem to know which character needs to speak and what they say. My four Sprite Sisters each need a share of the ‘voice’. Inevitably the eldest girl, Flame gets most of it, but I move the story along through the different voices. Each sister has to be a part of the overall voice of the story.

Style

There’s a marked difference between the writing in Book 1, The Circle of Power, and Book 6, The Boy With Hawk-like Eyes. My style has evolved and, I think, improved. It’s leaner, cleaner. There are bits of writing in the first books that now make me wince. Why did I feel the need to describe Ariel’s fluffy blonde hair so many times?

Rhythm and clarity

Stories need rhythm; words need rhythm. If your sentences have cadence and precision, people will enjoy your writing and stay with your series. Similarly, if your plots are clear, you’ll keep your reader with you.

Heed your editor

Over the course of the series, I came to really value my editor’s skill. She stood back: I couldn’t. She helped to shape the structure of each story, ensured it was logical and clear, kept the pace going and smoothed out any repetition, quite apart from correcting the typos. In the case of Sprites, each book had to work as a standalone novel and as one of a series – and that needed my editor’s eagle eyes. Editing is skill in its own right. If you’re self-publishing a series, don’t stint on professional editing: false economy, especially on the first title.

Clarity

You might know where you characters are and what they are doing but your reader won’t, necessarily. The plot, the location and any jumps in time need to be clear in your mind or your reader will get confused. I got muddled writing Book 4 and so did my editor. Bit of rethink and rewrite there. In a series each story has to tie in with the one you have written before – and the one you wrote before that.

Don’t be precious

I began as freelance journalist, learning on the hoof, so I’m used to having my work edited and chopped about. Instead of feeling my babies were being murdered, I stood back and used the newspaper and magazine editing process as a way to learn to write clear prose and shape features. It’s a useful experience to remember when your book editor disagrees with you – though I think the author is entitled to the odd fit.

Stick to your guns – but choose your battle

Mrs Duggery appeared to me in a flash. I saw the tiny old lady standing in front of me in her lilac knitted hat and her big brown boots. I saw her name flash in neon lights – ‘Mrs Duggery’. I knew she was meant to be part of the Sprite Sister books. The publisher disagreed. We didn’t need any more characters, they said. I had a battle to get Mrs Duggery into Book 2. Thankfully I won, and sure enough the magical old Sprite became one of the best characters in the series.

The pressure changes

In a way, writing a series becomes easier as you know your characters and the scope of their world. On the other hand, there’s pressure to find another new adventure.

The incentive to find that adventure is helped when you think it’s likely you still have readers out there waiting to know what comes next.

The value of re-reading

As soon as I finished writing the first five Sprite titles – in six weeks apiece – my mind washed clear of the stories. By the time the editor came back to me on the first (broad) edit, I’d completely forgotten what I’d written. I got back into the story for a few weeks, then forgot it again once the editing was completed. Recently, I re-edited Sprites for my new e-book and print-on-demand editions. It gave me the opportunity to re–connect with Flame, Marina, Ash and Ariel and their adventures, and provided a stepping-stone to the next story. It allowed me to remember the details: when a child asks a tricky question at an author talk now, I’ll be ready.

Be in charge

Don’t give away all your rights. Have a plan. Writing is the way I earn my bread and butter. Thanks to Fischer Verlag’s success with the Sprite Sisters, I can keep going. I kept the e-book, television and film rights, but recently bought back the book rights to titles 1-5.  I was able to sell Sprites 6 to Fischer Verlag, direct. I’ve approached a Japanese agency and a film agent. However, none of this would have happened if Piccadilly Press hadn’t made a leap of faith in the first place. 

The power of the title

Your story titles have to work separately, but also as a whole. Your series title is your brand. Don’t groan in creative dismay, for a brand is what you are selling – and the title will be a big part of its success.

Find a strapline

If only I had found it at the beginning! ‘The Sprite Sisters – four sisters, four elements, four powers.’ It’s the ‘elevator pitch’ that sums up the series in a sentence. It came to me recently – five years after I started Sprites. It’s on the jackets of the new print-on-demand paperbacks and the e-books – I put it everywhere I can.

Sheridan Winn is author of the Sprite Sisters series, which has sold over 200,000 copies in Germany.

http://www.sheridanwinn.com