It's also your chance to share success (or otherwise) ask questions*, report any womag news, tips, advice you may have, or make womag related comments or observations. (If you have news or a question relating to a particular magazine, it's also fine to add it as a comment to the latest post for that magazine.)
*If you can answer these, please do.
What's the worst piece of writing advice you've ever come across?
16 comments:
Does anyone have any recommendations to share concerning articles or books explaining POV (particularly head-hopping)? I have read the excellent articles on The Itch Of Writing.
I hope you won't find it too tedious that I'm posting on a subject which has already been much aired in your pages, but I didn't want my late-in-the-day comment to get lost at the end of a substantial list. As a relative newcomer to the womag world, I've been on a steep but hugely enjoyable learning curve. So busy trying to learn my craft,I had never stopped to consider the issue of rights, however, until seeing it discussed on this blog. I don't have a relationship with Woman's Weekly, but I had sold two stories to another magazine, on an all rights basis, barely giving it a thought. The discussion on Womagwriter's Blog and related links has been an eye-opener and, having watched and listened, I see that it is much more fundamental than merely working out an hourly or daily rate of pay and agreeing to it - it is about recognition of authorship in the future and it is also about professional respect, and professional self-respect! While I was grateful for all opportunities for publication and payment, I will not agree to sell work on an all rights basis again, and I will all the more cherish my relationship with The People's Friend, which is characterised by decency, goodwill and regular, helpful communication; I must say, they come out of this discussion as very much the good guys. Thank you, Patsy, and all your contributors, for enlightening me and others. I sincerely hope that Woman's Weekly and other publications will reconsider their terms, and that a mututally satisfactory outcome can still be found for all parties - publishers, writers and readers. Eirin Thompson
Thanks for your support Eirin.
The very excellent 'From Story Idea to Reader' contains information on POV. There's a link to it top right of this page.
I'm glad you've found the information on rights useful and that it's allowed you to make an informed decision, Eirin.
The worst writing advice I remember was 'Don't just write about what you know.' Writing about what you know gives you the confidence to move on and research the next novel...and the next.
Well done, Erin, for sticking with your fellow writers on the "Rights' issue - much appreciated. Kate.
Not really bad advice, as such,(I would agree with Guernsey Girl that some level of realism is helpful) but I've always felt that writing only about what you know can sometimes have a stifling effect. If I did that, my stories would concern Domestic Derangements of one sort or another - and might cause me to be overcome with idiotic giggles, but probably less entertaining to readers. It's a personal thing, of course, but I prefer to write about what I'd *like* to know. The research can be the fun part!
Thank you! Will take a look.
Just unloaded the very excellent 'From Story Idea to Reader' using my kindle unlimited!
This has prompted a few more questions:
If you have your book available on Audible/Amazon as an audio book, did you find the process difficult?
Did you narrate the book and upload yourself or use a company for all/some of the process?
Have you found many readers use the audible option (in other words, have you sold many)?
I didn't find the proces difficult at all, Jenny – because my only input was to agree to having it done and listen to a few samples to see which reader I preferred.
In theory you could read and record your own book, but it does require the ability to read clearly and without errors, pauses etc and to be able to record at high quality with no background noises. That's not something I could manage myself.
Here's a blog post by Rosemary on the subject – http://patsy-collins.blogspot.com/2017/08/listen-and-learn.html
Thanks for downloading FSItR I hope you enjoy it and find it useful.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with writing what we know about and/or feel comfortable with – to start with that's probably best for most people. As you say, many will then move on to write other things.
I have already found it incredibly useful. Many thanks for writing it!
And thanks for the advice about audible - I will check out Rosemary's blog now.
I agree that research can be fun – and once we've done it, we then have another subject we know about. We can also create worlds and then we'll know about those too.
Writing what we know, shouldn't mean we're restricted to only writing what we knew when we first picked up a pen.
No idea why this isn't a post on its own by now. I just want to congratulate everybody fighting for this, including Patsy of course. Well done for getting it this far. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/aug/17/womans-weeklys-exploitative-contracts-anger-authors
The best book I have ever read for advice on all aspects of fiction writing including POV is "Self Editing For Fiction Writers" by Rennie Brown and Dave King who are professional editors
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