Letters

STAR LETTER

AN AID TO

RECOVERY Writing Magazine more than proved its worth over the Jubilee weekend when I suffered a heart attack. I was in the Cardiac Assessment Unit waiting for an angiogram, but that would not happen until Monday at the earliest. For the first night of my stay, I was bored out of my mind listening to the constant beeping of the monitoring machines. I could not sleep or move because a dozen wires were fastened to my chest. I envied the other patients with books and tablets because they had something to do. Luckily, the next morning, a relative brought in my July edition of Writing Magazine, which proved a saviour. Not only did it occupy my time with useful information, like how to use Amazon ’ s A+ content to improve sales, it provided new markets for stories that I wanted to write after I was better. Instead of worrying about my operation, I had something to look forward to when it was all over. I’ m now out of the hospital recovering at home, typing this with a large bandage on my bruised arm from the angiogram, but it ’ s worth the pain to be able to write this letter as a thank-you.

JOHN MORALEE Washington, Tyne and Wear

The star letter each month earns a copy of the Writers ’ & Artists ’ Yearbook 2022, courtesy of Bloomsbury.

RESTART FRESH I stopped my subscription over 18 months ago due to redundancy and having to severely economise. Now back in work, I picked up the May edition of Writing Magazine and was immediately enthralled.

How could I have forgotten the encouragement, advice, experiences and inspiration waiting between the pages?

My writing, or rather lack of writing, had hit the doldrums and I have done little for months. Writing Magazine has refuelled my creativity and reminded me that I am part of a writing community.

I particularly enjoyed the star interview with Tom Cox, especially as it introduced me to a new author who I know I will love. Nikesh Shukla ’ s Finding the Voice to Tell Your Story, and Rosalind Moody ’ s interview with Julia Cameron, Finding My Own Artist’ s Way, both gave me inspiration and ignited a list of ideas which I’ll be pruning and sorting.

Today I renewed my subscription and am really looking forward to the next Writing Magazine.

DEE SHARPE Balcombe, West Sussex

HEALING WORDS Louise Nealon ’ s article Words are a Way Through (WM July) really struck a chord with me. A few years ago, I went through a traumatic six months that led to me hearing horrid voices in my head, putting me down and saying the nastiest things I’d ever heard in my whole life. Being embarrassed, I never told anyone.

But one day I picked up a magazine and read the true story of someone who had gone through exactly what I was going through – except she did the sensible thing and confided in someone, which led to diagnosis of psychosis caused by PTSD.

The sense of relief after reading her words was amazing. I realised that I wasn ’ t being spied on and that there were no drones (this was what the voices told me) and that the voices weren ’ t real. And from that day on, the voices just drifted away. Four years on, I’ ve finally found the strength to start writing about my experiences – just personal writings through poems, story scenes – even an article which one day I will find a home for.

Words are a way through and as writers, we will help others who in turn will help others too.

Writing is essential to healing.

IRENE JOSEPH Ammanford, South Wales

A WORLD OF POSSIBILITIES WM May contained just the right mix of ‘how to ’ articles and inspirational stories. I read it cover to cover, in one ginormous gulp, dogearing pages and circling sentences. And all the while I could feel something shifting within me. If he could do it and she could do it (against the odds) then maybe I could too.

I felt hopeful. I felt encouraged. I felt inspired.

And not because I could simply repeat their success. What really ‘ spoke ’ to me was the tantalising idea of possibility. Endless possibility. That in opening ourselves to the world through our writing, we are also creating the possibility for anything to happen (he and she are proof of that!).

JENNIE GARDNER Upper Swainswick

OPPORTUNITIES KNOCK I have recently had my first ever piece of flash fiction published.

A non-fiction publisher has said they will publish an essay of mine in a forthcoming collection of essays on local history and they also want to publish my proposed Edinburgh Miscellany.

Both publishers were mentioned in your opportunities section, which I now read religiously.

ALEX KASHKO Edinburgh

IT ALL MOUNTS UP Having put away a copy of my latest publication, (my fourth this year), I decided to count my successes over thirty years of submissions.

I was very surprised to find that I had thirty pieces published over this time. Though it could be said this number is small it does not include the many poems for birthdays, anniversaries and eulogies that I’ ve written for such occasions, nor the fact that I did not write for over twelve years.

To know that my work is still relevant at this time is more important than payment, though of course that is useful in my retirement!

Though not submitting articles or short stories, nor aiming to write a novel, it proves that writing can come in many guises and any acceptance is gratefully received.

SHEILA GRIFFITHS Hereford

KEEP THEM GUESSING James McCreet ’ s article, Keeping Time with a Story (WM July) was well worth reading. I particularly enjoyed his comment about readers predicting what was going to happen. I find using that concept much more proactive than asking ‘ what if?’ I can do more justice to a rough draft by thinking, what will the reader be predicting and how can I throw a googly into that, than if I’ m grinding out a plot. While I agree with James that the basic elements of a story must be there early in the process if it is to flow and hang together, looking at the reader ’ s likely predictions has already produced some good dramatic twists within the plot of my next novel (as Sullatober Dalton).

We all know what a great story looks like because we ’ ve seen them a thousand times in books and films and TV series. However, creating a gripping story that will stretch to 70,000+ words is not as simple as following such a story –and this is the greatest problem for all apprentice writers.

It ’ s paradoxical. We understand how stories work but it ’ s so difficult to build them. The issue is that we ’ re used to conceiving story as consumers – as readers and viewers – rather than as creators. It ’ s a big difference. The former is largely passive as we wait for things to happen. The latter is proactive: we have to be always ahead of the reader.

Understanding story is critical to writing a novel. Not just your story, but story as a concept and a tool. Just as drawing involves perspective and music has scales, so story has certain rules to learn compulsorily before we can use it professionally. Here are some of them. 10 JULY 2022 www.writers-online.co.uk

WHAT’S A STORY?

At its most basic level, story is accumulative structure. One thing is added to another in a sequence that the reader follows from start to finish. Such a narrative might be an anecdote or a short story. It works less well for a novel.

The length of a novel means that a simple succession of ‘ ...and then ’ can soon become quite tiresome. The reader is just waiting for the next thing to happen. Waiting is good because it involves the reader to some degree, but waiting is also essentially passive. Thus, a novel has to be more than accumulative structure.

A novelistic story has to be a mechanism. A mechanism has numerous moving parts that interact with each other so that the whole can function. Consider a clock. We see only the hands, the time, but we don ’ t notice all of the other bits – the cogs, the springs, the levers, the lubrication. These are the things hidden from the reader, but they ’ re the tools of the writer. There ’ s no story mechanism without them.

KEEPING TIME WITH STORY

Understanding story is vital to crafting the internal mechanism of your creative writing, says author James McCreet

BASIC STORY

A story is a series of steps heading in a specific direction and this is the first stumbling block for most apprentices. You need a lot of steps for a 70,000100,000-word novel. At least one new, significant thing has to happen in every chapter that moves story and character forwards to the next chapter. If there ’ s no new step, the reader starts to get bored because story – for the reader – is steps. It ’ s necessary to conceive your story as steps. You ’ll need to have around 30-50 if your novel is going to develop consistently without baggy or crowded patches. It ’ s a good idea to map these out before you start because another classic apprentice error is to start writing in search of a story (the way readers read) with the result that many chapters might pass without anything significant happening. By the time you latch on to a good story thread, you ’ ve already lost your reader. Or it fizzles out after 20k words. The initial story steps introduce characters and threads, which are then developed in successive steps – always

DAVID G DALTON Faringdon, Oxfordshire

HELPFUL HOARD I have always been a bit of a hoarder regarding magazines.

I had a tidy up the other day and found some horse-related magazines that had I kept for over seven years. To my amazement, I found an article in a magazine to inspire and help me with research for my next teenage novel. It was the perfect timeline of my story and so I felt as though I had found treasure!

I have been able to get a window of the past with words and pictures on paper . Having these materials can still help writers without the internet to research, get inspired and write.

DIANE PERRY Ludlow, Shropshire

AN IRRESTISTIBLE URGE There ’ s a wealth of wise words from great writers, on writing and how to write well. Sometimes they ’ re found on social media by writers like myself who hope to remind others, and themselves, that they are not alone in their struggles.

Sometimes though, those wise words leave me feeling inadequate. When I sit in front of a blank screen with an equally blank mind. Then those wise words ring with a mocking tone.

And then my laptop gives up and dies too. And I wonder if that might be the final thing. The thing that dissuades me from writerly endeavours. The thing that convinces me to, in the words of a Disney princess, let it go, let it go.

But here I am writing away on my phone instead. Composing letters and poetry and snippets of whatnot in the notes app. So, despite the selfdoubt and malfunctioning technology, it seems I cannot be cured of this compulsion. Thankfully, now and then, something other than insecurities rushes in. Sometimes the spark of an idea creates a small Big Bang in the void, and whole worlds are created.

PHILIP SIMONS Stevington, Bedfordshire

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in the Writing MAGAZINE

Grand FlasH Prize 2022

The open competition invites your short stories in any form, on any topic.

The only stipulation is that your story should be a maximum 500 words.

Stories will be judged by the Writing Magazine editorial team – editor Jonathan Telfer and assistant editorTina Jackson – and the winner published in Writing Magazine

Runners-up prizes are £250 for second, £100 for third, a WM Course mini-critique for fourth and a twelve-month subscription for fifth.