Linterview’s Mission

I am a self-published author of three books, Making Headlines, How I Learnt to Stop Missing England and Love the Herring or A Decade in Sweden, and Let Go. I am also one of the writers in the Keyhole Stories project, which has launched two anthologies Keyhole Stories and Dead Ends. I have also released Think Inside the Box, a collection of short stories written for creative writing class assignments. My short story Untouchable was published in Two Thirds North 2017 and my poem Typewriter was published in Aesthetica Magazine’s Creative Writing Annual 2018. There are many good websites that offer advice to authors and I do not want to repeat information or claim that my advice is any better than what is currently out there. What I intend to do is to relay my writing processes, describe in detail what it has taken me to write my stories, and some advice on how to get your work out there. I am not claiming to be a best-selling author (I wish!) and I am not claiming to be better or know more than anyone else. My blogs will simply reflect my experiences, and if this information helps other authors out there then that’s great. If it doesn’t help then I can only apologise and suggest you find other methods that work for you.

The thought of dumping your first draft might sound or feel like a drastic and desperate thing to do. After all, you might have spent a lot of time tapping away at the keyboard and consumed many cappuccinos sitting in cafés. BUT! Consider this: your first draft won’t have been your best work. If you are doubting the advice to dump your first draft, then at least take a break from it, go back and read it after some time away from it, and try to approach the read as if it was somebody else’s book.

Well? Did you do that?

If you did then you are probably realising that what you have written could be better in a lot of ways. Maybe the characters aren’t what you want them to be, perhaps it’s something to do with the setting, or perhaps it’s just down to your writing itself. Whatever it is, you’ll probably benefit from dumping that first draft. Why? Because you won’t want to be influenced by anything in it when you write the next version.

With my new book, my first draft was all over the place. It had characters that didn’t need to be there, scenes that didn’t work, and the writing wasn’t detailed enough to give the situations their necessary atmosphere. So, out went draft 1.

Draft 2 was an improvement but I still felt deep down that there was something missing. So, out went draft 2.

Draft 3 was much better. I knew the characters more and knew how they would react. The settings had become clearer in my mind and it was easier to describe the buildings, gardens, houses, people, etc. The draft wasn’t overlong and full of blabber, and now it’s down to the editing stage, I have taken out one whole chapter, and merged two chapters into one.

The book is now at the stage of being bounced off friends / family for their opinions, and I wouldn’t have got to this stage if I hadn’t dumped those first two drafts.

Now … I realise this course of action might not be for everyone, but I think it should be considered depending on what you have written. My approach to each book has been radically different and this is the first time I’ve thrown away anything I have written. The other books didn’t call for it – they just needed editing. So, I would say if you feel deep down in your heart that what you have written isn’t fantastic – dump it and start again. It flushes out ideas and then you’ll be able to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

You may of heard the phrase kill your darlings, but when your darling just happens to be a 60000 word+ document, you’d be justified in convincing yourself that you really wouldn’t want to throw it away. However, this is the advice of some authors out there. I spoke to Gabriel Tallent, author of the acclaimed book My Absolute Darling, about this very subject and his advice was simply do it because it’s what he did. His approach to writing is to write the first draft fast, without overthinking things too much, and then you’ll be able to get your characters down, perhaps get the story more or less the way you want it, iron out things you are less pleased with, and when you sit down and write again, the process should be much easier.

I now find myself in that very position. During the covid lockdown, I tapped each day, setting myself a target of 2000 words. By the end of two months, as you can imagine, I had plenty of words and another novel sitting on my hard drive. It weighed in over 70000 words and I took time off after writing it to have a think about answering the question should I dump it or just edit it? When I thought it through, and then read some of the opening pages, I thought that it needed more detail, I’d overcooked the narrative by adding time shifts from the past to present to past to dream scenes, and the characters needed to evolve more. I tried to edit some of the first chapter but it felt like a wrong move as using a simpler narrative and deleting scenes relating to the present time could better tell the story.

So I decided to dump the first draft. Well, I say dump. Maybe ignore is the better word. I chose to ignore the first draft, and use it as a guide to write more detailed chapters and straighten out the narrative. For this project, dumping the first draft just seemed like a better idea compared to some of my processes creating my other words. Some of you out there may feel that you can’t bring yourself to kill your darlings, but there might come a time when the reaper needs to start cutting.

It’s never easy to receive a rejection by an agent or publisher.
There are varying degrees of rejection and I almost every piece I have written has been rejected in some way or another. I submittedLet Goto as many agents and publishers as I could, and kept track of each response in a spreadsheet (which sounds nerdy but I really recommend it, especially if you are submitted different stories or poetry to agents at the same time). The first category is the no answerand I usually declare a submission a no answer after six months. These are perhaps easier to deal with because you are left in limbo. Let Gogot a fair share of these non-responses. The second category is the straight no without comment. Let Gogot a fair share of this response and it’s just about moving onto the next submission when this happens. The third category is we like this but… Let Gogot some of these answers including “we’re a small publisher and can’t take this on”, “we took on a book on the same theme and it didn’t sell so no thanks” and “this is better than most of the stuff we receive here but I’m afraid we can’t take it on”. You can only be encouraged when you get these replies because it lets you know they have read your work. However, I got one agent who replied: “We didn’t like Let Go. We didn’t like the style of it and couldn’t connect with the main protagonist”. They went on to say more negative things about it, which also lets you know that they had read my work. How did I deal with this type of rejection? Well, I believed Let Gowas, and still is, one of my best works to date, and this attitude can really get you through a tough rejection. If someone doesn’t like what you have written then they can find something else that they do like. So long as you believe what you have written is good, then that’s all that counts at the end of the day.

Sometimes it is hard to pick out the successful submissions from the plethora of rejections. When my poem Typewriter got accepted by Aesthetica Magazine, I had got so used to dumping rejections in the recycle bin that I missed the success email until the penny dropped. I had seen word successful hadn’t I? So I dug out the email to make sure, and was beside myself. So my advice is just to keep plugging away and believe what you are writing is good. If you doubt your own work then go back to it and improve it before you are sure you want to submit it.

I think every phrase has a time and place, and if used at the right time and in the right place, then every phrase should be left in the author’s toolbox. I said in an earlier post that the word “suddenly” is ok but is not to be overused. It depends on the situation and the sentence in question.

The phrases that I try to avoid tend to be ambiguous phrases that the reader has to really work at to be able to figure them out. For example:

“Follow me,” he said in a soft tone.

What is a soft tone? If it is a whisper then write whisper. Is the person speaking at a volume that is between a whisper and speaking normally? It’s not so obvious. Then, you have to ask yourself the question: why is he speaking in a soft tone? What could be the reason? If there is a context surrounding speaking softly, then it’s fair enough. An alternative to this phrase could be:

“Follow me,” he said, speaking softly.

You would still have to ask the question as to why the man is speaking softly.

“Follow me,” he said, speaking softly as to not be overheard.

Then you might as well write whisper, right?

“Follow me,” said the man softly but audibly.

This one is better but what could be the reason for half-whispering?

“Follow me,” the man said softly, trying to avoid attention.

“Follow me,” the man said softly, trying to keep the conversation private.

“Follow me, and I’ll tell you everything,” the man said softly, keeping the gossip between them.

Another phrase that crops up from time to time is “leaned in”. For example:

“The man leaned into the conversation in order to hear better.”

This is ok. However:

“The man leaned in for a hug and got a kiss as a bonus.”

Do you really need to add the description of “leaning in” for a kiss? Don’t humans already do this as part of hugging? Consider this instead:

“The man hugged the woman and got a kiss as a bonus.”

The word “hugged” already paints a picture of the action, so “leaned in” becomes redundant.