You now have only two more days (up until midnight on Christmas Eve) to enter the This Time Next Year Game, in which you're asked to guess the outcomes of a number of events in the coming year.  Many people have already entered, but the more the merrier, and there will be big prizes!

Laurie Pink admits that today's cartoon, featuring the Magic Pencil...


... may need a bit of an explanation.  So here she is to provide it:

I showed it to SJ (who's a couple of years older than you), and suddenly realised that the Magic Pencil may not extend to her experience.  Sure enough, she reported that she was aware of its work, but hadn't really encountered it.  So here is a Magic Pencil reference -'

 

'Upon watching this vid, I realised for the first ever time how Magic Pencil is done.  Look! It's mounted on a black glove!  I feel like I've uncovered one of the secrets of the universe!  Why, I could probably even make my OWN magic pencil vids, if I wanted!  I note that, in the Youtube vids, there's a Magic Pencil dated 1994.  You'll definitely be cool with the Young Folks *fistybump*.  With their hippity-hop and their techno and their... syphilis... (I ran out of young things).'

She's getting more word count every day.  (And that's two references to syphilis in this year's 12 Blogs.)  And I'm still not quite sure I... anyway, moving on...

I hate talking about the craft of writing.  I'm often asked to run workshops at conventions and things, and I nearly always say no, largely because I feel it puts me up on a pedestal that's unwarranted.  The leader of a martial arts class is assumed to also be continuing their own studies.  There's something about a group of aspiring writers that makes their position, instead, feel too humble, and the teacher's too exalted.  And then, even given that, they don't bloody listen.  I appeared at the London Screenwriter's Festival this year, and ended up passing most of my questions to Adrian Hodges, who's been a showrunner when I haven't.  I sprinted for the door at the end, only to find people running after me, asking me stuff in the building, all the way to the door, out of it, onto the underground, and half way across London.  Seriously.  Adrian stayed put.  I wonder if he's okay?

So I thought I'd try to set down all the points I usually make at such things, and then perhaps never do one again.  There are so few of them that I think one blog post should cover it.  Some of these are based on old sayings about writing, few of which seem to me to be true.

1: A writer writes.  Simon Guerrier tells me, though I don't remember (it was in a convention bar), that when he was very young, he came up to me and told me that he wanted to be a writer.  'Then write,' I said.  And it seems that he took that to be very deep.  Maybe it is, actually, but at the time I think I would have meant something pretty simple.  Everything else a writer does: research; publicity; blogging (ahem) is beside the point. You can't decide to be a professional writer (actually, you can, but the universe won't pay any attention), but you can decide to be a writer, by writing every day.  You don't need to prepare, to psyche yourself up, to get everything ready first, the most important thing you have to do today is write.  So write.

2: There are two good books.  I can't honestly say there are only two, because who knows what's out there?  But I know there are a lot of bad books on how to write.  I'd say you shouldn't read anything by anyone who hasn't got some impressive credits of their own.  The two I recommend are: Story by Robert McKee (starts slowly but gets to the nuts and bolts and provides loads of them) and On Writing by Stephen King (mostly a memoir, but the last quarter is full of useful insight, particularly on the proper attitude for a writer.) Should you go on a Robert McKee screenwriting course?  Well, it's a lot of money, there's a good book version, and are you doing it instead of writing?

3: You're going to rewrite it.  'I have such trouble starting.'  'Just start, you're going to rewrite it anyway.'  'I have to make sure every paragraph is perfect before I move onto the next.'  'That seems a waste of time, when you're going to be rewriting them anyway.'  'I get so afraid that someone will interfere with my work, will want to change everything.'  'They will.  The first person to do that will be you, when you rewrite it.'

4: Your job is to seek out harsh criticism of your work and change as a result of it.  That's the sentence I've boiled everything down to over the years.  'Seek out' because it won't come looking for you unless you're already published.  'Harsh' because it will hurt.  One of the best lessons of On Writing is that King spent a lot of time and effort getting people to tell him what was wrong with his work, and the first time they did, he immediately asked for more of that, please.  A boxer doesn't learn to fight by avoiding getting punched in the face.  I've seen editors kindly start to criticise the work of a would-be writer who's just shown them it, only for the writer to start to defend it.  'No, you see, what I was trying to do there -'  At which point the editor would be justified in walking away.  What you should say, if you're lucky enough to get in that scenario, is 'right, yes, okay, I see, thank you'.  And you should, either mentally, or no, actually with a pen and a notebook (because you carry a notebook) so the editor can see you do it, take down what they've said to you.  You probably won't, on that first listen, have actually agreed with all that hideous destructive nonsense about your precious work.  Pretend you do.  Because then you've shown that editor that you've got the right attitude.  Then, when you get home, comes the next difficult bit.  Apply every tiny line of what that editor said to the next draft.  You'll do that, initially, grudgingly.  Then you'll gradually see that hey, some of this makes sense, this is actually making the work better.  Then you'll realise that, hmm, actually, everything that editor said made the work better.  The tremendous pain you heard on hearing it will have vanished.  And you'll stand up from that new draft with, in the air above your head, the words 'writing skill level increased by three points, level up'.  In time, you'll come to be able to short circuit that whole process, and take huge, manuscript-changing notes with a jaunty smile.  Then you'll be a writer.

5: Note that I haven't even mentioned arguing with those notes.  That's like talking to someone who can't swim about their chances in the Olympic breast stroke final.

6: Plot first.  You could find a plot by just starting to write, but there's knowing you're going to rewrite and there's knowing you're going to be doing that for years.  Some people say 'character first', I say... nah.  Characters are the surface signs of plot underneath.  They may become 'real people', they may start to make plot for you, but right now, there's only plot.  They pay us for endings.  If you have a good ending, you're fine, go off and write that thing.  I usually start with a one line idea, then write a page of plot, then write a really detailed plot that includes everything, and that's often dozens of pages.  That's actually the hard part of writing a novel.  If you've got that done, and your editor agrees, you're sorted, off you go for a fun ride downhill.

7: Where do you get your ideas from?  That's the question writers hear most.  That person is saying 'I'm afraid because I don't seem to have any ideas for stories and I'm worried there's something wrong with me.' Actually, that person will have had loads of ideas for stories, because everyone does.  What they haven't done is write them down.  In their notebook.  (Which they will be carrying.)  They've had story ideas and treated them like daydreams, actual dreams, fantasies, and they've thus forgotten them.  Nobody else is going to see inside your notebook, you don't have to self-censor.  Most of the ideas you have will be crap.  So what?  I also sometimes think such people have ideas and write them all off as not being good enough.  Fine.  That means someone else gets to be a writer.  Because -

8: Like Woody Allen says, 99% of life is showing up.  Don't rule yourself out of the game.  There's no career structure for writers.  You can't apprentice yourself to a famous writer, write the occasional word, then move to paragraphs, then end up doing novels when they're on holiday.  Every one of us who works as a professional got our first job by some ridiculous, un-repeatable accident.  (In my case, it was because a friend of mine worked in the Guinness brewery.  Should you get your friend to apply for a job there?  No.) We all got our second job because of our first job.  You have to be ready, when that first accident happens, to grab it and hold on.  So you have to be good enough, and you have to not be one of those people who feels they'll never get it so they won't try, and you have to be ready, when that first editor starts telling you what's wrong with you (I mean, with your manuscript) to listen.  That painful, awful, thing may, seriously, never happen again.  And then you'll be sorry.

9: There's not much one writer can do for another.  Editors and agents know full well we have loads of friends who we love very much who aren't good writers.  If we're foolish enough to put one of those people forward to an editor or agent while they're still not good enough, the editor or agent won't grudgingly give our friend a successful career.  They'll kick them down the steps (very politely) and think slightly less of us.

10: 'It's not what you know, it's who you know.'  That's a conflation of the last two points into a misleading quotation that exists to make bad writers feel better.  You need to meet 'who you know', but you need 'what you know' to get anywhere with them.  And if you've got enough of what you know it really doesn't matter who you know.  The reverse of that isn't true.

11: There's no such thing as 'writer's block'.  It's just the easiest possible way for non-writers (people who didn't write today) to pretend they're writers (people who did).  If they sat down and started to write, they'd find they could.  There is a very similar real condition, but it's not a problem, it's a writer's ability.  That is, you may well find something in your mind going 'woah, wait, I don't want to continue writing this, why don't I want to continue?'  It's because you've got something wrong.  It's probably not a fault in what you just wrote, because it's taken you a little while to realise this, it's probably a couple of paragraphs, pages, or chapters back.  Don't panic.  Don't wander around the house with an icepack to your head, or go out onto the streets seeking 'inspiration'.  All that is, is not writing.  (Although if you're actually thinking hard about this bit I'm coming to, there's no harm in getting a coffee and looking moody while you do.)  What you're feeling now isn't a problem, it's useful.  Go back and read from the last major thing that happened.  You'll find there's a point where you started to feel there was something wrong.  That's because there is.  You put a brick down here that's unsafe to build on.  (Perhaps you've written a plot, and that was the point you left it behind, because some interesting alternative occurred to you, or you just forgot.  Look back to your plot, remind yourself of it, and decide now whether or not that's a good diversion, and where it will end up.)  This process might take a while, but this isn't time wasted as long as you've got a notebook open in front of you, know you're working on something that's gone wrong and where that thing is.  (Various writers do this at various levels of conscious thought.  Myself, I've started to realise that if I get depressive feelings about how terrible a writer I am, that's my sign that something's wrong in the manuscript, and I can switch all that off just by finding it.)  All this time, you will be absolutely able to write anything else you fancy writing, and perhaps you should, if it gets the juices flowing.

12: She said.  She didn't 'opine', 'conjecture' or 'venture'.  She said.  She can't 'smile' or 'laugh'.  ('Kill him at once,' she laughed.)  Not physically possible.  (She laughed.  'Kill him at once.')

13: Almost nobody writes for comics.  It's the absolute hardest market to crack.  Because most people who want to do it don't want to write, they want to write Batman.  And you don't learn to write Batman by trying to write Batman.  I didn't get to write Doctor Who on TV because I wrote Doctor Who fan fiction, or even because I wrote Doctor Who novels or audio plays.  I got to write Doctor Who on TV because I wrote for Casualty and Coronation Street.  That is to say, I'd learnt (to some small degree) how to write TV.  The one bonus for aspiring comics writers is that while it's frowned on to self-publish your novel (seriously, if you ever want to write professionally, I know it's tempting, now more than ever, but don't do it), and it's more likely you'll put together the tremendous effort required to direct your own short film than get to write for such a first time director without directing it yourself, it's absolutely fine to publish your own comic.  You'll lose money, obviously.  But it'll give you something to put into the hands of an editor, and they'll be fine with that.  Then you get to hear the hideously painful critique.  And you're off!

14: Start from the beginning every day.  (One of Moffat's tips, this one.)  If you're writing a short story, TV script or comic script, or, actually a chapter of a novel, read from the very start before you get to the bit you're working on, every working day, rewriting as you go.  That means you won't forget the plot when you get to the new bit, everything's in context, and the start of the thing gets more and more polished.

15: If a scene feels too long, make it longer.  (This is another of his.)  If a scene has started to feel dull to you, maybe it doesn't need radically cutting down (though it might).  Maybe it's just cramming in a lot of stuff into too small an area.  So characters are going on and on in long sequences of dull dialogue, when actually if you added some action to break things up, or even better, turned what they're saying into action instead... in short, the way to make the scene feel the right length is, sometimes, by adding to it.

16: 'Write what you know.'  I've always thought this is a weird saying.  I can actually name very few people who did that.  (Dick Francis... erm...)  I think perhaps what it means is 'don't write what you don't know'.  That is to say, don't confine yourself to writing only about what you know right now, but if you want to write about something else, go out and research and find out all about it.  (But start to write it at the same time.  Because that means you're not putting off writing.  You're going to rewrite it anyway.  Stephen King famously researches his novels only after he's written the first draft, and, having just finished a research-intensive novel, I can see what he means.  You know the right questions to ask when you know what you're going to do with this stuff.  That means you'll have to change a lot of what you've written.  But you're going to rewrite it anyway.)  The alternative is trying to write what you don't know while not knowing about it, which results in...



(Yeah, some of my Casualty episodes were a bit like that.)

17: Don't give in to fear.  Are you sure, when you sent that manuscript in, that it was as good as it could possibly be?  Or did you perhaps, like I did when I was very young, not give it a last once-over before I sent it off, because then when it was rejected I'd be able to find the 'one little thing that was wrong with it'?  (Maybe that was just me.)  I think something else I used to do, which still takes a bit of doing, is a bit more commonplace, though.  If you want to write for television, you're probably going to have to start by trying to write for Doctors on BBC1 in the afternoons.  Sure, you've got this idea for a series about warring galaxies. To one day be able to pitch that, you have to write for Doctors.  Writing for Doctors is hard.  You're going to need to watch (or read) a lot of the sort of thing you want (or need) to write for.  Set your Sky Plus for series record on Doctors.  Maybe it's distaste that stopped you from doing that, rather than fear (which is fine, there are lots of other people who want to be writers).  But sometimes one doesn't read the market thoroughly because one is afraid that one will discover that everyone who writes that stuff does it really well, and one will get discouraged.  Well, everyone who successfully writes any stuff does it well.  (No, really, that bestselling author whose work you hate didn't rub a magic lamp and get three wishes, they appealed to a lot of readers.)  You have to read the market not hoping to find uselessness to be better than, but knowing you'll find quality (as you should realise when you understand the aims and needs of what you're reading) and start to aspire to it.  You need to be better than the best stuff.  But don't let that scare you.

18: The wandering point of view.  When you're starting out in prose you may find it easiest to write in the third person past tense.  (She sat down.  She was thinking about all the wonderful parties she'd been to in this house.)  First person past tense is great too.  (I sat down.  I'd been to some wonderful parties in this house.) But just make sure beforehand that one narrator will get to everywhere your plot needs to go.  Third person present tense feels modern and arty.  (She sits down.  She's thinking about all the wonderful parties she's been to in this house.)  But the reason it feels so cool is that it's tough to keep going, and, and this is just me, I think what it gains in immediacy it loses in warmth.  But for God's sake, whatever you choose, stick to it.  And there's something else you need to stick to, and it's a mistake loads of people make.  Here's some (rubbish) third person past tense prose:

She looked around the room, remembering Dan by that window, Roger leaning on the mantlepiece, Amanda falling over that sofa.  Look out, look out!  Oops, no, there she goes.  She smiled at the memory.  
     Joe entered the room.  Oh no, not him.  Not now.  She'd just been enjoying these memories, and here he was interrupting.  
     'Hi,' he said.  
     'Hi,' she said, hoping he'd go.  
     'I remember Amanda falling over that sofa,' he said.  But he wasn't remembering it fondly, the look on his face said.  He was remembering her friend being a fool.

Now, despite the fact that, as the writer, I'm not being my heroine (this is third person, we're using 'she' and not 'I'), the readers are still very much inside her head.  They get to know what she's thinking.  But the strength of third person is that we could cut away and look in on someone else's thoughts.  Like this:

She looked around the room, remembering Dan by that window, Roger leaning on the mantlepiece, Amanda falling over that sofa.  Look out, look out!  Oops, no, there she goes.  She smiled at the memory.  


Joe entered the room and saw Sheila looking around.  Oh, she was enjoying her memories of being here.  Well, he thought, let's puncture her balloon.  

That is also absolutely fine.  But note the gap between the two points of view.  That's the important thing here.  Because without it, you get:


She looked around the room, remembering Dan by that window, Roger leaning on the mantlepiece, Amanda falling over that sofa.  Look out, look out!  Oops, no, there she goes.  She smiled at the memory.  
     Joe entered the room and saw Sheila looking around.  Oh, she was enjoying her memories of being here.  Well, he thought, let's puncture her balloon.  
     'Hi,' he said.  
     'Hi,' she said, hoping he'd go.  
     'I remember Amanda falling over that sofa,' he said.  But he wasn't remembering it fondly, the look on his face said.  He was remembering her friend being a fool.


That's a bit confusing, isn't it?  You can see what's going on, but you have to work at it, and why give your readers meaningless extra work?  There are writers like Dorothy L. Sayers who do this all the time, but she's one of the greatest writers who ever lived, and she does it so well that readers seldom notice.  You are not her.  Do not attempt to copy her.

19: Good/nice/on time.  I can't remember who said that to succeed a writer needs to have any two of three qualities: writing ability; being pleasant to work with and always delivering on time.  Well, that's sort of true.  It only really applies when you're already in a job.  (Nobody gets hired the first time just for being nice, and how do they know you'll always be prompt?)  And it's more of a recognition that, on deadlines, one isn't always able to produce one's best work.  But I tell you what, of those three things, you can control two of them completely, so why not always be nice and always be on time?  (I think writers who don't make the biggest possible effort to be pleasant to work with are sort of testing how good they are, seeing if their work is excellent enough so that they can behave badly and still be employed.  And I think maybe they buy into the idea that genius is tumultuous.  But not all genii are rude.  And those guys that are you often see being indulged for a while, then quietly vanishing as soon as their work stops being absolutely top notch.)  I've thrown a few strops in my time, but I view every one of them as an abject failure on my part.

20: The last word.  The word that gets the laugh is the last word of the joke.

21: Odd pages.  Don't put surprises on odd-numbered pages of comics (because then the eye goes straight to the surprise on the right and misses the lead in on the even-numbered page to the left).

22: Characters aren't made of characteristics.  When I was a kid, I'd write down lists of characteristics for all my characters, as if people are made of what they like to eat and how they might vote.  Actually, especially in prose, often the less we know about a character, the more universal they are, the more popular they are.  The heroes of most bestseller novels are almost empty shoes for readers to walk around in.  Even if you want a bit more detail than that, start from a tone of voice, an attitude, a motivation.  The four heroes of Cops and Monsters are: 'The world's falling apart, but I'll keep doing my job.'  'I have been denied my revenge.'  'People keep bloody underestimating me.' 'This lot are worthless, I'm out of here as soon as possible.'  I don't know what their favourite TV shows are.  But if a situation comes up where their central attitudes can be illustrated by what their favourite TV shows are, I might decide.

23: Don't be didactic.  You might want to write a novel that tells us war is bad.  A lot of great novels have done that.  Very few of them featured a character who said 'you know, war is really bad'.  A lot of them are largely staffed by those who believe the complete opposite.  It's fine for your work to have a point of view.  But let it be shown in action, in cumulative effect.  Sometimes it's exciting for the viewer if your point of view (particular if it's one that hasn't been seen very often before) does make it onto the screen, banners flying.  But then you should be very careful not to paint every one of the opposition as bad guys.  You as a writer have to understand and to some extent sympathise with every character.  And make sure you show us the flaws in your leads.  Readers can spot an author's mouthpiece a mile away.  Have distance from every character too.

24: Start a scene late, finish early.  The start of a scene should be the first interesting thing that happens.  Ideally, the first surprise.  The scene should end at the exact moment when there are no more surprises to be had in it.  (That's why, in the movies, everyone is so curt at the end of phone calls.)  Joss Whedon in Buffy (I'm paraphrasing, and I forget the episode) has Xander say 'I'm sure I can go over there and talk her round to our point of view.'  (A new thought he hadn't mentioned before, end of scene.)  Cut to Xander hanging from the ceiling of a dungeon in chains.  Now, that's funny because of the reversal, the surprise.  (Although 'that is something I would never ever do' cut to character doing just that is now so hideously over-used as to be the cheapest of laughs, but because that's what happens, in the end, to all really cool new ideas.)  But it's also great writing because Joss has recognised that every single thing that happens between Xander saying that and getting chained to the ceiling doesn't have to be shown because it's obvious, it's not a surprise.  (I hope that was a Joss script, and not any of his co-writers, but it may well have been his scene whatever the credit, because that's how TV works.)

25: Learn to rely on the artist, director, actors.  The obvious newbie failing of all first time comic writers is to crowd the page with speech balloons.  (In my first two issues of Wisdom you can hardly see the art sometimes.)  Writers starting in TV have everyone talking too much.  In visual media, you need to try, at every opportunity, to give the work of storytelling to the artist or director and actors.

HE:     What's wrong?


SHE:   I'm not happy at you mocking Amanda about when she fell over that sofa.

... isn't as good as...

HE:     What's wrong?


She gives him an angry look.  He should know.  

Only have the character tell us about what should be acted or drawn when there's no other choice.  Look at how little dialogue there is in a Warren Ellis comic like Planetary, but how much story there is.  You'll find a lot of what you write in a television or comic script is in the descriptions of action.  That's what most of those famously huge Alan Moore scripts consist of, information (both background and emotional) that gives Dave Gibbons or David Lloyd a lot of starting points for their own skills.  It's fine to say what the shape of a comics panel should be (tall thin ones speed up the action, long flat ones slow it down, like slow pans), but the artist might well decide they know better, and every good artist I've worked with has sometimes restructured a page I've written, always to better effect.

26: But don't direct.  It's annoying for a director to be told what to do.  When the soldiers burst in, and the child hides under the bed, and watches them search the room, don't write:

We're in his point of view under the bed, we're watching the feet of the soldiers right there in front of us.  

Because although we have that (cliched) shot in our heads as writers, it's possible the director will have another (better) way of filming it, and it's not up to us to do their job for them.  Instead, the emotional context is welcome.

He lies there under the bed.  The soldiers search the room.  Noise and movement all around. They could find him at any moment!  

But don't go so far as.

He lies there under the bed.  The soldiers search the room.  Noise and movement all around. They could find him at any moment!  This is just like that time when he played hide and seek with his sister, only this is terrible!

Because the director will look at that and wonder how they can show that the boy is thinking that about the hide and seek.  But if you're making a specific point there, you could go for:

He lies there under the bed.  The soldiers search the room.  Noise and movement all around. They could find him at any moment!  (Maybe remind us somehow of that time Ben played hide and seek with his sister?)

How much of a question or a statement I'd frame that as would depend on how well I knew the director, but note that I'm asking them to use their skills to achieve a particular effect, not telling them how to do it, and even that might be infringing a bit on their domain.  They'll probably have got that resonance, and it's their job to add such resonances if you didn't think of them and to disregard them if you did and they don't think it should happen.

27: Don't do the beat twice.  This is something I still do. You need to show what happened once, and do it solidly enough so that you don't need to show it again.  This is particularly the case when it's characters making big decisions.  For some reason, I tend to have them mull it all over again, or even forget they've already talked about this.  The need to show things only once is why, when it's a life changing decision and it's only reasonable that characters should hesitate and talk a lot and return to the topic several times, and not having all that would be very unrealistic, people on television say 'we've already talked about this'.  Often in a manner which suggests they though the matter was closed, because that adds dramatic tension because of opposing points of view.

28: Don't get hung up on script format.  Some television or comics companies like to get scripts from writers that work for them in a particular format.  Pitching spec scripts for movies means you might, in order to look professional, want to use Final Draft.  (Though Russell Davies managed to convert BBC Cardiff to Movie Magic Screenwriter.)  But none of that matters at all when you're starting out.  (There's no standard script format at all in comics.  Pick one of the many wildly-varying ones available online from different comics writers.)  Just make sure you can easily tell dialogue from directions, that there's loads of blank space on the page, and that you only print on one side of the paper.  You'll probably feel better if you copy an established script format, but nobody's going to chuck your work for getting the width of a margin wrong.

29: Don't worry about length either.  It'll become, when you're about to get something actually filmed, very important.  But right now, something that roughly feels like an hour (or 45 minutes) of TV is all you're after.  Read it aloud to yourself once you're done, read the directions giving time for your mind's eye to see what's going on, and time it.  You'll be wrong, but as long as you're within ten minutes either way, no problem.  (A bit too long is better than a bit too short, but way too long isn't a good idea.)  The worst that can happen about this matter is that someone says 'as it stands this is a bit too long'.  But you'll be rewriting it anyway.

30: Read it aloud.  I've found myself self-editing books as I read them aloud at conventions.  A very bad sign.  I knew Cops and Monsters was okay when I read it aloud and felt I wanted to say every word.

31: Follow the guidelines.  When a publisher or magazine says they want to read submissions, they'll inevitably have specific instructions about what sort of thing they want to see and how they want it presented to them.  Follow those instructions to the letter.  'Well,' you're thinking, 'some of this advice has seemed pretty demanding, but that one's easy.'  So why is about twenty five per cent of what those publishers and magazines then receive stuff that ignores their instructions?  That twenty five per cent goes straight into the waste bin.  (It's not just a question of what they want, it's also to see if you're the sort of oaf who's come asking a favour but wants immediate special treatment.)  So that's great news.  You can straight away get yourself into the top three quarters of applicants by following the guidelines.

32: When to annoy your friends with your manuscript.  I think we've all probably learnt the hard way that the time for that is probably never.  Joining a writer's group works really well for some people (though having come up through academic writing training, I'm rather allergic to them), and in one of those everyone has the right to foist.  Similarly, if mates volunteer to 'beta test' your manuscript, they knew what they were getting into.  But established writers, friends who haven't asked, editors you meet down the pub (until they indicate they're willing, or at least until you've waited so long to ask them they're wondering why not), agents when they're socialising, all of these targets are off limits.

33: The ideal way to pitch something.  Is to be entertaining and charismatic, in real life or in social media, in front of people who might use your work, until they finally ask if you've ever thought about writing.  Because who you are is taken, for good or ill, as a good sign of how you might write.  We write our own dialogue every day.  If you then reveal that you have a novel finished waiting for just such an opportunity, then both writer and publisher will be happy.  The novel will probably need work, but then the writer knew they were going to be rewriting anyway.  If it's no good at all, the writer will be told no thank you, because it's still only quality that matters.  But they'll probably have learned loads along the way.  And if their reaction to that no thank you is good, then there's every chance they'll get to try again.

34: Are you getting paid?  You should never pay anyone anything for their help with your writing.  An agent will take a percentage of what you make, only after you make it.  Nobody else should get a thing.  Anyone who asks for money for 'editorial services', as a 'reading fee', or anything else is ripping you off. Writer Beware is the Science Fiction Writers of America's big-fisted guardian of your rights, and continually names and shames those out there who seek to trap vulnerable writers.  You might decide to work for nothing, like for a fanzine, but beware 'movie projects' that want you to do work for them in return for 'a share in the proceeds'.  There won't be any and any experience you might get will mostly be in terms of never doing that again.  The very smallest of magazines will pay you with at least a tiny sum, or at the very least a couple of copies, just to underline their belief that your work is worth something, and that's the honourable way to do it.

35: Two emotions in one panel.  Another newbie comics mistake.  Your dialogue for one particular panel says: 'When I think of her, I'm so happy... but in general I'm so sad.'  (What?  I'm not giving you my best lines in a blog post!)  What does the artist draw?  A sensible one would divide your one panel into two, one showing a happy face and the next a sad one.  A 1950s one would draw those two faces in one panel with blur lines between them.  But that's not done now.  Similarly, you can write 'she rushes out of the room, slams the door after her and suddenly screams from outside', and that's okay for a film script, but that's the all time worst comics panel description ever.  What exactly, if given that, would an artist draw?  I think that would translate to two panels.  She rushes out of the room.  Then we have other characters reacting at a scream from behind the now closed door.  (A slamming door is a pretty big ask unless you've got a cartoony artist.)

36: 'There are only eight stories.'  Or is it seven?  What are the eight?  (Which one is Inception?  It's got a familiar search for redemption at its heart, but that's not The Story, that's one element of it.)  I suspect this one actually got started with someone's mad theory.  Of course there are more than that.  You can easily name, off the top of your head, way more than eight movies the basic story shape of which has nothing in common with each other.  What there are, what this old saw gestures towards, is a finite number of archetypal stories, or of familiar building blocks that are used in stories.  But these can be re-arranged in a number of ways that approaches infinite.  I think this is an excuse used for when we feel that the movie we just came out of was kind of familiar, but we liked it anyway.

37: Reluctance.  I have a lot of time for Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces and his search for The Archetypal Story, but it's a book full of questions, not a road map.  Several of his points about things that always happen in myth that thus inform story are spot on, though, and one of those things is that it always feels emotionally right if the central character is reluctant to take part in the story.  They should take all reasonable measures to stop the story happening without them having to get involved.  Why don't they call the police?  You have to find a good answer to that question, not have the lead just ignore it.

38: Don't break the world for an in-joke.  I hate in-jokes.  When I was first starting out, I loved them, and put them in everywhere.  Gradually, I realised that they were the cheapest of tactics, that they compromised the drama, that above all they're not funny.  What about Knight and Squire, I hear you ask?  I'd say there's a difference between the way the references are used in that and your standard in-joke, say, the invisible man in Heroes being named 'Claude Rains.'  (Although it's a fine line, I grant you.)  'Claude Rains' is called that just so someone watching at home can nudge someone next to them on the sofa and say 'that was the name of the actor who most famously played the Invisible Man!'  To which their companion might be justified in replying: 'I thought it was unlikely enough that any modern Salfordian be named Claude, that rings false every time anyone says it, but how unlikely is it that someone with that name should also just happen to be invisible?!  And nobody comments on it!'  The name of that character hasn't been thought about for more than the moment it took to raise a (slight) smile.  But it's like an albatross around the character's neck.  I think what I do in Knight and Squire is a bit more integrated than that, that at least I try to make it all work.  Certain writers and directors seem to think that in-jokes are the whole point.  But I think originality is much, much, more worthwhile.

39: Old names.  Don't name your angry young teenager Harold, or your elderly lady Kylie.  Tracy was the most mysterious, romantic name when James Bond married her in 1963.  Names bring meaning and age with them.  There are lists online of what the most popular names were in a given year.  When you're naming a character, make sure they bring the right baggage with them.

40: There are times when none of these 'rules' apply.  One time is when you're so very very good that you can break all the rules and it's brilliant.  (But do you really want to bet on that?)  The other is when you're genuinely just doing this for fun, and don't expect to sell anything.  In which case why are you even bothering with reading all this?  Go have fun.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with pottering around for your own entertainment, and you'll learn stuff just by practicing.  You don't have to get serious until (and unless) you want to.  And you can control the levels of seriousness (fan fiction for yourself, shown to friends for them to comment on, shown to the internet for it to comment on) and make gentle upward progress. Or again, just to enjoy yourself.  But do bear in mind that the only people who get to call themselves boxers are people who've been punched a lot in the face.  A lot of people call themselves writers who aren't, and writers don't take kindly to that.  'I'm a writer of fan fiction' will always be fine.  'I'm a writer' means you got paid by someone who it's tough to get payment out of.  Getting published is really, really, difficult.  Failing is no disgrace.  There is no easy way to do it.  Hard work and the ability to recognise and make use of that one mad chance when it comes along, that's what pays off.  Sometimes.

And that's it.  Or it feels like it for now.  I hope some of that's been useful.  I won't read your manuscript under any circumstances, or give it to anyone else to read.  (I thought I'd best just say that bluntly now before the Comments section opens.  What's the betting someone will ask anyway?)  I'm glad I managed to blurt all that out in one place.  In feels like the tip of an iceberg I'm not qualified to... survey or explore or something, what, did someone tell you I was a writer?

As always on the 12 Blogs, today we feature a creator telling us about their festive plans.  This time it's a Mr Warren Ellis, who writes...

'Atheist household.  Xmas is a good excuse to give each other gifts and cook a goose and open too many bottles of wine.  Somewhere between hypocrisy and cultural continuity: Yule has been around at least as long, and I like to think it was celebrated here in Danelaw Essex before Christes-Mass arrived with the Normans.  So we just treat it like a winter solstice festival, with a bit of Brumalia and, let's face it, huge steaming sacrifices to Mammon.  I'll be chilling a bottle of Krug in the morning for the table, before cooking up a pan of eggs (fresh from the chickens in the garden, who will denounce me for creating the foul weather) scrambled with organic unsalted butter and organic smoked bacon, a champagne chilled the night before will be opened and the glasses dusted with gold leaf, and then the (local) goose will be roasted.  Afterwards, there will be games, conversation, maybe a bit of a film, more wine and, with luck, a deep and deeply alcohol-infused sleep.'

And he sent, erm... well...


Ho ho ho!  That sounds brilliant, Warren, and a happy holiday to you and all our atheist friends.

Tomorrow I'll be summing up my prose of the year, both in novel form and in my list of favourite stories from Asimov's.  Until then, Cheerio!