In June 2020 I set out a new series of blog posts on my website called ‘writing about writing about writing’ after a chapter in Tom Bissell’s ‘Magic Hours’ about the topic of reading books about writing. I am a self-confessed bookaholic and when I started writing I started reading books about writing. The first was Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’ from which I discovered that I was doing everything wrong – it wasn’t until I did a subsequent workshop that I discovered that writing short and adding in edit was just as valid an approach as King’s writing long and cutting 25%.
But I digress. Being a bookaholic my desire to collect books outstrips my capacity to read them and I very quickly accumulated a plethora of books about writing (charity shops are my nemesis here!) My first short story was sold in 2013 and by the time June 2020 rolled around I had a shelf full of books about writing well in triple figures. Something had to be done!
I’d read Jeff VanderMeer’s excellent ‘Booklife’ in which he talked about ‘leveraging’ reading the Penguin ‘Great Ideas’ series to gather material for Booklife. I stole this idea to leverage reading books about writing for blog material.
Skip to 2024 and despite best efforts I still have a bookshelf groaning with writing books – a quick visual count today shows me I have over seventy unread ones. Something must be done!
I shall be writing about writing about writing in which I shall reflect upon this process and also talk a little about some of the writing books I’ve read since January. A common theme that runs through these posts is that although I aim to do them monthly I’m lax about deadlines. I’ve also slowed down as life since 2020 has become ever more complicated with redundancies and a major illness in the family. But I’ve just reminded myself by writing this post that something must be done. So expect more in the series. In the meantime, let Milford take you back to June 2020… https://petewsutton.com/2020/06/17/writing-about-writing-about-writing/
Pete W Sutton is a writer and editor. His two short story collections – A Tiding of Magpies and The Museum for Forgetting – were shortlisted for Best Collection in the British Fantasy Awards in 2017 & 2022 respectively. His novel – Seven Deadly Swords – was published by Grimbold Books. He has edited several short story anthologies and is the editor for the British Fantasy Society Horizons fiction magazine.
ALCS, the UK Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society, collects secondary royalties on behalf of writers for work published in the UK, and campaigns and lobbies on writers’ rights at national and international levels. Founded in 1977, to date it has paid £650 million to its 120,000 members.
These royalties are very difficult for individual writers to collect. They come from photocopying & scanning by business, education and other organisations, overseas library lending, retransmission, and other sources. There’s more detailed information on their website.
Lifetime membership costs only £36.00 GBP, deductible from your first royalty payment. In fact if you are a member of the Society of Authors or one of a few other organisations, membership is free.
I wasn’t sure if membership is open to all nationalities so I contacted the ALCS and they confirm that is the case – anyone can join.
So why should you join? Well, why shouldn’t you? If you have had any magazine articles, short stories, novels, scripts, etc published in the UK, you may well be owed money. The ALCS will collect it for you.
I’m by no means a widely-published writer but my payments are worth having – my latest payment was just over £136.00. Honestly, I have no idea where this comes from and am very grateful to the ALCS for their collection efforts. Some writer’s payments are far more substantial.
Once you’ve joined all you need to do is register existing work and add new publications as they come along. Then, once a year, you can look forwards to some extra income from your hard work.
Which reminds me, I need to update my publications.
David Gullen is a two-times winner of the British Fantasy Society Short Story competition. His work has appeared in The Best of British SF 2020, and 2021, F&SF, Tales from the Magician’s Skull, and more. Other work has been short-listed for the James White Award and placed in the Aeon Award. Born in Africa and baptised by King Neptune, David has lived in England most of his life. He currently lives behind several tree ferns in South London with his wife, fantasy writer Gaie Sebold, and the nicest cat you ever did see. Find out more at www.davidgullen.com.
We are delighted to announce that our bursary writers for 2024 are Naomi Eselojor and Plangdi Neple, both from Nigeria. We had some excellent applications and it was tough to pick out two to join us at Gladstone’s Library in September for the Milford SF Writers’ Conference – an intense week of workshopping writing in progress and ideas. We are looking forward to meeting Naomi and Plangdi.
NAOMI ESELOJOR is a speculative fiction writer from Nigeria. She is the winner of the 2023 Utopian award for short fiction and the 2024 winner of the Wilson Okereke’s prize for short stories. Her works are in and forthcoming at African Ghost stories anthology by Flame Tree Press, 2022 Best of Utopian Science Fiction Anthology by Android press, Omenana Magazine, Lolwe, Hexagon Magazine, Improbable press, Dark Matter Magazine and elsewhere. Her works have been nominated for the Pushcart prize, Ako Caine prize and the Utopian awards. Naomi lives in Lagos, and will be attending the Milford Writer’s Workshop in 2024.
PLANGDI NEPLE is a Nigerian writer and editor. A lover of the weird and fantastic, he draws inspiration from Nigerian myth, folklore and tradition. His work are in and forthcoming at Omenana, Anathema, Cast of Wonders and FIYAH, as well as other venues. He is also a co-editor at Anathema: Spec from the margins. Find him at @plangdi_neple on Twitter.
Can a good writer remain unique? Does a writer need a track record before originality can be attempted?
I’m always surprised when hear people saying the easy way to get published is to retread the same old tracks, present the same old characters in the same old situations and some publisher or other will decide that yes, this is ideal troll fodder for those weird people who read SF/Fantasy. My own experience suggests the exact opposite. I wrote my first full fantasy novel in 1991. It was a very traditional tale, young lad leaves home, gets caught up in various adventures, the usual rites of passage, so on and so forth. It had plot, subplot, detail on everything and a cast of thousands. I worked really hard on it; in all modesty I thought it was damn good. Friends whom I trusted to tell me honestly if it were crap liked it, so I sent it off to a couple of agents, a few publishers, sat back and waited for the replies. I was a little concerned as to how I would handle say, two or three conflicting offers but I figured I’d solve that problem when it arose.
Strangely enough, that was never a difficulty I had deal with. The agents and publishers who even bothered to reply said “Nice try, sorry, not interested.” Most of them also said, “it’s far too long”. One agent did offer to take it on but only if I paid a professional reviewer to write a report on how it needed rewriting and do you know, it just happened he knew someone he could recommend, for a mere two hundred and fifty quid! Anyone interested in writing should avoid deals like that like the plague. They’re a rip-off; I thought so at the time and didn’t bother, and every publisher or agent I’ve asked about it since has confirmed that.
So back to my first novel. The most telling line in all of the rejection letters I got was this;
There’s nothing to distinguish this from the six other perfectly competent fantasy novels that land on my desk every week.
Make a note of that, if you want to be a writer. Better yet, print it out and pin it to the wall next to your desk. You don’t have to be published before you can be original. You do have to be original before you’ll be published, if you’re going to get anywhere at all. The competition is phenomenal. One agent I know reckons she gets 1200 submissions a year, one editor has quoted 30 a week to me and another agent reckons on 3,500. Orbit, who publish me, get 1,500 a year. Those are unsolicited submissions by the way, what’s called the slush pile; that doesn’t include things they get via agents. That agent I quoted, of those 1,200, in a good year she might take on 2 new clients. The editor who gets 30 a week, reckons to have taken one slush pile author on in the last 10 years. Orbit have taken on 2 in the last 5 years, I’m one of them. That’s the kind of competition you’re facing and if you can’t stand out from the crowd, if you don’t have something new to bring to the party, you’re pretty much on a hiding to nothing.
So I had learned the hard way that my carefully crafted masterpiece was perfectly competent but nothing special. Realising I was going to get nowhere without more information, I set out to learn everything and anything that I could about writing. I read a lot of crime and mystery fiction, so one year when all my family and friends were asking what I wanted for my birthday, I asked for cash contributions so I could go on a crime and mystery weekend being run at my old college. That was in 1996 and I’ve been to all but a couple of the annual weekends since. There are talks by authors, critics, an agent did a presentation one year and also a couple of publishers. I’ve picked up some very useful things, especially on techniques of writing, plot structure, how to handle detail, how to avoid the data-dump, all very useful. I got to talk to crime writers who are household names and heard that when you hear about a writer trying ten or more publishers before being accepted, this isn’t unusual, in fact it’s pretty much the rule. A lot of authors find it’s their second, third, even fifth or seventh novel that’s the one finally gets accepted and gives them their start. The most telling thing I heard and it’s another quote to print out and pin up next to your desk was;
Every editor is looking for the same but different.
This was from a publisher explaining the Catch-22 that faces every editor. They want to publish what they know will sell because if they make the wrong choices, the book becomes what the sales reps refer to as a Falkland book, as in ‘I counted them all out and I counted them all back in’. Books go out from publishers to shops on a sale or return basis for the most part. If the editor gets it wrong, the books come winging back to the warehouse, the company loses money and that editor’s job is on the line. On the other hand, the great book buying public is not that stupid, not everyone is going to buy the same old story in a different jacket time and again. Also, every editor wants to find the next Longitude, the next Captain Corelli, the next Harry Potter.They’d quite like to be the editor who picks up the next big thing when every one else has passed it by. Editors aren’t infallible by the way, which is why the aspiring writer has to send their submission to anyone and everyone who might publish it. What someone hates, someone else will love. This editor who was talking about ‘the same but different’ was on the editorial committee that turned down Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow, which of course, became a million-seller and a hugely successful film with Harrison Ford. But this was before people like John Grisham got started and this particular committee all agreed a complicated American legal thriller would be a waste of paper in this country.
So the writer has to be original but not too original. Highlighting that originality is crucial in initial submissions, to convince the editor that this book is indeed ‘the same but different’. That letter is a sales letter, make no mistake.
I write fairly traditional heroic fantasy, The Thief’s Gamble can be quite fairly called a quest novel. The Swordsman’s Oath, you’ll guess from the title, has to do with issues of loyalty, nothing earth-shattering there. As you’ll see from the cover and the jacket copy, there’s what can loosely be called a magic sword as a central element. So what did I bring that was new? Well, I write in the first person, they are ‘I’ books, not unique in fantasy but less common. I write in very direct, colloquial language; my characters use slang, abbreviate each other’s names, and insult people in fairly forthright terms. It’s a style that stands out and I try to make what I do with the traditions of heroic fantasy a bit different on top of that. I’m determined to avoid the more crushing clichés of the genre. There will be no lost heirs turning up as farm boys, with or without unrecognised magical powers, there are no dark forces of motiveless malignancy, no all encompassing prophecies moving my characters around like pieces on a chess board. That’s another less common angle, though more common in recent years, I am relieved to say as a reader.
When I was pitching The Thief’s Gamble, I could point these things out; it’s different but not too different. I could point out that Livak, my heroine, while not your typical fantasy female does have a great deal in common with Kinsey Milhone, Kate Brannigan and VI Warshawski, to my mind the best of the independent female Private Eyes who’ve taken the crime genre by storm in the last 10 or 15 years. Look, Mr Editor, the same style of character but different genre.
You have to be original but you have to be original within the recognised parameters of the genre. Consider The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. There are some wonderfully original ideas in there but in terms of form and writing and a lot of the characterisation, it’s a very traditional novel. The same but different. There’s a wonderful episode of Yes Prime Minister about setting up a party political broadcast and the rules are explained; if you’re presenting something radical, the minister should look traditional and reassuring, wear a dark suit, have an oak panelled background and leather bound books. If you’re not doing anything new, you want a light, modern suit, a modern high-tech setting with abstract paintings. I’m sure you could all come up with books that are something startling smuggled in under cover of a dark suit and others that are basically the same old thing but jazzed up with the literary equivalent of high energy wall paper and a Stravinsky sound track.
So you have to be original but is that enough? No that’s by no means the whole story. I belong to a Oxford writers’ organisation and some while ago found myself talking to a nuclear physicist who’d had various technical books published and was desperate to find a publisher for his masterwork, the great novel. I have to say, I don’t hold out a lot of hope. He was very keen to tell me all about it, it’s sort of a whodunnit but not really, and then in some ways its a philosophical exploration and then again, it’s something of a love story but there is a science fiction element too. If he presents it like that, I can’t see any publisher taking it on. Publishing is a business; book shops are arranged into sections and genres and any book that can’t be fitted into one of those is facing an uphill struggle This chap was also dead set against doing any rewriting or making any changes. Apparently the quality of his writing makes that impossible and anyway, that’s what will sell the novel for him, making any sales pitch unnecessary. I have to say I doubt this, if his writing is anything like his conversation. Given the choice between another half hour talking to this guy and watching paint dry, point me at the gloss or the emulsion. It may be this guy has some startlingly original ideas. It may be that his writing is superb. I still don’t reckon that will get him published because he’s so inflexible in his attitude.
Something I’ve heard, with slight variations, from three editors and two agents all murmuring ‘don’t tell anyone I said this but’ is
When you’re reading a new submission, you’re always looking for the reason to turn it down.
That sounds extremely harsh but think back to the numbers I quoted. It’s the only way to run a publishing house without vanishing under an avalanche of paper. That reason will often be the writing, it will frequently be lack of originality but equally it can be the amateur, unbusiness like way that the author has presented their manuscript or presents themself through their letters. It can be that the deal falls through on contract details because the writer just has no idea what is or is not a realistic offer, which is where an agent can be invaluable, if you can find one to take you on.
I had to convince any publisher that I was a professional writer, as serious about the business of writing and publishing as they were. Once Orbit had made an offer for my first novel, a deal that was dependent on me submitting an outline for a second, I rewrote the start extensively, I changed various things near the end and added nearly a third of the final text. Having been told my first novel was far too long, I had really concentrated on keeping the prose tight, avoiding over writing, really being strict with myself. One of the first things Tim my editor said during our initial discussions was he did feel it was rather too short, so did I think I could add about 50,000 words? Yes, I said, of course, no problem! That’s how The Thief’s Gamble comes to have a sub-plot written in the third person format. We discussed various titles before we agreed on The Thief’s Gamble and what name I might write under, where a lot of marketing considerations applied.
No-one outside West Oxfordshire knows how to pronounce my married name when they see it written, and in fantasy terms any name that starts with S or T will get you stuck on a bottom shelf next to Tolkien, where all anyone is for is The Hobbit. McKenna, my maiden name, puts me between Anne McCaffrey and Terry Pratchett, which is a very good shelf position. One of the things that helps my working relationship with Orbit is I don’t have to have these things explained to me. I learned a lot about book selling working part-time for my local branch of Ottakar’s, between kids. In particular, if you think it’s difficult to get a publisher to take your manuscript, you try being a sales rep getting a bookseller to take a first novel by someone they’ve never heard of. Originality is often the key for the rep to get that book onto the shelves.
So why are so many unoriginal books published? True, I come across books time and again that look like something I’ve already read with just the names changed to protect the guilty. Personal taste is a factor here, especially in editors, which is why you have to be persistent and send out submission after submission after submission. Another factor is personal contacts. Next time WHS are running their ‘Fresh Talent’ promotion, look at the authors details on their little handouts. Most years, while it’s their first novel, pretty well all of the writers work in journalism, the media or publishing in some form or other. It’s a fact of life that it’s far easier to get published if you have contacts which means it’s far easier to get something less original published.
I’m no different to anyone else in this regard; Orbit got my original submission via the sales rep who deals with the shop where I used to work. A pal still working there read it, liked it both as a fan and as a bookseller. The rep read it, liked it and reckoned it was a book he could sell, so was willing to put his own credibility on the line in forwarding it to the editors with a note to that effect. At that stage Harper Collins were also interested, having picked the submission up from the slush pile, so that personal contact isn’t the whole story but it certainly speeded up the process and helped me stand out from the six other perfectly competent fantasy novels competing for attention that week. Other writers I know have made their own contacts, to help them stand out from the crowd, through meeting people at conventions, establishing themselves with a track record in short stories or genre journalism, reviewing, that kind of thing. You don’t have to have had the forethought to have famous parents or a godparent who happens to be an all-powerful literary agent.
Thinking back to the unoriginal fantasy books out there, I think a track record can stifle a writer’s originality. There are always authors basically rewriting their early novels and frankly not making as good a job of it. You do need a track record before your publisher is going to let you take a really dramatic chance on something startling but you’re going to have a hell of an argument on your hands to get him to agree, regardless of your sales. I would argue that’s the point where many a good writer has trouble remaining unique.
In summary, I would argue that unless you have inside contacts or a media profile that makes you certain to generate sales however bad the book, you have to be original to get published and then the next hurdle is staying original.
An essay based on one of assorted talks I gave as a guest-speaker at various events in 2000-2001.
Juliet E McKenna is a British fantasy author living in the Cotswolds, UK. Loving history, myth and other worlds since she first learned to read, she has written fifteen epic fantasy novels so far. Her debut, The Thief’s Gamble, began The Tales of Einarinn in 1999, followed by The Aldabreshin Compass sequence, The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution, and The Hadrumal Crisis trilogy. The Green Man’s Heir was her first modern fantasy rooted in British folklore in 2018, followed by The Green Man’s Foe, The Green Man’s Silence, and The Green Man’s Challenge. She writes and comments on book trade issues, has served as a judge for major genre awards, and reviews online and for magazines. She writes diverse short stories and novellas enjoying forays into alternate history, darker fantasy, steampunk and SF. As J M Alvey, she has also written murder mysteries set in ancient Greece. As well as the next Green Man book, she’s currently working on The Cleaving, a feminist retelling of Arthurian myth, to be published in May 2023. Visit julietemckenna.com or follow @JulietEMcKenna on Twitter to keep up to date.
Here are the thoughts of Milford’s 2023 bursary winners. We’ll be announcing the recipients of the 2024 Mulford Bursaries in the next couple of weeks
NEON YANG (they/them) I attended the Milford Workshop in the autumn of 2023, on the generosity of a bursary. I was pretty nervous as I’d just moved to the UK a year ago and hardly knew anyone. But my fears were unfounded as what I found was a delightfully welcoming community of knowledgeable, passionate, funny and generous writers. Nestled in the silent, remote wilds of Snowdonia, I made new friends and spent a glorious week reading, writing, and having wonderful discussions about story craft and the business of writing. I brought the opening of a new novella with me and got such lovely feedback, which was instrumental when it came to reworking the piece, so for that I’m very grateful.
All this would not have happened if not for the generosity of Milford’s bursary, which paid for the workshop fee and accommodation. The workshop was definitely a highlight of my year and I fully encourage anyone hesitant about it to just apply— you won’t regret it. I’m definitely going to come back as much as I can.
AKOTOWAA OFORI When I applied for the Milford bursary, encouraged by the newsletter posts of previous bursary recipient, Suyi Davies Okungbowa, I was simply casting my nets. I had no idea that this would be the year that I would gain acceptance into both the Clarion West Writer’s Workshop and the Milford SF Conference. And so, it was with a sense of bewilderment that I found myself preparing to head from Ghana to the UK almost the moment Clarion West ended. But it turned out to be a fantastic sequence of events.
Workshop-related exhaustion aside, I was looking forward to visiting Wales for the first time. I shared a taxi from the Bangor train station to Trigonos with Ida (a real-life mermaid if there ever was one!), Neon, Siobhan, and Mariëlle. I thought about how appropriate it was for a group of SFF writers, of all genres, to convene in Wales, the land of dragons.
The place itself exceeded all my expectations. The workload was heavy, but the environment provided a much-needed oasis of peace in which to complete it. Although it rained consistently during the week, I found pockets of sufficient dryness to sit outside, overlooking the mountains (which surely do conceal a few dragons) or to spend time in contemplation beside the beautiful lake (which I did not dare to take a dip in, for fear of how my West African body would react to the frigid temperature of the water).
Attending Milford while in recovery from Clarion West was perfect because, for one thing, Clarion West had been virtual this year. Milford thus gave me exactly the experience I had missed out on—physical time spent with fellow writers, sharing good energy and expertise inside and outside the critique room—for a limited enough time so as not to completely overwhelm my introverted self. I had the privilege of critiquing excerpts and short stories that I will be ecstatic to read once they are complete and out in the world.
After having just spent six weeks being disabused of the self-consciousness that comes with having one’s work critiqued by other writers, I felt no trepidation going into Milford. However, I did not let that stop me from clutching the adorable emotional support mandrake, courtesy of Liz, during my own critique session. I took it as a sign of celestial pleasure in my manuscript when my crit was interrupted by a majestic rainbow, which we all paused work to gape at for a few minutes.
Outside the critique room, Mariëlle taught me how to play marble solitaire with a board in the Trigonos library. It quickly became my post-dinner obsession. Janet taught me how to peel an egg with a spoon in an egg cup, as well as the word ‘cafetiere’ and the use of the object itself. Jacey introduced me to the wonders of rhubarb gin and tonic, something I never would have thought I’d fall in love with if you had merely described it to me, but I now firmly believe it is one of the world’s greatest alcoholic inventions. I learned, from Chris and Trip, of the existence of Polari, an entire slang system that was developed out of necessity and used by the queer, British underground.
The Milford SF conference has given me the spur I needed to try and finish a draft of the novel-in-progress which I took to the conference. This is still my biggest and most important goal of 2023. On top of that, I feel like I’ve made some amazing new friends and acquaintances. Writers of color, if you get the opportunity to attend Milford with a bursary, I’d encourage you to seize it. As for myself, one of these years, I fully intend to return!
From CB’s Top 100 Writing Tips, Tricks, Techniques and Toolsfrom the Advice Toolbox: Break the rules, not the writing
Keep your promises.
When a reader picks up a text for the first time, reads the first few words in a preview, or gets the first few chapters for signing up to a mailing list, the rest of the story had better be of the same type and quality as the sample from which they made their purchasing decision or other commitment. Otherwise, they will go away unhappy, having read the story little beyond the point where its original promise broke down.
There can be any number of reasons the reader feels cheated in this respect.
The first page may promise humor, but by the second chapter, all the humor may have drained from the narrative.
The first chapter may promise an adventure novel, but by the sixth, the story has turned into a romance.
The promise must not only be apparent at the beginning of the story, but it must be apparent in the smallest preview sample of any of the story samples a reader might pick up. So the first page, as a first indicator would be a good place to set genre and tone.
The danger of failing to deliver on the promise is double when the promise is misrepresented at the start. For example, suppose a writer had the Good Idea of producing a novel that is a mix of the romance and detective genres. Let us suppose it has the title Fearless (a made-up example—apologies to those that have written books titled Fearless; this is not one of them) and the book has the silhouette of a woman in high heels on the cover (another made-up example). The novel starts with an intriguing crime, in full-on detective mode, and yet warms up as a romance as the story progresses and ends up, the crime long-forgotten, in a blissful embrace. A reader who might like the ending will never even pick up the book because a glance at the beginning makes it out to be a detective story, and any detective story reader picking up the book expecting the great plot reveal at the end will be disappointed, even angry, at what they get (if they get that far). Neither reader will touch that author again or recommend the book to anyone.
The writer needs to make the promise, to set genre and tone early in the text.
And to keep to it.
Carter Blakelaw BSc BA lives in bustling central London, in a street with two bookshops and an embassy, any of which might provide escape to new pastures, if only for an afternoon. Carter has studied physics, philosophy and computer science and was the architect and lead programmer for the Rooms 3D Desktops virtual reality engine, and has worked in integrated circuit design. In addition to his Top 100 Writing Tips book, he has published three books on what makes us conscious and how that knowledge impinges on both the machines we build and on our art. He has been an active member of the T-Party (latterly renamed Gravity’s Angels) SF writers’ group for 15 years, and of the Cola Factory (latterly renamed Spectrum) SF writers’ group, for the last ten years. Carter’s website is: https://www.carterblakelaw.com/ for more info and up-to-date news.
Over the last few years we’ve grabbed sayings out of context from various sayings heard at Milford, some during critiques, some not. Here are some of our favourites – anonymous, of course (to protect the guilty).
I have been hypnotised by a personal friend of King Arthur
Reminds me of Brideshead Revisited with the improving addition of a heavily militarised refugeee from Little Grey rabbit.
Is West Country science fiction Cider Punk?
I love the idea of grumpy vengeful floorboards as a main character.
These characters use Promethius as a health and safety instruction film
This ship basically travels at the speed of plot.
I read the first twenty pages as a bad sexual space comedy.
You could just make this into Carry On Cosmonaut.
It’s super-mystical hyper-bollocks, but it works.
I’ve rarely seen such passive-aggressive toast-guarding.
I’m not sure whether this is a disaster story or wish fulfilment.
You can file all this under the heading of me being a miserable shithead.
Could you dissolve the other boy? I’m not so attached to him at the moment.
Start with the blow job.
I wanted his super-stylish clothes to be made from the skin of his victims.
I was a bit surprised by the machete.
I really like the story, hence the compulsion to pick at it.
The bonus is that you can always turn your partner off and leave him in a bin.
I do feel this story needs much less walking across the landscape in search of a plot.
My parents are not my target audience.
I’m left alone in a dark room with three women, two of whom are naked and two of whom are dead, and I don’t know why.
You don’t stop in the middle of a battle to editorialise. ‘Oh, I remember when…’ THWACK!
I actually thought that it was frogs in space. I’m resisting calling it frogporn.
Practising Aikido while pregnant is brilliant because Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down.
If you’re going to give the women male names, I’d like you to call Phillips Petunia.
Is your story the one you cannot bear not to write? Does thinking about it consume your idle moments? Do you lie awake at night worrying about bits that aren’t working? Do you leap out of bed in the morning with ideas that will improve it? Do you filter everything you encounter in your daily life through your story, to see what you can use to make it better?
If you want an editor or agent to be passionate about your book, you must be passionate first. Because a genre agent will get a couple of thousand submissions through the year. A Fantasy publisher can get over five thousand unsolicited submissions for the slush pile. That agent might take one or two new clients annually. A publisher might find one author in the slush pile every ten years.
So do you have the common sense to research and to follow submission guidelines? If you don’t, you send the message that you’re either hopelessly clueless or you think the usual rules don’t apply to you. No busy publishing professional wants those hassles. Can you present yourself as a writer with a professional attitude? Agents and editors read submissions looking for the reason to turn them down. That’s easy if the covering letter betrays basic inability to spell or punctuate, or wholly unrealistic expectations about initial advances and likely sales.
You will get nowhere simply writing a book that ticks all the boxes of fantasy cliché. As well as passion, editors and agents look for originality. At the same time, they must find books they can market within the established parameters of the genre. So read right across the gamut of speculative fiction, current and classic. Search out the unanswered questions still hidden in heroic fantasy. Examine the established themes in urban dark fantasy then look at them from unexpected angles. Look for unexplored territory on the margins between tales of swords and sorcery and ray-guns and rocket-ships? Then push your story as far as you can without actually breaking through those genre boundaries. No-one can ever define them but everyone can see when they’re broken.
Are you satisfied your plot leads naturally to a satisfactory conclusion and at the same time, plays against expectation? Your internal logic must be robust, and it must be apparent to complete strangers, who don’t know how you think, who cannot fill in the missing dots to get the whole picture. On the other hand, you have to astound friends who know you better than anyone else. You must also satisfy and yet still surprise readers who are steeped in fantasy fiction from Tolkien, Lord Dunsany and Poul Anderson onwards.
Why didn’t Gandalf call up an eagle and drop the One Ring into the Cracks of Doom from thirty thousand feet? Why doesn’t Superman rule the world and save everyone a lot of bother? Test your plot with the most awkward questions you can think of. Don’t rest until you have an answer to confound the fussiest nit-picker. If there’s a difficult choice to be made, take the harder route and search out the most creative solution. Never accept an easy answer.
Once you have your original, exciting idea, balance your passion with objectivity about your writing. Take the time and the pains to learn your craft. You’ll still get a ‘thanks but no thanks’ rejection if your story sinks beneath stereotypical characters, pedestrian prose and diabolical dialogue. Make every word count. Be ruthless with over-writing and revise and revise again. Every single passage must answer one of the following questions. How does this advance the story? Why do readers need to know this?
Your characters will doubtless fulfil one or more of the stock roles of fantasy fiction; hero, helper, heroine, villain but they must still come off the page as living, breathing, loving, hating, sorrowful, joyful, triumphant people. They must live beyond the confines of this story and they must be convincing within the story. If your characters are defined by one over-riding characteristic, you are not writing fantasy, you’re writing melodrama. Melodrama is essentially unbelievable. The best fantasy fiction is wholly convincing, a magic mirror reflecting real life.
Real people give themselves away every time they open their mouth, so use dialogue and body language to convey your characters. Actions can speak louder than words, especially when someone does something at odds with what they say. Remember each individual’s hopes and fears, their background, their likes and dislikes affect everyone else, no matter how insignificant. Make sure every character remains consistent.
Plot and character must mesh seamlessly and both must mesh with setting. Any original idea developed with vibrant characters must still play out in fully realised, three-dimensional surroundings, whether the story’s set in Middle Earth or Manchester. So consider what is felt, smelt, touched and heard as well as seen in any description.
Fantasy must be rooted in reality, to give readers points of contact to enable suspension of disbelief. If your readers believe this imagined world is real, they will follow you into the magic, into the unbelievable. So get your facts right, about travel, food, costume, weapons, whatever. Research, like icebergs, goes nine-tenths unseen, but inadequate research inevitably betrays itself and suspension of disbelief snaps beyond repair.
On the other hand, too much extraneous detail will bury your plot and stifle your characters. Focus your research on what you need to know to develop that convincing background for your characters and to facilitate your story. Then consider how tourists visiting a new country learn things when they need to. Explain something in most detail when it’s most directly relevant to the particular scene or character, or crucial to advancing the plot. Elsewhere, you can often paint the backdrop with broader brush strokes.
Thus, as this overview shows, the art of writing fantasy is complex. Yet it’s also simple. Ultimately, as with all fiction, the challenge is writing a book that an agent or editor cannot bear not to see published.
An article for Writers’ Forum Magazine, Christmas 2006
Juliet E McKenna is a British fantasy author living in the Cotswolds, UK. Loving history, myth and other worlds since she first learned to read, she has written fifteen epic fantasy novels so far. Her debut, The Thief’s Gamble, began The Tales of Einarinn in 1999, followed by The Aldabreshin Compass sequence, The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution, and The Hadrumal Crisis trilogy. The Green Man’s Heir was her first modern fantasy rooted in British folklore in 2018, followed by The Green Man’s Foe, The Green Man’s Silence, and The Green Man’s Challenge. She writes and comments on book trade issues, has served as a judge for major genre awards, and reviews online and for magazines. She writes diverse short stories and novellas enjoying forays into alternate history, darker fantasy, steampunk and SF. As J M Alvey, she has also written murder mysteries set in ancient Greece. As well as the next Green Man book, she’s currently working on The Cleaving, a feminist retelling of Arthurian myth, to be published in May 2023. Visit julietemckenna.com or follow @JulietEMcKenna on Twitter to keep up to date.
My first Milford was nearly 43 years ago (good grief!) in 1981, when it was still held at Milford-on-Sea because of the name. Among the participants was George RR Martin, and so when Game of Thrones made it big on TV, I was able to say, shamelessly, “Well, of course I know George…”
I missed the 1982 Milford because I’d started a new job in the middle of the year and had used up more than all of my truncated annual leave allowance on my TAFF trip to Chicago and other destinations in the US. The President then was Ronald Reagan, and I have no idea how he managed to get elected since no one I met on my trip had voted for him.
My last Milford was 1983. A week after it ended, I married Diana Reed, another of the attendees, in Cornwall. This was carefully planned, I hasten to add, not a sudden elopement. Other Milford alumni at our wedding were Rob Holdstock, Garry Kilworth and Andrew Stephenson, and my best man was Dave Langford. Marriage, a new career and starting a family somewhat got in the way of writing – more than somewhat – but I have returned to it in recent years, following retirement to Wadebridge in Cornwall. Though perhaps it should be said that much of my writing now is news reports, press releases, website updates, Facebook posts and other communications for the various local community organisations I volunteer for.
Diana still writes as Diana Reed, and every so often has a poem or short story published. A few years ago we formed a small writers group in Wadebridge, adopting what are essentially Milford rules for the quarterly meetings, which have continued through the pandemic via Zoom, Google Docs and email. And there’s a deadline to meet – hurrah!
Still, I have written a novel (fantasy, with a young hero) but in writing the sequel (of course there’s a sequel) I have discovered things I’d like to change in volume 1 (probably, possibly), such as the gender of one of the main characters. Does this tie back to the discussion forum topic about knowing when to stop?
Perhaps this is when to stop.
Footnote * Not that it made any difference. Few of my friends here in Cornwall are bothered about Game of Thrones, and my children (who do like it) refuse to be impressed by such things.
Kevin Smith attended two Milfords in the early 1980s, but life is odd and his career in finance in Shell developed in other ways that were challenging and creative, and provided a surer foundation for bringing up a young family than writing sf and fantasy. After several decades, Shell made him an irresistible offer to go away and he took up the status of pensioner in Wadebridge, North Cornwall, with Diana. He now volunteers with Wadebridge Renewable Energy Network (WREN), Wadebridge Creative Hub and a couple of local clubs where his ability to string more than three words together grammatically makes him invaluable as ‘communications officer’, which in turn provides many plausible excuses for not getting on with that novel…
My first book, Empire of Dust, a space opera, came out in October 2014. I was excited, pleased and nervous all at the same time. A week or so before publication my author copies arrived, all packed up is a big shipping box. I can’t begin to tell you how delighted I was to get them – so delighted I gave them their very own bookshelf.
The book slipped out without a launch. For one month it went into the Locus best sellers list of February 2015, based on the figures from November 2024. Then it disappeared from there, never to be seen again. It got some good reviews, especially in Publishers’ Weekly (and I’m pleased to say, no real stinkers even on Amazon).
“Bedford builds a taut story around the dangers of a new world…. Readers who crave high adventure and tense plots will enjoy this voyage into the future.“- Publishers’ Weekly
“The skill of this book lies in Bedford’s ability to seamlessly combine intrigue-heavy, multi-viewpoint plotting with human stories featuring characters you care about – a rare feat in this genre.” – Jaine Fenn (Tales from the Garrett)
There were things I wish I’d known in advance.
Even if you’re published by a major traditional publisher you still need to work like hell to push your book.
It was only when my second book, Crossways, came out and DAW put me in contact with my publicist at PenguinRandomHouse, that I realised I must have had a publicist for Empire of Dust, but I’d never been introduced, and I hadn’t known to ask. A publicist sends out review copies, arranges interviews and possible guest blogs – mostly before publication day. A marketing person largely sees to promotion after publication. Sad to say, few publishing houses will spend a lot on advertising (magazines and online) unless you’re Mercedes Lackey or Patrick Rothfuss. In fact, advertising seems to increase with your sales figures. Does advertising improve your visibility, or does your visibility encourage your publisher to advertise? Those of us with books slithering out into the world almost unannounced and unadvertised are convinced that advertising would increase our sales figures if only there was a budget for it. Sadly, after seven books unadvertised, I still don’t know the answer to that one.
I was a bit slow on the uptake when my first book came out, but subsequently I’ve used the following to get word out of new books
Website – check
Mailing list – check
Blog – check
Blog-swaps with other authors – check
Twitter – check
Facebook – check
Instagram – check
I avoid posting things which only say ‘buy my book’. I add value to my posts – writing tips, interest pieces, news of other people’s books, and books I’ve enjoyed reading. I promote my own books alongside other people’s, of course, but I try to do it subtly.
Note: TikTok didn’t exist when my first book came out and I confess that I still haven’t used it, but I’m getting better at Instagram, though I’ve now dropped X – formerly known as Twitter.
Though DAW has always given me a say in my cover illustrations, I haven’t had any input into the cover design. I bitterly regret not saying something when my second psi-tech novel (Crossways) looked nothing like the first in cover design, even though the cover illustrations were by the same artist (Stephan Martiniere) and the cover designs for all three were by G-Force Design. The third book (Nimbus) looked as though it was part of the same trilogy as Crossways, but sadly Empire of Dust looks as if it has been orphaned by the unified design of the other two. Also, with hindsight, I would have given the first book in the trilogy a one-word title – probably Psi-Tech. What do you think?
My Rowankind fantasy trilogy is much better coordinated, though the typeface has been changed between the first book and the other two. The illustrator is Larry Rostant and the cover design for all three books is once again by G-Force Design. I love the cover illustrations.
I enjoyed writing the trilogies, but I decided my next project would be a standalone. It’s a historical fantasy set in an analogue of the Baltic States. It came out in January 2022.
All these things are not rocket science, but things you learn by experience. I’m still learning. And while i’m learning, I’m working on two very different projects.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Oscar Wilde ‘Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.’
milfordsfwriters 