How hard is it to write a book

[tidlywinksthebarbershop]

Tell me your struggles everything

@PizzzaExpressWoking

CherryPavlova is the same poster who got busted posting photos of "her house" which turned out to be photos stolen from the website of a hotel in France. Who has posted a thousand and one outlandish claims about her extraordinary perfect fairytale life, involving being simultaneously at the very top of half a dozen different A-list careers, while running a perfect fairtytale village, raising an indeterminate number of children who are all prima ballerina-medical students who have never for a second been anything less than perfectly behaved, being best friends with any number of celebrities and world leaders, etc. etc.

Cherry claiming that she started writing as a hobby during lockdown and within a matter of months wrote and published four-five books through a major publisher without an agent (during the same time period she's previously claimed to have been a member of Boris Johnson's COVID taskforce and one of the first people in the UK to have tested positive for COVID) isn't even the most outlandish claim she's made.

I earn a living as a writer and am represented by Curtis Brown and published by Random House. Not a single word of any of Cherry's posts here represent the reality of how the publishing industry works and there are major errors in her posts like confusing graphic designers with illustrators. Literally any writer or anyone who works in publishing will say the same.

Happy to supply the details by private message but last post taken down as it contained identifying details.

I have very limited experience - if my publisher says graphic designer, then I assume they know what they are talking about.

Whether you choose to believe or not is entirely up to you - although you are being incredibly rude - I assume you spend most of your life on another fairly unpleasant social media platform with self appointed MN vigilantes? I never understand why people are so narrow visioned they can't see beyond their own narrow perspective. I also don't know how your massive exaggerations and generalisation bear any resemblance to reality. "Literally anyone who works in publishing" sounds like one of those truculent teenagers who say, "Its not fair, Everyone is allowed to".

I also make a living from writing novels and teaching CW. I know a large number of traditionally-published writers from debut novelists to major prize-winners, memoirists, biographers and literary historians. All have agents, bar the poets.

I am published by HC. I have an agent. I also know how long it takes to write a book and how much work is needed to get a book to publication.

Another writer here. I find writing books to be the fun part - I love teasing out an idea and watching the word count go up and up. I love how even an extra 50 words feels like progress. I love the potential in an idea before it's been executed.

For me it's the editing and making it better that is the hard part. My last book was 15 edits before the version that is in the shops. 15! That's the hard part - really hard. It's when I have the self-doubt and the feeling of 'is this worth it?' That's the part when I think I'll never go through it all again, but then I get a new idea and I'm back to the first, fun part again and the cycle continues ...

This is all very interesting. I've been told several times, by different people, that I 'tell a good story' and that I should write a book. But how do you decide what to write on?

Do you write in the same genre that you enjoy reading? Or do you stick to something you know about?

I'm a nurse by profession (not currently working), with children with SN. I enjoy reading John Grisham, Jodi Picoult, Patricia Cornwell, crime, mystery, moral dilemma, true crime, history, etc. I stopped reading Martina Cole and James Patterson because of the graphic gratuitous sexual violence.

Any ideas?

My advice is just to start. I played with a few genres before I got a sense of where my strengths are, and it wasn’t quite where I’d initially thought I’d land. For every book I’ve finished I’ve two more that never got off the ground because I couldn’t get the right voice

Is it easier to try getting a short piece in a magazine?
A friend wrote a heartfelt piece (to 'get it off her chest') when her daughter told her she was planning to move to Australia with her husband and small children.
This was later published in a magazine. The daughter didn't go btw.

@Lougle

This is all very interesting. I've been told several times, by different people, that I 'tell a good story' and that I should write a book. But how do you decide what to write on?

Do you write in the same genre that you enjoy reading? Or do you stick to something you know about?

I'm a nurse by profession (not currently working), with children with SN. I enjoy reading John Grisham, Jodi Picoult, Patricia Cornwell, crime, mystery, moral dilemma, true crime, history, etc. I stopped reading Martina Cole and James Patterson because of the graphic gratuitous sexual violence.

Any ideas?

You certainly need to read a lot in your genre, as there’s a big difference between ‘telling a good story’ to an audience you can see and being able to grip a reader you’ve never met enough to keep them turning the pages. You need to think analytically about what makes a particular novel work for you as a reader — how does this author ramp up tension, scatter clues, engage your interest in characters, provide a satisfying ending etc. What does a novel you didn’t like in the same genre get ‘wrong’? What has made you keep reading or put down a book after a chapter?

Ideally you write in a genre you know well and enjoy and use a field of knowledge and/or experience you know a lot about and that will be interesting and convincing to a reader who doesn’t know it. If you’re a nurse who likes to read crime/moral dilemma novels, are there things you can use from work as the kernel of a plot or character? Hospitals are so full of stories.

Obviously, you can also research things you don’t know about. My first novel was sparked off by a self-portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, but took me to archives in Paris. My second one was sparked by an isolated place I’ve spent time in and a minor player in a real-life unsolved crime.

This thread is great.

I’m a struggling writer. Have my story and characters but taking ages to write it as I keep going back to earlier chapters to rewrite and get them perfect.

Think I need to just sit down and get words on to a page, then begin putting them into proper shape once they’re all down.

I work with a published author. He wrote about his life. The profits are going to charity. Its been an absolute success so far and he's being encouraged to write another.
He had several publishers interested.
He told me how hard it is. I have no clue as I can't write for shit. But also what a wonderful feeling getting it finished and the joy of seeing it on a shelf ❤️

My partner wants to write a children's book. We got pretty serious about it a few years ago. Perhaps we'll do it one day (the framework is all there)

Another published author here with an agent, but I know several successful writers who don't have agents. Harper Collins has several imprints where authors can send their work in directly. Of course I didn't see what Cherry wrote. Is she both the hotel photograph poster and the one who's written several successful self-published novels?

Lego, you mentioned "Save the Cat". Is that the one by Jessica Brody about novel writing - not the one by Blake Snyder on screenwriting?

Writing a book is the last thing left on my 'bucket list' and I now have a little bit more time than I used to but....I have three roads I could take and am not sure which to follow - a) write a novel just for the fun of it b) write a novel targeted from the beginning on trying to make some money c) write non-fiction related to my professional background.

For the real, published writers on here, how did you decide whether to write for fun or for income - or was it for a bit of both?

Also, I'm not very good at thinking of a plot because everything I come up with, I think "Oh that's so cliched...It's all been done before....that's so predictable". The bit I enjoy most is writing descriptively and 'playing with words' (like a long poem or a literary novel) rather than planning a well structured plot with all the necessary intricacies, well-timed plot development, turning points etc.

How do you - real life published writers - decide on a good plot that's sufficiently original, yet 'familiar' enough to attract readers of your genre?

@mutterphore, I write literary fiction, and the originality of the plot is less important than other elements like voice, language, characterisation, setting etc. If you write psychological thrillers, mysteries or crime novels, plot originality will be more important. The really good instances will have all of the above, obviously!

I don't think that setting out to write a novel purely for money is likely to work, especially if you want to publish traditionally -- it can be hard to second-guess the market, and what it will be doing once you've have got an agent, and that agent has got your novel in front of an editor who buys it etc is even more difficult to predict.

Obviously, if you're writing subsequent novels, you will sometimes have to choose between retreading familiar ground that your readers like and have come to expect, but that's not what you're asking.

I would write the kind of thing you read and enjoy, whatever that is.

Write for fun. Trying to second guess the market is impossible and I’ve found you really need to believe in your project yo get through the editing phase

@HollowTalk

Another published author here with an agent, but I know several successful writers who don't have agents. Harper Collins has several imprints where authors can send their work in directly. Of course I didn't see what Cherry wrote. Is she both the hotel photograph poster and the one who's written several successful self-published novels?

Yes to photograph no to any self published novels. No publication at all except professional magazine articles.

Four books due soon - non fiction through a publisher. The same publisher has offered to accept two more titles in my series as soon as I can get them written. Then two more the year after. No reason to doubt they know what they are doing as they are a specialist publisher. I’m working on the two to follow on from the four.

One non fiction in progress but different discussion with someone who was an MD with HC and advised. No contract but advised it has legs and to pursue. They will submit to a couple of people still in publishing for me eventually. Clearly it wasn’t a completely random and unsolicited ‘Hey, you used to be an MD at Harper Colin’s, will you read my offerings?” They did advise re:no agent. His ex-wife is a very well known author and he has published numerous books himself. He doesn’t have an agent and now works outside of publishing,

My husband has a contract from John Catt but has no agent. Again, non-fiction and well known in specialist field.

I deleted the post as inadvertently self-identified with too much information.

Grand and Read, you give good advice. Many thanks.

Grand, can I ask how you got into writing literary fiction? Was it just that you began to write and it transpired that literary fiction 'emerged', so to speak or did you have a background in writing (eg profession in publishing/editing etc) and gradually started to write your own stuff for a living?

No need to answer if you don't want to. I'm just interested in how people progress from idea to action and do many people reach the age that Mary Wesley did when she first started to write - or is that really a bit too late?

I've written and published 3 books over the last fifteen years or so. I had roughly 300 sales, and have now unpublished them, on the basis that I know I can do better.
I didn't bother going down the traditional publishers route, as it's incredibly difficult to get a manuscript accepted if you're not well known already, or an established author.
I joined various Facebook groups on creative writing, and some of the drafts I read were appalling; poor spelling, grammar errors and unnatural dialogue.
I would quite like to write another, but it would only be for my own satisfaction.

@mutterphore

Grand and Read, you give good advice. Many thanks.

Grand, can I ask how you got into writing literary fiction? Was it just that you began to write and it transpired that literary fiction 'emerged', so to speak or did you have a background in writing (eg profession in publishing/editing etc) and gradually started to write your own stuff for a living?

No need to answer if you don't want to. I'm just interested in how people progress from idea to action and do many people reach the age that Mary Wesley did when she first started to write - or is that really a bit too late?

Literary fiction is what I read most, and where my real love is, so that was always what I was going to write. I don’t read much genre/commercial fiction, and have never had any urge to write it. I don’t have any background in publishing or connections, no.

I just wrote a novel, rewrote it a lot, sent it to some agents from the Writers and Artists Yearbook, had two offers of representation and signed with one, who worked on further revisions with me and then sold it, and things went on from there.

Like most novelists, though, I still have a part-time day job, my income from writing isn’t enough to live on.

FWIW, IME the UK big publishers generally want unpublished, new fiction authors to be agented unless they are celebrities or have connections to editors, excepting competitions and initiatives to promote disadvantaged groups and a few imprints that accept direct submissions. In the spectrum from large publisher to independent to vanity press, it can be an indicator of a vanity press to encourage unagented direct relationships as it's intrinsic to their revenue model of securing money from the author rather than book-buyers.

Thank you for all that sensible sounding advice LegoPirateMonkey - I got totally bogged down circa 30-40k in the intricacies, but I slowed myself down a bit, made a long list of loose threads and mulled in the bath regularly. Quite a few threads are now coming together in a satisfying manner. at least in very rough outline. Ready to get back to the slog again now, and I'm starting to like some characters, and enjoy some parts of the plot, rather than feeling like I'm still manically throwing words at the page.

I just which I'd started this years ago. As well as trying my hand at writing, I'm trying to learn the craft of writing, and as much as I can about the writing world. The more I learn, the more I realise I don't know.

Currently devouring videos on Reedly as well as getting practise in with short, and even micro stories, and my daily cry is, "Where the heck did today go?"

*wish not which - see I can't even proofread a forum post doh