Writers Write

One of the problems with plotting...

Many beginner writers struggle with plotting. This is often because they don’t have an antagonist. In Writers Write we teach that the antagonist is not necessarily a bad person. The antagonist is the character whose story goal is the opposite of the protagonist's story goal.

This diagram illustrates this perfectly. Each of these characters is the hero of his or her own story. Without an antagonist your hero will wallow in his or her thoughts for 80 00 words.

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From Writers Write - How to write a novel

 by Amanda Patterson

Writers Write offers the best writing courses in South Africa. To find out about Writers Write - How to write a book, or The Plain Language Programme - Writing courses for business, email news@writerswrite.co.za

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Avoid these words when you write:

·       all at once
·       began to
·       eventually
·       immediately
·       just then
·       might
·       often
·       proceeded to
·       started to
·       suddenly
·       then

Don’t say:
Sarah immediately began to think about leaving Tom.
Do say:
Sarah thought about leaving Tom.
Don’t say:
Just then Jabu started to call his doctor.
Do say:
Jabu called his doctor.
Don’t say:
The children suddenly proceeded to eat the sweets.
Do say:
The children ate the sweets.

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 by Amanda Patterson

Writers Write offers the best writing courses in South Africa. To find out about Writers Write - How to write a book, or The Plain Language Programme - How to write for business, email news@writerswrite.co.za 

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Writers Write - Write to communicate

The ghost writer provides an interesting service to the world of stories. After all, a book is written by the ghost writer but someone else gets the credit. ‘The book just seemed to write itself,’ the author will tell the press and adoring fans. And, the ghost writer will sit in the wings, the Cinderella of the literary world.

What does it take to become a ghost writer? 

Obviously, the ability to write is crucial, but these three things are just as important: 

1. The ghost-writer requires oodles of patience, empathy and the ability to actually listen to the author’s story and then translate it into a publishable book. 
2. The ghost-writer requires a special talent to write the story in the author’s voice. Discipline and an understanding of storytelling techniques are crucial tools for the aspiring ghost-writer.
3. Ghost-writers need to deal with big egos but should not succumb to their own. Why? Because it is really difficult to sit back after giving birth to a story that hits the best seller list and the name on the cover gets all the credit. 

Why do writers become ghost writers?

Writers need to eat and this is one way to make money. Ghost writers are paid a flat rate to write so if the book is a flop this will not affect the ghost writer’s pocket. 
The ghost writer has access to different stories. The opportunity to work with celebrities and other interesting people is one of the perks of the job. Ghost writers get an open invitation to the lifestyles of the rich-and-famous.
Telling other people’s stories is exciting and creates a perspective on different styles of writing. 

Seven Famous Ghost Writers and Authors

1. Michael Robotham (Bleed for Me) was ghost-writer for ‘authors’ like Geri Halliwell and Rolf Harris.
2. Carolyne Keen is as fictional as the teen sleuth, Nancy Drew that she was supposed to create.
3. James Patterson credits his ghost-writers as co-authors on the covers of his books. Peter de Jongh (Shadows still Remain) and Andrew Gross (15 Seconds) were two of Patterson’s co-authors.
4. John F Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize winning book, Profiles in Courage, was ghost-written by his speech writer, Theodore Sorenson.
5. Ian Fleming died while writing The Man with the Golden Gun so Kinglsey Amis had to step in as writer.
6. RL Stine, author of the Goosebumps series, turned to ghost-writers to help him churn out the popular chiller series faster.
7. The Star Wars book was credited to director George Lucas but was actually ghost-written by Alan Dean Foster.

Writers Write has a dinner with a ghost writing theme - The Ghost in the Machine - in Johannesburg on 29 May 2013. 
If you want to learn how to write a book, and begin your career as a ghost writer, join our creative writing course Writers Write – How to write a book in June. Email neo@writerswrite.co.za for more details.
If you’re looking for a ghost writer to write your story, email neo@writerswrite.co.za for details.

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 by Ulrike Hill 

Ulrike Hill is a Business & Creative Writing Facilitator for Writers Write. She is the author of Tackling the Brickwall and co-author of Debbie Calitz: 20 Months of Hostage Hell (Penguin).

Writers Write offers the best writing courses in South Africa. To find out about Writers Write - How to write a book, or The Plain Language Programme - How to write for business, email news@writerswrite.co.za 

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Writers Write - Write to communicate

Use the he/him method.

• He = who
• Him = whom 

Examples:

 by Amanda Patterson

Writers Write offers the best writing courses in South Africa. To find out about Writers Write - How to write a book, or The Plain Language Programme - How to write for business, email news@writerswrite.co.za 

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Writers Write - Write to communicate

We are often asked if characters should describe themselves at Writers Write. We are asked how they could describe themselves. When we came across this post by Stephanie Orges, we wanted to share some of her ideas with you. (If you want to read the full article, follow the link at the end)

Six Ways First Person Narrators Can Describe Themselves

By Stephanie Orges

1. Don’t describe him at all
Do your readers have to know what the protagonist looks like to understand the plot? If not, consider leaving it out altogether. 

2. Give it to your reader straight
If you are actually telling the story with frequent quirky asides to your “dear reader”, your hero can simply describe himself during introductions. But be warned: don’t try to force it if this isn’t your style.

3. Embarrass them
Make them self-conscious about a physical flaw. She only smiles close-mouthed because she’s embarrassed by the gap in her teeth. He wishes he had biceps like the head jock.

4. Compare and contrast with another character
‘My daughter has my crooked smile, but her father’s blue eyes’. These can even create a poetic effect, as you can simultaneously compare and contrast personality traits as well.

5. Use dialogue
Her best friend gently explains dark roots are out of fashion. His father remarks he really ought to cut his hair (he looks like a hippie). Her enemy asks if she’s a natural redhead. Use compliments and nicknames.

6. Show, don’t tell
If they are short, have them struggle to reach something most others could get. If tall, have them duck through doorways. If they are unattractive, make them self-conscious around people of the opposite sex. Your hero’s appearance is reflected in the way other characters react to it.

Read the full article: Source

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Writers Write offers the best writing courses in South Africa. To find out about Writers Write - How to write a book, or The Plain Language Programme - Writing courses for business, email news@writerswrite.co.za

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Writers Write - Write to communicate

The Agatha Christie Code

Agatha Christie wrote 85 books that sold between two and four billion copies.

According to UNESCO, she is the most translated author in the history of the world. The Guinness Book of World Records has recognized her as the Best Selling Author in any genre of all time. See the list of the Top 10 Best-Selling Authors here.

Note: Shakespeare was left out of this comparison, because he wrote plays and not novels. Even so, the best he can do is match Agatha Christie’s sales numbers.  

What is Agatha Christie’s secret to success?

There is a link between the success of Agatha Christie and Plain Language.

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do. ~Thomas Jefferson

Dame Agatha seems to have mastered that talent. In The Agatha Christie Code, a team of professional linguists in England analysed Dame Agatha’s way with words.

The experts agree that she has a hypnotic style, but it is her use of patterns and plain language that make her so readable.

In Plain Language

Dr Pernilla Danielsson explains her success by her use of Plain Language.  

An excellent example is that Christie almost exclusively uses the word ‘said’. (Novice authors often try to use silly synonyms when said is the perfect choice.) She doesn’t introduce new words, but makes the reader comfortable with her use of everyday language. She doesn’t challenge the reader with big words, and long convoluted sentences. She doesn’t bore the reader with unnecessary descriptions. The reader is free to enjoy the story by focusing on the plot.

Her books also follow a formula

They are all similar in style, word length, and sentence length. Take Evil Under the Sun as an example. This novel follows her classic formula: 

1. There is a body, very early on
2. There is a closed group of suspects, either because of setting or social group
3. The detective arrives
4. We are taken through a series of red herrings
5. There is a solution, and closure

Excerpts from The Agatha Christie Code

But how many other best-selling authors use plain language?

Agatha Christie is not the only author to have realised the value of using Plain Language. In Fiction Writer’s Brainstormer, James V. Smith explains exactly how the best-selling authors succeed.

A Writing Standard

After studying authors like Stephen King, John Grisham, Danielle Steele, and Elmore Leonard, he came up with this as an ideal writing standard (if you want to sell your books).

You should have (on average):

• no more than 4 characters a word in any scene
• no more than 5% passive voice
• no less than 80% readability on the Flesch-Kincaid scale
• no higher than a 5th grade readability level on the Flesch-Kincaid scale

This is writing in plain language. If you want to communicate, I recommend you try it. If you want to sell lots of books, I recommend you apply this formula. On our creative course, Writers Write, we teach you exactly how to do this.

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 by Amanda Patterson

Writers Write offers the best writing courses in South Africa. To find out about Writers Write - How to write a book, or The Plain Language Programme - How to write for business, email news@writerswrite.co.za 

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Writers Write - Write to communicate

Join us on Facebook and Twitter for daily writing tips

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Writers Write - Write to communicate

Created by Writers Write on Someecards

Writers Write offers the best writing courses in South Africa. To find out about Writers Write - How to write a book, or The Plain Language Programme - How to write for business, email news@writerswrite.co.za 

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Writers Write - Write to communicate

1. A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity. It dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.  ~Agatha Christie
2. Our mothers always remain the strangest, craziest people we’ve ever met. ~Marguerite Duras
3. My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it. ~Mark Twain
4. Life began with waking up and loving my mother’s face. ~George Eliot
5. Mothers are all slightly insane. ~J.D. Salinger
6. I know enough to know that no woman should ever marry a man who hated his mother.” ~Martha Gellhorn
7. But mothers lie. It’s in the job description. ~John Green
8. If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much. -Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
9. When Jack Burns needed to hold his mother’s hand, his fingers could see in the dark. ~John Irving
10. Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.  ~Barbara Kingsolver 
11. Only mothers can think of the future - because they give birth to it in their children. ~Maxim Gorky 
12. No one is more sentimentalized in America than mothers on Mother’s Day, but no one is more often blamed for the culture’s bad people and behavior. ~Anne Lamott 
13. The only mothers it is safe to forget on Mother’s Day are the good ones.  ~Mignon McLaughlin
14. How many straight men maintain inappropriately intimate relationships with their mothers? How many shop with them? I want a gay son. People laugh, but they assume I’m kidding. I’m not. ~Ayelet Waldman 
15. One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters. ~George Herbert

 by Amanda Patterson

Writers Write offers the best writing courses in South Africa. To find out about Writers Write - How to write a book, orThe Plain Language Programme - How to write for business, email news@writerswrite.co.za 

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The Ghost in the Machine

I turn sentences around. That’s my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and I turn it around again. Then I have lunch. ~Philip Roth, The Ghost Writer

A ghost writer is a writer who writes books, articles, or stories that are officially credited to another person. Celebrities, executives, and politicians often hire ghost writers to draft or edit autobiographies. 

Find out more about this intriguing writing process at our Writers Write dinner for May 2013. Meet two ghost writers and have fun writing.

Theme: The Ghost Writer – our writing exercise will highlight the humorous side of ghost writing 
Venue: The Marion on Nicol, Corner Stirling & Hamilton Roads, Hurlingham, Johannesburg 
Date: 29 May 2013 from 18:30 – 21:30 
Cost: R280 per guest – this includes a three-course meal, insights from two ghost-writers, and writing exercises (Drinks for your own account) 
RSVP: news@writerswrite.co.za

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Writers Write offers the best writing courses in South Africa. To find out about Writers Write - How to write a book, or The Plain Language Programme - How to write for business, email news@writerswrite.co.za 

Join us on Facebook and Twitter for daily writing tips

Follow @Writers_Write

Writers Write - Write to communicate