Whether you’re a new writer or writing your third novel, a community to share ideas and receive encouragement is something special.

Follow my Club (Writers’ Pool) on Clubhouse to get this benefit. A community for writers to discuss, collaborate and support each other. It’s a non-judgemental, non-stuffy space which welcomes writers of all experience levels. It’s about helping each other up rather than knocking each other down. 

I run regular ‘rooms’ on the app about lots of aspects of writing and storytelling. Sometimes I invite special guests to join me in the room who can offer all kinds of valuable insights into the writing process and industry.

Writers’ Pool on Clubhouse

Clubhouse is an audio-only mobile social media platform which promotes real connection between people. There’s no pressure to speak in any of my rooms if you’re a bit shy. So whether you’re a speaker or you’d prefer to stay in the audience, my Club is a great way to get support and motivation in your writing.

Plot or Character first?

Deciding whether to create a plot or a character first can be a challenge. Writing fiction can feel like going around in circles, constantly changing your mind about which element to focus on – plot or character.

There’s a short answer and a long answer. Here’s the short answer: character.

Now here’s the long answer:

Perhaps you’ve spent years on a story and you’re still not finished. You’re still editing. You know it’s still not right, yet you can’t find the work-arounds that will get the manuscript to feel ‘done’. It feels a bit empty, somehow. 

I hope this blog has found you before you’ve got that bogged down in it. I hope you’re still early (ish) in the writing process – ideally still on your first draft or beginning to revise it. It’s never too late to fix a story, but all writers want to take the most direct route, yes?

The problem of not being happy with your story is likely to be because you’ve had your focus too much on plot. You’ve probably been spending too much time thinking up new things that could happen to your character and not enough time considering what your character would do about it. 

Character -based plotting

By using a character-based plotting method, you move towards considering the character and what they would do and how they would think and feel in various situations. It doesn’t mean that you forget about plot entirely. There’s a very small readership out there for novels which are all about the depth of a character’s soul but in which nothing happens.

Character-based plotting means that you get to know your character so well that you know what they will do in whatever situation you throw at them in their story. It means that your readers will care about their suffering, their victories, their sacrifices and the strength they have developed by the end of the story.

It’s your characters that your readers really care about. Start there.

Perfectionism – why its not serving you as a writer

Perfectionism is a common trait amongst writers. It is especially true of fiction writers, who often spend hours worrying over their exact word choices and word order. They might lose half an hour deliberating over a comma. Does this sound like you?

If you recognise yourself in this, then know this. Perfectionism is not serving you. 

Spending forever trying to make a single story perfect does not serve you. Carving out your single novel over years does not serve you. Keeping your writing secret does not serve you. Not moving on does not serve you.

Writing one single piece of fiction keeps you stuck. And while you’re stuck, there are people putting out books that are not as good as yours. They’re writing blogs on the Internet. They’re sharing their imperfect stories. They’re making sales. They’re becoming known. 

Most importantly, they are becoming better writers.

How to Overcome Perfectionism

In the book Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland, the writers explain how this works. They tell the story of a ceramics teacher who split his class into two groups. The first group would be given a grade solely based on the quantity of work they produced. Their grade would have nothing to do with the quality. The second group of students was required to produce just one item, but in order to receive an A it had to be perfect.

Both groups worked away. The first group made piece after piece. They moved on quickly, not lingering on their work. The second group focused on a single piece, trying to find a way to make it flawless.

How to Overcome Perfectionism as a Writer

Yes, it can hurt to put out a story that someone might criticise for being less than perfect. But keeping your writing secret until you’ve crafted that one masterpiece will mean that masterpiece is never going to happen. You’ll have formed some great theories about how to write that perfect novel but you won’t have it there in reality.

Sticking to your one single novel, painfully carving out the words over years, is not the way to end up writing a great novel. The way to write great work is to write often and to write new stories and new scenes. 

Keep moving on. Form a writing habit. When you combine this with time spent learning the craft of writing fiction, you can’t help but improve in your storytelling, your structure and your style.

Would you get up tomorrow and decide run a marathon?

You might decide you wanted to run a marathon, true. You might decide that you were going to start running this week and plan to build up to longer distances. You would probably reach out to your park run organisers and local groups. You would almost certainly ask those in the know how you should start and what equipment you should invest in.

You would NOT, however, dust off the trainers you’ve not worn in ten years, step out your front door and run twenty six miles.

Imagine how that conversation would go with a fitness coach…

“Hi! Let’s start with your fitness goals. What do you want to be able to do? Walk a mile? Walk up flights of stairs without getting breathless? Run 5k? …”

“I want to run a marathon.”

“OK, wow! Good on you. How long have you had marathon running as an ambition?”

“Years. I’ve always thought I’ve had a marathon in me. I’ve just never got around to starting.”

“And now you’re ready? Fantastic! Well, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll start with finding out what your fitness level is like and then work on building up your strength and stamina. If you look around the gym you’ll see there are different areas for different types of work – ”

“Oh, no, no! You don’t understand. I don’t want to do all those things.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“No, I don’t want to do those things. What I want to do is run a marathon.”

“Yee-ess. I understand that. What we are able to do here is train you from the place you’re at right now to a place of fitness and stamina that will mean you’re able to run that marathon.”

“Hmm, I see. But there must be another way of doing it. I mean, I’m not saying you don’t know your job or anything, but I learned how to put one foot in front of another when I was really young. Can’t you just show me how to do it – you know, how to get my breathing right and how to go at the right pace and all that – then I’ll just put my name down for the next marathon?”

“You’re kidding me, right? You know it doesn’t work like that, right?”

“Why not? That other gym, the one down the road, say they can do that. It’s on all their advertisements.”

“Is it?”

I have lost count of the number of people I’ve spoken to who have a novel or personal story in mind. They know exactly what it is about and feel they just need to ‘get it out’. I understand that feeling. Of course they want to produce the great work they feel so passionately about.

Then, all too often, I hear the words I dread. The words that mean the person in front of me with such a great story to tell simply isn’t ready to work with me. The words that mean they are going to have to go through the painful process of trying ‘quick fixes’ and falling for flattering words before they can see what’s actually going to work.

What they say is, “I just need someone to start me off and show me what bits to put where and I’ll be fine.”

I used to try to re-educate those people, to try to save them months or years of pain in which they try to write their story but still can’t get it to come out right. I wished they could have understood me when I told them about the need to learn to tell a story that is irresistible – it’s not just about getting the events of the story down on paper. The actual principles of doing that are not very complicated but they take training, just like running a marathon does. I have learned that they will just look at me with that, “Yeah, what do you know?” expression.

They often end up with their confidence crushed, convinced there must be something inferior about them because they can’t do it … it was supposed to be simple and straightforward, wasn’t it? It was just a case of ‘getting it out’. They’re not ready to hear the truth until they’ve learned from bitter experience, which makes me really sad. I wish there was more I could do about it. Horse to water, and all that.

These days I content myself with wishing them the best of luck and reassuring them that my door is open should they change their mind.

Is nobody reading your stories? You’re probably doing THIS wrong…

You write a story, put it out there… and nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nobody (apart from your mum) seems to care. It’s a powerful story, one which had an impact on you when you lived or imagined it. Why doesn’t anyone comment on it or share it? The wind has been taken completely out of your sails. What went wrong?

Is it because what you have to say is worthless? Definitely not.

Rather, it is because people haven’t seen the value in what you have to say… which is a different matter.

And that is because (brace yourself for the honest feedback) you haven’t provided them with the story in a way that is of value to them. This is totally a problem you can do something about.

Creating an emotional connection with your readers

Go back to the time when you were living a story that you have tried to tell. It doesn’t matter if it’s a true story and you lived it for real, or if it’s a story that only happened in your head. How did you experience it? Or at least, how do you remember experiencing it? You might remember the colours, shapes, light, movements and other visual aspects of the experience. For example, do you remember the way that cloud sped across the sky and turned the ground grey?

Perhaps you recall the sounds more than the sights. The way the school children were shouting in their yard a quarter of a mile away; the way the back door slammed and cut off the noise from outside. Maybe you remember the characteristic rhythm of a clock.

It could be that you remember the feelings in your muscles, joints and ‘guts’ more than the sights or sounds. The way a person shrank in utter defeat or misery; the way you tapped and fiddled with a pen in your nervousness. The way people behaved physically – and changed their behaviour as the story moved on – is a third way you might have experienced the story.

These three ways of experiencing a story (sights, sounds and kinaesthetic sensations) are likely to be the main ways in which YOU experienced that story. The balance between the three ways varies from person to person, but you can be pretty sure that those three types of stimulus were present in your experience of the story.

Now let’s move on to how this can help you tell your story in a way that will help you form an emotional connection with your ideal audience…

Could you really write a book?

It seems that every other person these days has a book in them, whether it’s a book to tell their own story, a novel, or a book to complement their business. Do you recognise yourself in this?

How many of those people actually write their book? I don’t mean start writing it and leave off a thousand words in, or get an outline put together and do a bit of research about CreateSpace… I mean actually write an entire book. I don’t mean writing a first draft and then leaving it to gather dust in a drawer, either.

Elizabeth Gilbert (she’s the one who wrote Eat Pray Love) in her fabulous book Big Magic, which is about living a creative life, tells us about her idea for a book that got away. She started working on it, then for one reason and another she abandoned it. The idea left her and found someone else to write it. Someone else wrote the book instead of her.

Chances are, seeing as you’re reading this article, you’ve got an idea for a book. It could be a book you’ve been looking for but haven’t found anywhere. It could be a book which will motivate and help a particular group of people – people who really need to hear what you’ve got to say.

Here’s the thing. If you don’t write it, they’ll never hear it, unless they hear it from someone else. 

So why don’t YOU write it?

Excuse number one you might be making… “I don’t have time…” or “I’ll do it when I’ve got more time…” Let me ask you this: WHEN do you imagine you are going to have more time? When the kids are older? When they move out? When you win the lottery? When you’re in a residential home for the elderly?

How do you think those people who HAVE written books managed to do so, or at least when they were writing their first book? Few of us have a writing hut we can escape to for hours on end. What you do – what we ALL have to do – is fit your writing into the cracks in your life. That half hour when the kids are at their swimming lesson. That lunch break. That time between dinner and bed. If scrolling on social media is more important to you, carry on. If that soap opera is so vital, don’t let me stop you. Crack on. Someone else can write your book instead of you.

If you really want to write your book, you will. If you want to find excuses, you will. 

Excuse number two you might be making… “It’s too hard.” Writing a book IS hard – at least, writing a book worth reading is hard. There are various promotions out there which promise that you can be published thirty days from now. You could be, indeed. That doesn’t mean what you’ll have written will be any good.

It was Ernest Hemingway, apparently, who wrote, “The first draft of anything is sh*t.” In thirty days, you could possibly write a first draft of something. Or anything. Would you be happy with that as your legacy, though?

Writing a book is hard work. Some people call it practice. Effort. There’s no getting around it. Does that mean it’s too hard for you? It depends…

If you want to put in the work, you will. If you want to decide it’s too hard, you will.

Found this article useful? Try this one… https://bestbookyoucan.com/writing-business-book-know-start/

Planning on writing a business book?

You want to write a business book so that people will see you as the expert in your field? You want potential clients to be desperate to work with you? You want the book to sell or circulate in its thousands? …
What you need to do is keep those goals in mind every step of the way, isn’t it?
NO.
Frankly, a focus on those goals will lead to you writing a book which portrays you as a total ego-maniac. Nobody will want to read it, never mind act on it by seeking you out. I seriously doubt that even your nearest and dearest will be able to look you in the eye and tell you they’re impressed.
Think about it. How much time would you spend reading a book which is nothing more than an extremely wordy advert for its writer’s products or services?
Those goals are the benefits you want to achieve for yourself.
There is nothing wrong with wanting those benefits. You’re not a terrible person for having those ambitions.

‘But this is my story… Isn’t that valuable?’
We all have a story of some sort and yes, everyone’s story is valuable. Why do we find stories so interesting? Why are they so ingrained in our human natures? One word: emotion. When we read a story or watch a film, what we want is to feel what it is like to be that person and live that life. I am not sneering at stories in general nor at your personal story. Stories are wonderful expressions of ourselves.
But here’s the thing… when a person reads a novel, that emotional connection with the characters is primarily what he or she is seeking. His expectations do not go beyond that. He probably isn’t expecting to learn a lesson in his own life. When that same person reads a non-fiction book, especially a business or self-development book, a lesson he can take into his own life is exactly what he expects and wants. If he doesn’t get it, you’ve lost him.
Do share your story. Stories encourage readers to engage with your message. Stories are a key element of what makes us human. But… and I mean this kindly, as advice to save you wasted energies… make sure that when you sit down to plan, organise and write your book, you keep offering your readers value they can use in their own lives.

People crave help and advice
By putting aside your own goals for your book, then – sales of goods and services, book sales, enhanced professional reputation – and focusing instead on how you can use the book to help your readers, you will do a much better job of actually achieving your own goals. Try looking your own ambitions in the eye and they will run away and hide from you.