How to write
a guest post by Richard Welwyn
I am reminded of the wonderful 1960’s film Those Magnificent Men in their Flying
Machines where the pilot for the German team goes missing and the brass
have to take over, despite having no skill in this particular direction. With typical Teutonic thoroughness they find
a book called How To Fly and the senior
officer gets into the cockpit and reads – Number
Vun. Sit down.
What that implies is that, if you wish to
be a writer, start with the obvious. And
that means, always have a pen nearby. Or
a pencil, or a mobile phone or a chisel and a rock. Anything with which you can write, carve or
indict ideas. And the reason for that is
very simple. One simply never knows when
you are going to be struck by an idea – and you do not record it at your
peril. Having a memory like Swiss
cheese, I bitterly regret all the ideas which have struck me and I simply could
not be bothered to write down. Yes, I
know there is a paradox there. How do I
know that I have forgotten things? By
definition, forget means, etc, etc,
etc.
The way that I know I have definitely
forgotten is that is that I have on occasions done the ‘right thing’ and made
sure I had a notebook to hand and wrote down a squiggly note the moment a
thought entered my mind (I was at the time in regular correspondence with a
friend when I was in Arabia and so many thing were very new to me). I would get back home, sit down at the
computer and look at the scrawls I had created.
Inevitably, I would be struck by how much there was – and how many ideas
had flitted fleetingly through my tired, battered and much abused brain – and I
would not have been able to recall without the aide memoire. I was then
able to compose long, detailed and (I was reliably informed) entertaining
emails. This was the days of dial-up
internet. If you are too young to
remember that, think of a crank-handle winding up an early car. No, it’s not really like that, but the
analogy is apposite.
OK.
That took a long time to make one point, but it is an important
one. You never know when an idea is
going to strike you. Be prepared for it
and record it. Sadly, the story becomes
a bit less clear from then on. I suppose
one can compare it to searching for diamonds.
Not every idea is a diamond. Many
of them are simply gravel. Do not
discard them though! Gravel can be
useful. Have a drawer with all
your ideas in them (I actually have a directory on my computer and I go back to
them occasionally). It is strange how
often an idea will take on a different cast at a later date – and can be used
in a different way, or ties in with a later idea.
Before I reveal the big one (literally, the
million dollar question) let us quickly touch on some practical matters. Of course you have to have structure to your
writing – thesis statement, topic sentences, main idea, second idea, etc,
transition words, and so on. There are
many places you can find out about structure.
It is a pretty straightforward issue and there are a number of
rules. They can all be summed up with
three words, though, namely:- Don’t be boring. Quite frankly, it doesn’t matter how you do
it. Break every rule in the book if
needs be. As long as people find you
interesting.
We all know what it feels like to lose a
wallet – that horrible empty feeling, the sense of loss. Even worse is to lose what you have
written. Computers (wonderful as they
are) can be fickle. I write longhand
before I type it up, so things tend not to be lost forever, but retyping pages
and pages can be a pretty dismal pastime.
The way round it, though, is simple.
As soon as I get to the stage where I feel I really would not like to
have to retype this, I email it to myself.
Now, whatever happens, it can be retrieved – from another computer if
needs be. And boy, has than saved my
bacon on many an occasion! A USB stick
performs the same function. Those of you
with a more advanced knowledge of the internet will also appreciate the
advantages of Dropbox. An excellent
invention.
And so we come limping to the end – and the
promised million dollar question. They
are the two most important words in the writer’s arsenal. Remember that our aim is to create an
entertainment – it does not necessarily have to be true. Life is full of wonderfully funny,
interesting, sad, encouraging, disappointing events, all of which could be used
in a story. Sadly, real life rarely
throws up genuine finished articles.
They need work. They need to be
twisted into shape so that they meet all the criteria (opening, development,
dilemma, rising action, crisis, resolution) so one has got, as the lawyers
would say, to apply one’s mind. How do
you do that so that something interesting comes out of it? Simple.
Taraa (blast of trumpets). You go
beyond the original idea. You simply ask
yourself the golden words. What
if? What if x, y or z
happened? My first novel was based
purely on the premise of an amusing story I once heard about a deceased
person’s ashes ending up in a vicar’s garage – on the day of the church
fete. All I did was to say, What if the ashes did go to the fete and
were sold?
The answer can be found in the excellent
book Angels
and Tea by Richard Welwyn. My wife was editing it recently and it was
very rewarding to hear her chuckling as she went along. If you would like to read more by Richard
Welwyn, you could do worse that to start with To Be Decided – a book of
short stories; some serious, some funny, some whimsical.
So there you have it. If you can meet the above requirements, you
are sure to be able to write. That is
the easy bit. The hard part is shifting
your stuff – building up a readership.
But that is another story!
Richard Welwyn currently has one
book available on Amazon, namely To Be Decided, a collection of short
stories. At the moment, his life seems
to be dominated by the number four. He
has written four collections of short stories, four novels and after four days
of being on Amazon he has sold four books!
Sadly, as yet, he has not earned a fortune!
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