Writing arguments in fiction

Further to my previous blog on conflict, I thought a few lines on writing arguments might be useful:
They shouldn’t have repetitive elements Unlike real arguments which go in circles for ages, fictionalised ones are short and sharp

They shouldn’t be boring Written arguments are there to forward the plot along. They should reveal something about a relationship between two people or give the reader information about a problem

There should be some sort of immediate outcome from the argument  Arguments are a great way to provide conflict and tension to a manuscript but make they aren’t as unfocused and pointless in print as the verbal variety

Remember how rules of conversation work

* A lot of the time, we do not speak in correct sentences/we often use short sharp phrases

* Keep your dialogue crisp - we can tell a lot about a person in a short snap of conversation

* We interrupt a lot

* We assume a lot. Not ‘Your brother has been murdered.’

‘What, my brother Brian?’

‘Yes, that’s him. Your only brother. The younger one. With the long hair’ Keep it realistic.

* Dialogue must take the story on. Only write small talk if you need to, ie showing how tedious a person can be. If you don’t need it, don’t write it. Make sure each word does a job.

* Do not pack dialogue with extraneous information

John Dean

Starting your story with momentum

Here’s some thoughts on starting short stories by creating momentum right from the off.
The first rule of opening lines is that they should possess most of the individual elements that make up the story. An opening paragraph should have a distinctive voice, a point of view, a rudimentary plot and some hint of characterisation.
You might be tempted to begin your narrative before the action starts, such as when a character wakes up. Far better to begin at the first moment of something interesting happening, which is more likely to grab the reader‘s interest.
If you feel compelled to begin with dialogue, keep in mind that you’re thrusting your readers into a story in which it’s easy to lose them early on. So keep the dialogue to a minimum.
Sometimes a story evolves so significantly during the writing that an opening line no longer applies to the story that follows. The only way to know this is to reconsider the opening sentence once the final draft is complete.

John Dean

Focusing on conflict in fiction

I taught a class last night in which a number of the writers produced scenes dominated by conflict.
Good for them because stories need things to happen and that usually comes out of conflict - characters argue, fight, feud etc.
It is through seeing characters in conflict that we see them at their truest, when their guard is down, when they are fighting something.
You can develop a character through conflict: the meek little parlour maid suddenly becomes the towering heroine of the story
Conflict takes the story on: a school is to be closed, two friends fall out, a community is torn apart by an event. All these types of conflict are a rich hunting ground for the writer.
Conflict can evoke a strong reaction in a reader
Conflict makes for good drama - and if that is happening then writing is easier.
It also gives you a structure for your story, a story to tell.

John Dean

Online crime fiction course is under way

A reminder that crime novelist and creative writing tutor John Dean has launched an online Crime Fiction Course.
John, author of 12 novels published by Robert Hale, and the creator of DCI John Blizzard and DCI Jack Harris, also runs Inscribe Media Ltd, which is based in Darlington in North East England, which will be offering the course.
The online course, which runs in eight parts and can begin at a time and date to suit the student, will help writers to improve their technique and improve their chances of being successful, either in competitions or admissions to publishers.
When they enroll, students will be offered ongoing one-to-one feedback on their work, be it short stories or novels.
John, whose latest novel A Breach of Trust came out in January 2015, and who is a member of the UK-based Crime Writers’ Association, said: “Writing can be a lonely pastime and my aim is to help aspiring writers to improve their technique and improve their chances of being successful in a very competitive market.
“Crime fiction remains hugely popular and, hopefully, I can help aspiring writers to develop their ideas, and because it is online it does not matter where they live. In recent years, I have worked with writers from everywhere from Croatia to Australia and New Zealand.”
There is no official certificate of qualification at the end of the course, which will be led by John and features:

• Personal attention

• Exercises and practical work

• Discussions by email

• Because the tutor is on line, you can do the work at time and pace that suits you

Themes to be included are:

An examination of where ideas come from - what triggers ideas in writers?

Once you have the idea, how do you develop it? The course will look at the art of  plotting

How can you use places and landscapes to aid your story telling?

How do you pick characters to do the job? What are their functions in storytelling? This will include a look at creating villains

How conflict can be used to develop stories that assume a life of their own

That all important start to your story - how do you grab the reader right from the off?

Writing with pace - how do you produce a narrative that keeps your reader turning the page?

Pulling it all together - how to produce the finished piece of work.

Editing - how to make those changes that make all the difference.

Pitching to publishers and agents

The course costs £75. For further details you can contact John at deangriss@btinternet.com

Inscribe Media’s website, which also has details of other courses and the company’s mentoring programme, can be found at www.inscribemedia.co.uk

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Creating the triangle

Good story writing depends on many things but can be boiled down to three factors, the triangle.
At the top is the narrative, a strong story, plenty of pace, a tale that enthrals the readers.
At one bottom corner is a sense of place, a strong sense of where the action is taking place.
At the other corner is a sense of being, the creation of characters strong and interesting enough to carry the story.
Get the triangle right and the rest flows from it.

John Dean

Open min night to be held

The Open Mic night for authors season continues on Thursday January 28. The nights, supported by Darlington for Culture and which offer a forum for writers to read their material and audiences to enjoy it, run at Voodoo Café/Cantina, 84 Skinnergate, Darlington, on the last Thursday of the month. Each session starts at 7pm and the cost of entry is £3 paid on the door.

More information is available from Inscribe Media Limited at deangriss@btinternet.com

Long live the short story

I rediscovered an interesting article on the BBC website the other day. It related to their BBC National Short Story Award.
Part of the article was quotes from celebrities about the importance of the short story in the modern world. Reading the comments made for encouraging reading.
Among the comments was this from BBC Radio 4 broadcaster James Naughtie, who has chaired the judging panel, said: “The short story is still a writer's opportunity that offers something distinct and exciting. The best of them are alive with passion, perfectly crafted to make every word count and beautiful artefacts that can't be pulled apart. They are also tales for our time. A short story can sit happily on the ear, and on the page, on your phone, or your screen; it travels well and it fits into even the busiest life.“
Very true - we are indeed seeing a renaissance in the short story as people realise that, like an endangered animal, it would be a great loss if it disappeared.

John Dean

Triggering a reaction in your reader

Good writing is good writing because it triggers emotional responses in its readers. Readers say ‘I have been in that situation, ‘I know someone like that’, ‘what a terrible thing to be faced with’ etc etc.
If readers feel like that, it means that they are being drawn into the story. They stand next to your characters, they fear for what is about to happen, they simply must know what is on the next page.
If a reader does not really care what is happening in the story then you have lost them and your story has failed. But if they feel part of it, they are experiencing the sheer power of the writer. And that’s a terrific thing to achieve - and the way to impress publishers and competition judges.

John Dean

Second person in fiction

Talking of voice, as I did in my previous blog, one of the lesser used techniques is second person.
Second person relies on the pronouns you, your, and yours and is more often used to address the audience in technical writing, advertising, songs and speeches.
In fiction it would allow lines like ‘You feel uneasy the moment you turn into the street.‘
It differs from first person, which uses pronouns including I and me, and third person, which uses pronouns such as he and she.
It’s odd that it is not used more in fiction; it is a direct way of addressing the reader, putting them in the middle of the action and challenging them with every word.

 

John Dean

Getting the voice right

I know I talk about first lines a lot in my blogs but they are so important.
One of the best ways to start a story is to instantly introduce the reader to a character who addresses us directly in a voice that is distinctive and compelling. What do I mean? Try this: “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.” — J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
The voice is distinctive, you are challenged and want to learn more about this person.

John Dean

Creating characters

A lot of my teaching focuses on characters (they are at the heart of my classes, they are, after all, our major tools as writers).
So how do you create them? Here’s some thoughts:
* Maybe base them on people you know but beware of the law. Don’t lift your local vicar wholesale and turn him/her into a cold-blooded killer! Make your characters composites of several people
*Describe their physical characteristics You can do it one bit or slot descriptions in as you go.   Describe their clothing etc but move beyond simple facts, try to capture their demeanour. How do they speak? Brusque, garrulous? How do they walk? Don’t overdo it, though, too much description slows down stories. I often think a line or two will suffice
* Visualise the person, think of small things which make them stand out
* Describe their views, their emotions, their thoughts
* Maybe come up with something that makes them different. A hobby, an odd phrase that they keep using
* If this is a major character get to know them particularly well. How do they react to things? Make sure they are strong enough to carry the story on their shoulders. And we must care about them - not necessarily like but care.
*Take care with minor characters as well as major, they’re important, not cardboard cut-outs.
Above all, ask yourself are your characters REAL?

John Dean

Mistakes when approaching publishers and agents

Have been talking recently to one or two writers about the challenges of getting published. Here are some classic mistakes to avoid when approaching publishers and agents:
* Saying ‘Go to my website for a sample of my work”
* Writing a submission that lacks confidence
* Writing a submission that is over-confident or pompous
* Sending a submission that has clearly not been proof-read
* Queries addressed to "Dear Agent" (or anything similar)
* Vague letters.
* E-mailed submissions with more than one agent listed in the "To" field
* Submissions that have no clue what the publisher/agent deals in or that have no clue what their submission guidelines are.

Avoid these pitfalls and at least you give yourself an edge.

John Dean

Tension in fiction

I do a lot of teaching based on creating tension in fiction. Here’s some thoughts:

1 Put the reader in the situation. What does it feel like to be there?

2 Use the things at your disposal - the senses, is it cold, is it creepy, is your character affected by this: is a brave character suddenly scared, is a cool character panicky?

3 Create a sense of immediacy. Focus on people and their feelings in order to make the reader feel as if he or she is there.

4 Create word pictures. Use imagery to write visually.

5  Keep it simple - do not overdo it, not too flowery, nothing that will slow things down

6 Use dialogue to set the pace. Good dialogue carries dramatic impact, advances the story and develops character

7 Tension builds so write in spikes - tension, relax, tension relax. As your story comes to an end, build the tension to a crescendo.

John Dean

An American history lesson

This blog has readers all over the world but the biggest number are from America, many of them interested in short stories.
America has a strong association with the short story and I had always been taught that the modern short story began with American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Then I came across a piece which suggested an earlier chronology:

l74l -- First American magazines appear: Andrew Bradford's American Magazine and Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine, and Historical Chronicle.

l789 -- Beginnings of short fiction in American magazines: "Azakia: A Canadian Story" in Monthly Miscellany and Vermont Magazine, "The Story of the Captain's Wife and an Aged Woman" in Gentleman and Lady's Town and Country Magazine 6 (Oct-Nov).

l8l5 -- The North American Review established. l8l9 -- Washington Irving's The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. published serially in the United States, and in volume form (l820) in England.

l82l -- The Saturday Evening Post established. l822 -- Irving's Bracebridge Hall: or, The Humorists published in England.

l824 -- Irving's Tales of a Traveller published in England.

l830-2 -- Nathaniel Hawthorne's earliest tales ("Provincial Tales" and "Seven Tales of My Native Land") published individually in Token, Salem Gazette, and Atlantic Souvenir.

Clearly, America has played a key role in the development of the genre for well over 250 years.

John Dean

 

Brilliant opening lines in fiction

Writing is about many things, hues and shades, subtlety and tension, hints and plotlines. And fiction needs time to develop, to tell the story. However, it is also true that if you want to impress a publisher or maybe a judge in a competition, those early lines are crucial.

Why? Because a great first line can take a story a long way, hook the reader straightaway, get them intrigued, desperate to know more.

Here are some crackers:

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. —Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. —George Orwell, 1984

I am an invisible man. —Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. —J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. —William Gibson, Neuromancer

I am a sick man . . . I am a spiteful man. —Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

All this happened, more or less. —Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

It was the day my grandmother exploded. —Iain M. Banks, The Crow Road

I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. —Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall. —Louise Erdrich, Tracks

It was a pleasure to burn. —Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person. —Anne Tyler, Back When We Were Grownups

John Dean

What makes good writing?

What makes good writing?

Some general rules as you develop your story

* Consider the reader - do not write for yourself, always write for the reader

* Be disciplined - you may wish to pack lots of information in but does the reader need it?

* You may not have put enough information in - you can imagine where a scene is set but have you given the reader the information they need? You may have drawn a character but can your readers see them?

* It is crucial if you write about a place that the reader can see it.  Give them enough visual clues

* Create characters that we can see and hear and make them real and believable. No cardboard cut-outs here!

* Be brutal - if you have overwritten, chop out the fat

 

What makes a good short story?

1 . The best stories are the ones that follow a fairly narrow subject line: too many plotlines and you end up with a novel

2. An effective short story often covers a very short time span. It may be one single episode that proves pivotal in the life of the character

3. Don't have too many characters. Each new character will bring a new dimension to the story, and too many diverse dimensions dilute the theme. Have only enough characters to effectively tell the story

4. Make every word count. There is no room for unnecessary expansion in a short story. If each word is not working towards putting across the story, delete it

John Dean

Plenty of interest in mentoring service

We are getting quite a few enquiries about our recent reminder that, in addition to the various free things we do, one of the paid-for services we offer is one supporting writers.

Why should you hire a professional writing mentor, though? Isn’t it enough to attend a class/workshop or a writing group? Or ask a friend or relative to comment?

Well, it depends what you want and need and bespoke mentoring from Inscribe Media can help some writers, providing the experience and expertise to -

• understand your work

• nurture you and your writing

• let you retain control of your ideas and your writing

* provide expert, specific advice about what is working and what isn’t.

We focus on major issues, such as how your story hangs together, what your characters are doing or could be doing, what is hurting your story’s momentum, what story elements are not pulling their weight.

We identify the differences between good and great and point out your writing strengths, so you become confident about what not to change.

We also give suggestions and help you establish good processes and writing goals and suggest markets for your work.

If long-term mentoring does not appeal, we run short writing courses as well.

You can find out more at http://www.inscribemedia.co.uk/writing-courses---bespoke-mentoring.html

You can also access our free downloadable writing guide at www.inscribemedia.co,uk and find loads of free tips on our blog here.

John Dean

The art of writing good crime fiction

Following the news that we are to run an online crime fiction course (details on the home page) I thought it would be useful to look at how to write a good crime story:

* The story should be strong and one that can be told in a short story (most crime stories are novels)

* Create a strong sense of place - the reader must be able to visualise where the action happens

* Create strong characters - do not stray into cliché, make our investigators real people. Your hero must not be perfect, he or she must be flawed but be careful about writing in too many flaws

* If you create a sidekick, make sure they have a job to do - passing on information, allowing your main character to react so we learn more about them etc

* Make the villain real not some clichéd villain from the movies. The best thing is for them to have appeared earlier in the story so the reader knows them. Give them a good reason to commit the crime - secrets, secrets, always secrets

* Grab the reader from the start. Here is an extract from an interview with the author Nick Brownlee explaining how to do it:
Q The opening scene of Bait features a character being gutted alive on a fishing boat. Was it always in your mind to start the book with such a gory scene?

A I have been a journalist for the best part of 20 years, much of that time writing stories for tabloid newspapers. The first lesson you are taught is that you must grab the reader’s attention with the very first paragraph, because by the third they will have lost interest in the story. It’s the same with commercial fiction – especially if you are an unknown author. In order to get published, Bait had to leap out of an agent’s slush pile and then make a publisher look twice. I needed an opening that would catch the eye. Hopefully it will have the same effect on the casual reader.”

* Even with a short story, it is worth mapping out a synopsis because crime stories are be definition complicated and you need to get it right
* Keep the story moving - nothing holds a reader better than tension creates as the pace develops. Keep it driving on relentlessly

* Think about your ending - surprise the reader, have some drama, a chase, a fight, a killing, a dramatic revelation

* Feel free to makes us think - maybe you want to cast light on human nature, or perhaps a problem in society, Do not preach but feel free to let that idea come through in your story

John Dean

Festival fun

There are some great literary events during the Darlington Arts Festival starting on April 21 – you can check them out at http://www.darlingtonforculture.org/darlington-festival-program-2014/

Cutting out the 'small talk'

I am rubbish at small talk, something my kids decry on car journeys as the silence lengthens, but it’s just that I view words as tools, there to impart information or do a specific task rather than fill space.
It is the same with writing. A student once asked me to do a session on ‘padding’. Of course, I said no. Each word in a story must do a job so there is no need for padding.
The big challenge with writing is creating and maintaining pace and cutting out the padding, the small talk, helps achieve it.
These are busy times. Readers are busy people. That means you need to write with pace to engage them and in short stories the space available to do that is at a premium although the same arguments apply to novels.
Simply put, the more 'story' you have the faster the 'pace'. It is about picking out what really matters. It means examining everything in your story, line by line, and asking if you need it?
The writer Rob Parnell says: “So, what defines story? Usually anything that is told in real time - in any tense - about the characters, their actions and some immediate description - that carries the main narrative forward.  Everything else is basically fluff - not because it's not important to you - but because it's stuff the reader is not particularly interested in.”
It’s sound advice.

John Dean

When many characters are too many

I have always said that I write fast and edit slow, by which I mean that I hurl words onto the page then spent most of the time working and reworking them, rather like a sculptor finishing a work. A little chip here, another one there.
For example, there was a scene, an important scene, in which there was a death in a place containing thirty people.
It was a deliberately confused scene and my detectives interviewed several witnesses to try to ascertain what had happened.
Interviewed too many people, in fact. Three  characters pointlessly repeated each other and one was created entirely for the scene and did not appear anywhere else in the novel.
So, the first two characters had their lines cut and it also became clear that the newly-created one really was not needed at all so I deleted her.
The result? A scene with added pace and zip and much cleaner narrative flow.
  

John Dean

Writing good dialogue

I am thoroughly enjoying a novel at the moment. Its sense of place and people has drawn me into the narrative and you can see why the writer is so celebrated. Venerated, even. Except, for the dialogue, which is stilted and clunky. It got me thinking about the rules of dialogue. Dialogue is crucial to the success of any story. Good dialogue can make a story, bad dialogue can wreck it, so it is worth bearing in mind some of these rules of conversation and reflecting them in the dialogue that you write. If people talk that way in real life then so they should in your work.

* A lot of the time, we do not speak in correct sentences/we often use short sharp phrases.

* Keep your dialogue crisp - we can tell a lot about a person in a short snap of conversation.

* We interrupt a lot.

* We assume a lot. Not ‘Your brother has been murdered.’

‘What, my brother Brian?’

‘Yes, that’s him. Your only brother. The younger one.’ Keep it realistic.

* Dialogue must take the story on. Only write small talk if you need to, ie showing how tedious a person can be. If you don’t need it, don’t write it. Make sure each word does a job.

* Do not pack dialogue with extraneous information. Don’t write like this:

‘I saw William, although everyone calls him Bill, my neighbour of ten years in Acacia Avenue, in Darlington, and observed that he was his normal glum self, to which we - that is my wife, Edith, and I - have grown accustomed in the weeks since his wife left him for a younger man and filed for divorce. I assumed that the darkness which seems to have assailed him since then has not lifted.’ If you need to slot in that information, find a way of doing it more subtly: ie “Saw Bill this morning. His usual gloomy self. The divorce really has knocked him backwards.’

John Dean

Crime fiction course under way

A reminder that crime novelist and creative writing tutor John Dean has launched an online Crime Fiction Course.

John, author of 12 novels published by Robert Hale, and the creator of DCI John Blizzard and DCI Jack Harris, also runs Inscribe Media Ltd, which is based in Darlington in North East England, which will be offering the course.

The online course, which runs in eight parts and can begin at a time and date to suit the student, will help writers to improve their technique and improve their chances of being successful, either in competitions or admissions to publishers.

When they enroll, students will be offered ongoing one-to-one feedback on their work, be it short stories or novels.

John, whose latest novel A Breach of Trust came out in January 2015, and who is a member of the UK-based Crime Writers’ Association, said: “Writing can be a lonely pastime and my aim is to help aspiring writers to improve their technique and improve their chances of being successful in a very competitive market.

“Crime fiction remains hugely popular and, hopefully, I can help aspiring writers to develop their ideas, and because it is online it does not matter where they live. In recent years, I have worked with writers from everywhere from Croatia to Australia and New Zealand.”

There is no official certificate of qualification at the end of the course, which will be led by John and features:

• Personal attention

• Exercises and practical work

• Discussions by email

• Because the tutor is on line, you can do the work at time and pace that suits you

Themes to be included are:
An examination of where ideas come from - what triggers ideas in writers?

Once you have the idea, how do you develop it? The course will look at the art of  plotting

How can you use places and landscapes to aid your story telling?

How do you pick characters to do the job? What are their functions in storytelling? This will include a look at creating villains

How conflict can be used to develop stories that assume a life of their own

That all important start to your story - how do you grab the reader right from the off?

Writing with pace - how do you produce a narrative that keeps your reader turning the page?

Pulling it all together - how to produce the finished piece of work.

Editing - how to make those changes that make all the difference.

Pitching to publishers and agents

The course costs £75. For further details you can contact John at deangriss@btinternet.com

Inscribe Media’s website, which also has details of other courses and the company’s mentoring programme, can be found at www.inscribemedia.co.uk

​

John Dean

Mentoring for writers

Novelist John Dean is running an online mentoring and writing workshops programme for aspiring authors.
John, who is based in Darlington, in County Durham, North East England, and has had twelve crime novels published by Robert Hale, of London, is a co-director of Inscribe Media Limited, which is running the programmes.
John, who also runs creative writing courses in Darlington, said: “Writing can be a lonely pastime and our programmes help writers tackle some of the many challenges that it throws up.
“We focus on major issues, such as how a story hangs together, what characters are doing or could be doing, what is hurting a story’s momentum and what story elements are not pulling their weight.
“We identify the differences between good and great writing and point out an author’s strengths and weaknesses so that they become more confident.
“We help authors establish good processes and writing goals and suggest markets for their work.”
The programme includes long-term mentoring and short writing courses.
More information is available at http://www.inscribemedia.co.uk/writing-courses---bespoke-mentoring.html
You can also access a free downloadable writing guide at www.inscribemedia.co,uk and find free tips on the blog at the site.
John can be contacted at deangriss@btinternet.com

What's in a word?

The use of words is something dear to all our hearts. They are, after all, our tools and we should polish them with the care taken by an artisan when polishing a chisel.
I once came across a web page published by the Now York Times saying that the titles of every British book published in English in and around the 19th Century — 1,681,161 of them at the time — were electronically scoured by American researchers for key words and phrases that might offer fresh insight into the minds of the Victorians.
The article reckoned that among words cropping up regularly were  “God” “love,” “work,” “science” and “industrial”.
Makes you wonder which words we 21^st Century writers use a lot or maybe too often. I do know there are some words I use too often in my writing - murmured, chuckled to name but two - and my favourite poet Barry MacSweeney, with whom I used to work on an evening newspaper, had a thing about the word ‘argent’. And I know another writer who slipped the word ‘obsidian’ into every piece she ever produced.

John Dean

Getting the title right

Having just finished the first draft of my latest novel, my mind turned to its title. I like to have the title fixed before I start writing but it is always worth going back to the title later on to see if it remains relevant.

Plus, yes, the story has to be good but a title, like a good opening line, can do a lot of work for the author when it comes to hooking the reader.

For me, it goes deeper. In my mind, the title has to be right for me to feel comfortable with the writing process.

So what does a good title need? Well, I would say some of the below would be a good start. A good title should/could:

* Be easy to remember. Yes, I know there have been successful books and stories with long titles but how many can you name? Go for no more than five words and even then you are pushing it (look at best-selling books and you will not see that many more than three). There are exceptions, I know. The Spy who Came in from the Cold springs to mind but for every long title that sticks in the memory there‘s an awful lot are lost.

* Be appropriate to what you are writing. I learned this lesson from my publisher Robert Hale. I wrote a novel which I wanted to call Ghosts, which they asked to be changed because it made it sound like a ghost story, which it wasn’t. It ended up called The Long Dead, which I think works much better. Interestingly, during the writing, the title had not felt right anyway. The Long Dead did.

* Pose questions. Something that makes you wonder. Taking The Long Dead as an example, who are long dead? Why are they long dead? How did they die? If they are long dead, why do we care now?

* Maybe go for a name of a person  - think Harry Potter  - and maybe make it a possessive title - think Angela’s Ashes. Or maybe a place. Think Northanger Abbey. Or a thing - Diamonds are Forever.

* Maybe pick a line from the work itself such as They Shoot Horses, Don't They? And yes, it is long but it’s easily remembered.

As with everything in writing, there are no golden rules other than if it works, do it.

John Dean