WHY STRUCTURE IS NOT TEMPLATE

If you have been writing with a mind to getting published at some point, particularly in the last ten years or so, you will have read at least one book on the craft of writing already. Seriously, I probably don't even know you personally and I'd still put money on that.

This is because there are literally thousands of them available now, in both e- and dead-tree form. Many are written by authors who have sold decent shedloads of their novels and are passing on wisdom and experience that they've gained through dedicated practice and results, while others are written (I suspect) by enterprising individuals who are fantastic at marketing and know how to 'adopt' ideas from several other writing craft books and put their own spin on them to make something that appears to be full of entirely new information (which, in fairness, also requires good writing skills - just different ones from writing novels.)

Either way, it'd be hard to escape hearing the most popular pearls of writing wisdom that crop up all the chuffin' time. Adverbs are the devil's crystal meth, Show Don't Tell if you don't want the Story Gods flaying you alive and selling your internal organs on eBay, a kitten dies every time you use Passive Voice... yes, yes, we know all those, thanks very much. But once you get past the basics, and start delving deeper into The Craft books, you get to the next level, which is all to do with Story Structure.

At the most basic level, there's the Three-Act Structure. In spite of its numerical leanings, this actually splits the story into four parts; Act One (the first 25% of the story,) Act Two (the next 50% of the story, but with the all-important  'Midpoint' splitting the whole into a kind of 'before and after the game like, totally changes,' with 25% on each side) and Act Three (the remaining 25% of the story.) Layered on top of that is the seven-point story structure - or the twelve, for the more ambitious - that splits the stages down even further. Joseph Campbell calls his version The Hero's Journey. Whichever way you slice it, this is where you find terms like The Inciting Incident, The Call to Adventure, The Final Battle...

Sound familiar? It's hardly surprising. The Three-Act Structure is very, very popular among professional writers in all media: novels, comic books, stage plays, screenplays. The reasons for this are simple; it works, has worked well for as long as people have been telling stories, and it mirrors the way naturally gifted storytellers tell stories (even back in the days before writing how-to books - or writing as we know it.) It follows the life cycle of most living creatures on this planet (Act 1, Act 2, Act 3 = Child, Adult, Elder,) so we relate to it on a subconscious level as humans. And the seven (or twelve) plot points link up with the stages we humans go through in solving a major problem in our own lives. Every story ever written or told, when you boil it right down to its essence, is 'some person has a major problem and then does stuff to solve it.'

But there are those who rail against making their stories fit a predetermined structure. Anything that sounds like it's trying to introduce some degree of conformity onto what is supposed to be a creative process will inevitably be viewed with suspicion - and this is particularly true for those who believe writers are born, not made. That only those imbued with pure, natural talent can truly become successful writers - and if you don't already possess it, all the studying and practising in the world won't help you acquire it. They in particular hate the idea that something from the well-springs of imagination could actually be improved by shaping it with the tools of rules and structure - "We're supposed to be bohemian, radical free-thinkers, man! We don't do rules!"

And that's when they use the f-word. No, not that one, I mean 'formulaic.' They say things like the three-act structure are why so many 'commercial' novels these days are 'all the same,' 'lacking originality' and 'recycling the same old plots, over and over again.' They claim it's how 'bad writers' can have a successful career and sell millions of 'terrible' novels, because they're all just using the equivalent of a factory template to churn out cookie-cutter stories, production line-stylee.

They say it with the kind of venom that's born from fear; the fear that 'anyone' (i.e. even the ignorantly untalented, defiantly lazy and cynically opportunistic) could write a successful novel armed with little more than a fill-in-the-blanks template. That's a pretty soul-crushing thought if you've toiled for years at your writing, believing in it and the notion that only those who truly possess The Gift and nurture it with pride and dedication earn success and respect in the end. Anything that purports to make the writing process easier - when you know from personal experience that it's mostly bloody hard work - can automatically sound like it wants to 'dumb down the craft.'

But I think that's where the misunderstanding occurs. Yes, using devices like the three-act structure will change the way you write your stories. You will find yourself shuffling bits of plot and character development around, adding particular elements in or taking other bits out to make a story more closely fit that structure. But - and here's the key - only when you already have a story to work with.

Three-act structures, seven-point-plot structures - all of those things -  are not the same as a template; you can't just fill in the boxes with characters and plot pieces to see what kind of story you end up with like one of those multiple-choice questionnaires in teenage magazines. You need to have at least a beginning, middle, some sort of ending, and a basic idea of who the main characters are. It's the same as baking a cake; the structure is just your recipe, you've still got to collect all the ingredients and equipment you need first. Without those... well, that recipe could be as detailed and precise as the average legal document but you still can't make your cake, can you?

Structures and frameworks are not quick and easy short-cuts to writing formula novels designed to cater to the dumb masses. In fact, if anything they require the writer to put even more time and effort into their stories. Most of the greatest novels, plays and movies ever written follow, at the very least, the three-act structure - it might not be obvious at first glance, but the genius of a great writer is that you don't see them pulling the strings and working the levers.

So don't be afraid of them cramping your style if you want to give them a go - they might improve your storytelling capabilities in ways you never thought possible.

 On the other hand, if you're more a stream-of-consciousness, wildly-experimental kinda writer then carry on as you are - there's room for that kind of writing too, so you go right ahead and keep doing you. Just accept that you're making that artistic choice, and it will have an impact on how much money you make from your work and how widely it sells. If you're writing purely for yourself that won't matter, but if you're in it with hopes for wealth and/or fame... well, unfortunately you can't have it both ways. Remaining defiantly 'unique and quirky' while accusing other writers of 'selling out' when they use tried and trusted methods for commercial success just makes you look bitter and kind of full of yourself.

Because whatever choices you make about using structure or not, one thing all writers should remember is that it's the readers who ultimately make the choices. Readers have the right to love what they love and hate what they hate - and if what they love is the stuff you would never choose to write it doesn't make them bad or stupid people.

5 Things I've Learned About Characters

Characters. Where would a story be without them? They're the meat and veg in your stew, the cards and presents on your birthday, the software on your computer. Put simply, a story triumphs or faceplants on the quality of the characters acting it out, so it pays to get them right. In my years as a writer I've written characters for short stories, stage plays, musicals and now for novels, and if there's anything I've learned it's that, however different they may be, there are a lot of principles about writing them that stay the same across the board. This is my attempt to smoosh some key things I've learned all over one virtual page.

Let's do this.

1 - Characters come in three flavours.

Okay there are certainly more once you get into sub-types and stuff, but for the moment we're trying to keep things simple. 

The first, and most obvious, are the Main Characters. These are the folks who drive the plot; whenever they perform an action the plot is moved forward in some way as a result of what they do (or, in some cases, don't do.) The ideal amount is generally between 2 and 5 - that's not to say you can't have more or less than that, but if you do you're making your job a lot harder. Main Characters most obviously include the protagonist, the antagonist and the POV character, but can also include love interests, sidekicks, mentors and shadows.

Next we have the Minor Characters. These are just as important to the plot as Main Characters and can even have their own agenda within the plot, but their role is merely to assist (or hinder) Main Characters in moving the plot forward - they don't have any direct effect on plot events themselves. Gollum in Lord of the Rings is an example of a minor character, because even though he constantly schemes to get the One Ring back (which could otherwise paint him as the Antagonist to Frodo, a Main Character) he's doing it for his own reasons and not as part of the overall plot of defeating Sauron and ridding Middle-Earth of his evil influence. For Minor Characters, between 5 and 10 is usually the most manageable amount. Having more than 10 is... not impossible, but certainly harder to micro-manage, and having less than 5 is fine - as long as it doesn't leave you with more Main Characters than Minor ones. If that's the case it's highly likely some of those Mains aren't really Mains after all, and need demoting for the good of the plot.

And finally we have the Extras, otherwise known as walk-ons or, in Star Trek parlance, Redshirts. These guys are mostly used for the practical stuff of filling space and performing background grunt work while the Main and Minor characters get on with plot stuff. Crowds are extras, along with retail and service staff in places your characters visit, police and emergency service crews and any other random strangers that pop up for one scene and then vanish, never to be seen again. There's no limit to how many of these you can have, so long as you recognise the expendability of their role. Which brings me neatly on to:

2 - The Extras are supposed to be nobodies.

You can make them quirky, you can give them a personality - but don't make them interesting, and definitely don't make them more interesting than a Main or Minor Character. Lots of us do it; make a walk-on we kind of fall a little bit in love with, so that when he finally gets his big moment we give him a killer line of dialogue, or have him do something super-quirky and memorable, because we want our readers to love him as much as we do. And that's the problem. Succeed and what you have is a frustrated reader, getting distracted from the real story and the real characters because they're too busy wondering what happened to that cool walk-on that showed up for five seconds and then disappeared into the ether. 

So curb the love and treat 'em mean. Don't even give them names in most cases; there's no reason for a janitor to become Fred the Janitor if all he'll be doing is scrubbing toilets in the background while the other characters do the cool stuff. Extras should be little more than walking and (occasionally) talking meat-props. That's why in movies and tv shows they only appear in the end credits rather than the opening ones. Showbiz. It's brutal.

3 - Serve up your characters like you'd serve up a good meal.

As in one course at a time, not the entire three courses dumped on one massive plate. In other words, don't introduce too many new characters at once in a single scene. Imagine you're at a party. You know the host, but you don't know any of the other guests invited, so he offers to introduce you to them. "Here they all are," he says, rounding them up into one giant herd. "This is Jim and his wife Sally, and this is Mark, Jim's boss, and that's Mark's flatmate June, and this is Frank who works with Sally and that's his wife Shelley, who's actually Mark's sister-in-law..."

How much of that did you actually take in? Next to nothing, probably. That's because it's too much information too fast - and, crucially, too early. You don't know any of these people yet, so you have no reason to care about them one way or the other. The host would have done better to let you meet Jim and Sally first, allowing you to speak with them for a while, then bringing in Mark and June a little later, and then waiting for a while after that until Frank and Shelley came over to talk to Sally and then introducing them...

The reader doesn't need to know who everyone is right off the starting blocks, so the best time to introduce any new character is at the first point they do something important in the plot. That usually limits things to, ideally, no more than three per scene. Extras don't count toward that quota, and you can also get away with including characters the reader has already met - but go easy on the number of 'active' characters you have in any one scene at a time. Because then you'll need to...

4 - Beware of Character Jump-Scare Syndrome.

This commonly happens in novels and short stories, when dialogue occurs between two characters while there are other characters in the scene as well (who aren't extras, because again, extras don't count.) These non-participating characters might be avid spectators of the exchange between the two speaking characters, or they might be ignoring them and doing their own thing in the background. Either way, the longer the focus stays on the dialogue between the two speaking characters, the more the non-speakers disappear into the wallpaper as far as the reader is concerned (since they're only 'seeing' what's being described on the page.) This means that when they finally do pipe up and make their presence known again, the effect is similar to them suddenly popping up out of the floorboards like Fenella from Chorlton and the Wheelies - "Whoa! Where did he come from? Was he still there all this time then?" 

There are some little touches you can employ to lessen this effect. One is to have the non-participators join in a bit - even if it's just the odd line here and there to agree or disagree with something one of the speakers has just said. Another is to have the POV character observe and comment on the non-speaking characters' reactions to whatever has just been said (and if that POV character is also one of the speakers, that might in turn influence the way she responds to what's been said.) Alternatively if the non-speaking characters are ignoring the speakers and doing their own thing, the POV character could equally comment on that (might she be annoyed they're not interested when they should be - or alternatively worried that they might hear something she thinks they shouldn't?)

But if none of the above tactics work, or they just aren't plausible for the situation... why are these non-participators there at all then? Their input clearly isn't needed, so get 'em offstage. As a boss, you wouldn't pay an employee to just hang around in the background doing nothing, and there's no reason to let your characters to get away with that either. If they've got nothing to do, find some excuse for them to leave or even don't put them there in the first place. Make them work for their moments in the spotlight. Speaking of which...

5 - Some characters are just third wheels.

Why have just one jokey sidekick when you can have a wisecrackin' double-act for compadres? One jobsworthy minion when you can have a jobsworthy minion and his jobsworthy boss? More character goodness just multiplies the fun, doesn't it? Erm....no, actually. The only thing that gets multiplied is the wage bill - and as the boss of your story you already know that's not good business sense. There's no point in having two characters on the same side of the battle perform exactly the same function, because no matter how interesting they are to write, they're not interesting to read. It's like being made to eat two Full English Breakfasts when you've only got room for one. It typically happens in the form of comedy/villainous duos and loyal companions - either on the hero's or villain's team - and while they might help to beef up the buddy tally, if they're not bringing anything useful to the plot they're dead weight.

Fortunately there's an easy way to spot those kinds of unnecessary duplicates. Take the dialogue attributed to both of the suspect characters and swap them around, so A is saying all of B's lines and vice versa. It should sound weird and like they're both acting completely out of character, saying and thinking things they would never normally say or think. If it doesn't... they've just secretly cloned themselves, and your story would be made stronger by eliminating one of them.

Another variation of this is the Soundbite Dispenser. They're easy to spot as well - most often minor characters, they hang out in the background until their moment comes to deliver a whip-smart, uber-wise or hil-ariously funny line, before slipping back into the shadows again until their next killer bit of dialogue. They're basically an extra with delusions of grandeur, who contributes absolutely nothing to the plot but somehow got awarded all the perks of being the resident smart-ass/wise person/comedy loser without actually putting in any of the hours. And yeah, I'll admit it here because I can - it hurts taking them out of your story. Been there, done it, worn the *sadface.* But if slicing them out doesn't change a single detail of any plot or sub-plots going on in your story... face it, he's wasted meat-space and he needs to go.

Like I already said, showbiz is brutal, baby. But on the bright side, at least you can divvy up his cool lines amongst the remaining cast members.

_______________________________________________________________________________

As a writer, your job is to be the most horrible boss in the world to your characters - and that's a hard thing to do when you also love them all to bits. No wonder we're all a little bit bonkers. But if the end result is a stronger story, your little pretend people will forgive you. So be hard, be ruthless and be cruel. Like the evil little story-maker you were born to be, bwa ha haaaa......

*vanishes in a puff of purple smoke. To cackle and eat chocolate.*

Why it's Okay to say "Na-NO, Wri-Mo!"

It's that month again. The one that comes around every year and messes with the brains of writers.

I'm talking of course, about NaNoWriMo.

Like teenagers in a How Cool Are You Competition, writers are asking other writers all over the Interwebbyworld "Are you doing it? Have you done it before? Did you get to third base last time? D'you think you'll get there this time?"

So, with that in mind, let's get this out of the way right here, right now... if you're 'doing it' this year - well done you. No seriously - and sincerely - it's a massive thing to undertake, and having the danglies to do so, even if you don't expect to succeed - in fact, especially if you don't expect to succeed - says a lot about your determination and strength of character. And it gets you writing like a thing possessed for a whole month, so yaay for anything that gets people passionate about writing! For a whole thirty days of a randomly-chosen month...

(Dammit, I nearly made it to the end without any hint of snark... I was soooo close.... )

Sorry. I have certain feelings about NaNoWriMo. Y'see, for me it's like having a delicious but huge chocolate cake, and being told that the whole darn thing is for you - yes Preciousss, only you! - but you only have this teeny-weeny time period to eat the entire thing. Now I love me a bit of chocolate cake as much as the next chocolate addict... but what I don't like is being given ludicrous conditions for eating that cake. Especially when the reasons for those ludicrous conditions arose as a result of some random somewhere decreeing "It will be done this way, because that's where my Pin of YOLO landed when I covered my eyes and stuck the point into my Page of Car-azy Rules!"

Thanks for the lovely chocolate cake - much appreciated, believe me - but I will eat it when, where and how I want to - and in a way that doesn't end in me being violently sick and hating chocolate cake for... I dunno, a very long time. Like maybe even weeks.

Not only that, but I watch some ( not all - but definitely some) of the other competitors in this cake-gobbling competition and... well, they make me sad. They take that chocolate cake and they go "Yeah! I'm-a gonna do this!" (probably in a Mr. T-type voice.) And then they go "nom-nom-nom-nom-nom" and succeed in eating the entire cake. And then they are stratospherically pleased with themselves, because it's the only time they ever eat chocolate cake at all, never mind this much in one go. They have basically done a Bear Grylls with the chocolate cake challenge, i.e. done it purely for the sake of being able to tick it off some mental list of Things I Must Do To Be Totally Awesome, rather than for any love of chocolate cake itself.

Which means that, once it's done... well, that's it. No reason to eat chocolate cake again now unless... oh, I dunno, maybe I'll do it again next year, just to maintain my awesome, y'know? But no, not as a regular thing. Why would I  - what's so awesome about eating chocolate cake normally, in smaller, non-awesome quantities, all throughout the year? Pffft, that's for losers!

Some of these Bear Grylls-cake-scoffers take the level of self-congratulation a step further. So impressed are they at the phenomenal amount of cake they managed to ingest in such a short period of time that they decide the world should see that cake for themselves - like, really see it, and right now, before their guts have had time to extract all the goodness from it and decide if it was a healthy, nutritious cake or not. So they barf it all right back up again, in a nasty, slimy pile and cry "Look! Look at what I just did! Behold its awesomeness - bet you couldn't produce anything like that!" And then they get really, really cross with anyone who points out - however tactfully - that it's just a pile of cake-sick. "What the hell do you know, lightweight? D'you know how long it took me to make that? I'll tell you - hardly any time at all! Because I made it in NaNoWriMo 'cos I'm that awesome!"

These are the type of NaNoWriMo-ers that make me feel sad. They're otherwise known as - perhaps unkindly, perhaps not - 'wannabe writers.'

You can spot them a mile off. They talk abut NaNoWriMo as being their 'chance,' their 'opportunity' even their 'letter of permission' to 'finally' write that novel. As if all the mysterious embargoes that were somehow preventing them from writing it in any of the other eleven months of the year are suddenly magically lifted just for November because... um, somebody somewhere said so, and lots of people agreed.

So, when November the first cracks open, they 'know' they've got the next thirty days to be awesome writers. Thirty days of wearing the ball-gown and dancing with prince before - bong! The clock chimes midnight and they turn back into pumpkins again. Those thirty days must seem like precious jewels of time to those writers, and the pressure to use them wisely and come up with the goods must weigh heavily.  Because remember, this is their one chance to finally write that novel...

Sadly, these are the writers that are least likely to know the cold, cruel truth about NaNoWriMo - and probably wouldn't want to believe it even if you told them, because it destroys the metaphorical summit they're heading for in their mind.

You CAN'T finish a novel in thirty days.

You can certainly write 50,000 words in thirty days, as per the NaNoWriMo brief. But calling those 50,000 words a completed, publishable novel is like calling a dead cow a T-Bone steak. There's a heck'a-load of other processes gotta happen before you can serve that thing up for public consumption, and that can take anything from weeks to months - maybe even years. Or maybe even... never. Because, even after lavishing all the time and love in the world on it, it may still just... y'know, not be good enough to publish. At all. Ever.

Seasoned writers know this, of course. They know all about rewrites and multiple drafts and beta readers - and rejections and then more rewrites... They're also the ones who don't wait for each November to rock around before they start word-painting. They're more likely to take NaNoWriMo for what it really is; a jolly game to get writers in the mood for barfing up a first draft as quickly and crazily as they can. It's a calendar-based motivational tool, nothing more.

So if you have 'writer-friends' in your life who try to nag you into doing NaNoWriMo, or berate you for 'wimping out' of doing it year after year... maybe it's because you're already writing stuff all the time instead of just waiting for November. And y'know what? If you are, it doesn't even matter if you're not hitting the magic word-count of 1,667 a day. You're proving you're in it for the long haul - which is what you need for writing anything worth publishing. There's a reason the tortoise won the race and not the hare.

That's why I'm not doing NaNoWriMo this year. I'm gonna be too busy writing.

4 Ways to Smack Your Writing Grinch Down

It aint easy, this whole writing-a-novel malarkey.

It's not supposed to be easy, obviously, otherwise everyone and Pavlov's dog would be doing it and MyFace and TwitterBook would be a whole lot emptier. Writing a novel that you hope someday will get published is definitely not an endeavour for softies or quitters, because with every novel you attempt to write you get a free gift. You didn't ask for it, and once you know you have it you certainly don't want it, but there's no shop to take it back to so you're stuck with it. I'm talking, of course, about your Writing Grinch.

You know that nagging voice in your head that tells you your writing sucks? That no-one's ever going to read your crappy novel anyway, even if you actually finish it, which you probably won't because it sucks so much? That's your Writing Grinch. Stephen King and many other writers talk about having your Writing Muse show up if you spend enough time putting in the graft - well, the bad news is your Writing Grinch does a pretty good impression of your Muse, and it can be hard to tell them apart sometimes (because even your Muse can be hard on you.) Tricksy little so-and-so, that Grinch. So what we need to do is arm ourselves against him; know his battle tactics and be ready to kick his butt like Buckaroo when he comes a-calling. (Note: I'm using 'he' throughout this because my Grinch happens to be a he. Yours might be a 'she' or even an 'it.' Adjust as necessary.)

My Grinch has been something of a regular companion during my draft two process ('bless' his little steel-capped bovver-boots.) So, because I'm the kind of person who cries at charity appeal adverts on the telly, I feel a need to encourage anyone out there who's thinking of abandoning their novel along with their writing dreams. I'm not quitting on mine, so I can't let you quit on yours without a fight!

So, without further ado, let's run down through the Grinch's most common mantras...

1 - "This novel is unpublishable. No agent/publisher is ever going to want it, because it's not what anyone would want to read."
...And so, what's the point of even finishing it, right? Give up, and start on something that has got a chance of seeing the light of published day. Except... didn't your Grinch say that about the last one you didn't finish as well - and the one before that, and the one before..? I think there's a pattern emerging here. Thing is... he might well be right. This novel you're currently slogging your guts out might not ever get published - in fact, if it's your first, the odds are pretty high that it won't. But the only way to even have a hope of ever getting the medal is to finish the race. Keeping your eye on the prize is a fantastic way to motivate yourself to keep on running towards that finish line, but if that's all you're in it for... well, it won't sustain you when that Grinch starts whispering in your ear and sapping your confidence. After all, nobody knocks themselves out to get a prize they no longer believe they'll win.

So at least for now, forget the prize. It's experiencing the whole journey, from the very beginning right to its end, that matters. Just keep putting one word in front of the other, sentence by sentence, scene by scene, chapter by chapter. Map out the journey and learn from each stage of it, so that you can take your experiences with you for the next one. And the next and the next. Because the best way to get to the Holy Grail of being published is to teach yourself to stay on the journey towards it - time after time after time...

2 - "You know, everybody laughs at you behind your back - you and your crazy dreams about getting your novel published. They all think you're wasting your time."
It's lovely when you have loyal friends, family and spouse around you, encouraging you and being totally supportive of your writing endeavours. Lots of writers have them in their lives - and, unfortunately, lots don't. If you're in the second category... well, there's not a lot you can do to remedy that situation, I'm afraid. Actually, finally get your work published? That'll hush their sniggering, disapproving mouths, right? Pfffft, no. Unless you can morph into the literary love-child of J.K. Rowling and Stephen King overnight (and flash the resultant wads of banknotes in the faces of your naysayers as proof) you can merely expect comments along the lines of "well, I think I might write a book as well then, if it's that easy to get published..." Seriously, I wish I was joking - but I'm not. Been there, heard it, and  - trust me, it's like a knife in the heart every time.

So you can't write for those people. You can't write to win them over, prove a point to them or to finally show them - finally - that you're not just a feckless dreamer who'll never amount to anything worth talking about. Harsh as it sounds, your best strategy is to teach yourself to not give a flying eff-word about what they think. Ever. You are a writer, and you don't need their approval - or anyone else's, for that matter - to do what you do. And if there's any part of you that's doing that, even if it's because you think it'll make even the tiniest difference in the long term, stop it. Stop that shizzle right now.

The only people that will ever matter when it comes to your writing is the people who want to read your writing. You won't know most of them - you'll probably never even meet most of them. But they're the people you write for. Not the unbelievers in your life. Screw them.

3 - "Okay, so you finish this novel - and then what? What if this is the only novel you have in you? What if, after this one, all your inspiration dries up and you can never write another one ever again?"
Because creativity, after all, is like a beautiful snowflake - unique and special and, once it's had its moment of glory melts away into nothing and disappears forever...

Mmmm... no, not really. You're not necessarily destined to 'use up' all the currency in your Bank of Imagination on just one novel, any more than you would eat the most delicious meal in the best restaurant in the world and then immediately say "Well that's it - nothing will ever come close to this experience and so from this moment on there is no point in eating anything else ever again. I can only hope it doesn't take too long to die of starvation." As long as you've got senses to engage and a brain to interpret them, your creativity is more like a well that fills up whenever you allow the rain to pour in (and let's face it, the only way for that not to happen is if you take steps to stop it getting in.)

Still not convinced? Okay then, let's imagine for a moment that you are one of those rarities that truly only does have one novel 'in you' and nothing more. Is that such a terrible thing? You'd certainly be in good company. Among other famous authors who only ever published one novel are; Harper Lee, with To Kill A Mockingbird, (although the world is currently aflame with rumours about a second one about to be published, some fifty-five years later) Emily Bronte with Wuthering Heights, Oscar Wilde with The Picture of Dorian Gray, Margaret Mitchell with Gone With The Wind, Boris Pasternak with Dr Zhivago, Anna Sewell with Black Beauty...

Would the literary world have been better off if they'd not bothered to finish those novels, just because they didn't go on to write any more after that?

4 - "It's taking too long! You're not writing fast enough for long enough! Your word count is pitiful! You'll be a-hundred-and-ninety-three before you ever finish this novel - hell, you'll probably die before you finish it!"
You've seen those books on Amazon too, admit it  - 'How to Write 2,000 Words an Hour and Pump Out a Book Every Thirty Days and be a Stinking Rich Kindle Millionaire Woohoo Bring on the Wonga!' And I'm not about to laugh in the faces of such books and say it's all a pack of lies. Some people do, in fact, write at least 2,000 words an hour and a book every thirty days (although in fairness, most of them are the authors of those types of books.) James Patterson seems to bring out a new novel roughly every two-and-half minutes, but that's because he has an entire army of ghostwriters in a magical fortress somewhere, who each take an outline he dashes off in a day or so and then beaver away at writing the books that he no doubt edits a bit before getting them published under his 'brand name.' (Harsh? Perhaps, but unless he actually went out and kidnapped those writers and keeps them manacled by their ankles to a desk, releasing them only for meals, sleep and toilet breaks I can't really diss him too much for having a factory-production-line approach to novel writing. I just hope he's paying them well for it and they genuinely don't mind not receiving much credit for their efforts... but even if that's not the case, I'm assuming they still have the choice to break away and strike out on their own.)

Some people can be full-time writers, some can only be part-time writers, and some have to squeeze in precious writing time between a gazillion other commitments. That will have some bearing on how quickly (or not) a writer can progress with their novels. Some writers are fantastically prolific: the mystery author John Creasey wrote six hundred novels in his lifetime, romance author Barbara Cartland wrote seven-hundred-and twenty-three and childrens' author Enid Blyton wrote over eight-hundred. (I'll let you have a moment for your mind to boggle.)

And then we have James Joyce, author of Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake. His average wordcount was widely rumoured to be six words a day (I don't know about you, but that makes me feel like a writing machine by comparison.) George R.R. Martin has also been accused of being a slow writer (albeit mainly by fans desperate for the next instalment in his Game of Thrones series) along with J.R.R. Tolkien and Michael Crichton. All of which suggests that there's room for tortoises as well as hares in the writing world.

The point is, whether you write for eight hours a day or two hours a day (mine is the latter) you can only write what you write in that time. As long as that's what you do for at least the majority of your allotted time - as opposed to checking your emails, surfing the web or sneaking off to watch Bargain Hunt and claiming it was 'for research' - there's not much more you can do. No honestly, there really isn't. I know all those books claim everyone can write 2,000 words a day if they put their mind to it - but what those books don't tell you is that anything between 300-1800 of those words will be utter drivel that you'll end up deleting anyway. Some of us know that already, and simply don't allow the drivel to make it onto the page in the first place. That's what reduces the wordcount for us.

By all means measure your progress - I use an Excel spreadsheet to mark in how many hours a week I spent writing and my wordcount at the end of each 'session.' That's a brilliant thing to do to keep yourself on track and strengthen your commitment to finishing your novel, because it puts you in the mindset of treating your writing like a job that you 'clock in' for. It's also the best way to work out exactly how much you are capable of producing in the time you have available; a few months of  tracking your wordcount-per-time-allotted will give you an average that's realistic and achievable for you. This will help you when it comes to writing towards deadlines - whether self-imposed or set by external sources - because you'll know if you're likely to meet it, and how much more time to negotiate for if you're not.

If you can improve on your wordcount over time - fantastic! But if you can't... accept it and don't use it like a measuring stick to hold up against other writers and then beat yourself over the head with. Forget about what everyone else is doing - you are you. And if you're more James Joyce than Enid Blyton... that's okay, it really is.

Well, those are my big Grinch Moans... what are yours? Are there things I've missed? I'd love to know.