The middle section of a novel is a notorious pitfall for authors. This is the stage when, after diligently setting the story up, developing character and sowing the seeds of threat for the rest of the story, things can often unravel. Weaker writing can creep in, subplots can take on a life of their own and start to affect the balance of the story, and exposition and info-dumping can begin to make an appearance as the author desperately tries to propel things towards the end. It’s also the stage of the book at which authors are most susceptible to writers’ block. Whether you believe this is a g ..read more

If you’re one of those writers who’s able to blitz through their first draft, satisfactorily type ‘The End’ and pour yourself a celebratory glass of wine before polishing up your manuscript to fire off to agents – then congratulations! But, for most of us, that just isn’t the case. It’s a sad fact that the vast majority of writers will give up at some point in the novel-writing process, either because it’s just too hard to find the time to produce such an enormous a piece of work or because they look at what they’ve written and convince themselves it’s rubbish. Almost all writers have these c ..read more

Brighton & Hove-based author and journalist Jane Crittenden signed to The Two Piers Literary Agency last year and has been working on her ‘grown-up romance’ novel Worlds Apart with editor and literary agent Rufus Purdy over the past few months. Once the book was ready, Rufus sold it – and an as-yet-untitled second novel – to editor Victoria Oundjian at Lake Union Publishing, who will be publishing it in spring/summer 2023. Here, Jane tells us about the novel, her route to becoming a published author and whether she’s a planner or a plotter. Firstly, congratulations on the publishing deal ..read more

Learning to write good description is an important tool you can use to bring your setting to life. But it should be used sparingly. Description doesn’t usually build a sense of conflict, so your reader is not going to be as interested in paragraphs of lovely, scene-setting prose as they are in a passage in which something is actually happening. So, when you’re describing things in your novel, keep it brief and – most importantly – be specific and don’t lapse into vagueness. We edited a novel recently in which we constantly had to bring the author up on their lazy descriptions. An ‘ancient’ boo ..read more

Whether you’re the kind of author who polishes your novel as you go along or you’re a writer who hammers out a first draft and tidies things up at the end, you’ll still need to do a proper edit of your book once you’ve finished writing it. There are three stages you need to go through to do an effective edit of your novel and this – the over-arching edit – is the first… So, you’ve completed your novel, you’ve typed ‘The End’ at the foot of the final page and you’re itching to get on with editing the thing so you can send it out to literary agents. What’s the first thing to do? Well, nothing ..read more

We’ve blogged before about how to write the perfect letter to a literary agent, but what about that other essential component of your submission package: the synopsis? Some agents merely glance at synopses, or don’t look at them at all, while others read them very carefully. And I know of at least one literary agent who asks only for a synopsis when an author submits to him. Whatever agents’ thoughts on them, though, you do need to prepare a synopsis – and you need to prepare it well. A synopsis is a short document that briefly tells a literary agent or publisher what the story of your novel ..read more

If you’re writing a Fantasy or Speculative Fiction novel – or thinking of writing one – you’ll be aware of just how important systems of magic and power are to your book. Once you’ve created the world in which your story will play out, it’s time to think about the power structures within it and how magic impinges on the lives of its inhabitants – and establish relevant systems around this. Here are our tips on how to do this effectively. A system acts as a set of guidelines that control either the magical effects or power struggles in your story. You need to define these systems and ensure the ..read more

It’s the question that all aspiring novelists find themselves asking at some point: just what are literary agents looking for? Here’s a selection of questions – and answers – sent to editor and literary agent Rufus Purdy in the final week of our sister company Write Here…’s online How to Write a Novel: an Introduction course, which will hopefully clear a few things up… Q: When pitching a novel to an agent, does it matter whether a writer holds a professional writing qualification?Absolutely not. I’m a vocal opponent of the idea that anyone needs a qualification to be an author. It’s good, when ..read more

In the final week of our sister company’s online How to Write a Novel: an Introduction course, we ask students to submit any questions they like to literary agent and course tutor Rufus Purdy who, before launching Write Here…, spent six years at the Curtis Brown literary agency. Here’s a selection of questions he’s been asked this year on submitting work to literary agents, all of which will help you hone your own submissions in 2021. Q: What are the best resources to identify agents who might be interested in my book?A good starting place is the Association of Authors’ Agents website (agentsa ..read more

If you want to know how to create memorable characters, there a couple of basic rules to follow: don’t revert to stereotypes and give them surprising, unique characteristics. A truly memorable character is one that readers haven’t come across before. Authors send us a lot of novels containing either stock characters – the evil pantomime villain, the bored, gin-drinking housewife, the nerdy computer genius – or other authors’ creations under a different name. Literary agent Rufus Purdy recently had to bring an author up recently on one of the protagonists in her novel – a brassy, stylish, sex-o ..read more