Become a better writer with our tips and tricks
We hope you have been enjoying our new blog series, The Hidden Secrets of Writing, in which we showcase the books – there are over 50 of them – which have been published by our community, many of whom are past participants of our Creative Writing Course over the 15 years we’ve been in existence.
We mean for this blog series to provide value and concrete writing tips. Why have these books succeeded? What is it about them that works? In each blog, we provide writing tips on the strength of the extracts we showcase.
We also hope that the series will inspire you to (perhaps with a bit of help from us) write that book you’ve been aching to write. Or, if you have a draft, to write and polish it to a publishable standard. You never know, yours may just be one of the fortunate books to make it past the manuscript stage and join our hallowed list.
The range of books is wide, and includes fiction and non-fiction but, if we can sum up just some of the qualities we’ve noticed: a compelling writer’s voice and, in fiction, strong voices for different characters.
We’ve pointed out skilled use of details which immerse us in a time and place, while showing us more about what and who is observed, as well as the observer.
Scenes, which start directly in the action and leave us wanting more, surprising and humorous dialogue and a focus on “showing”, rather than explaining to the reader – these are just some of the aspects, which made these books stand out.
Top tips from the Hidden Secrets of Writing blog series
Adam Kethro’s Pleasures of the Harbour
Pleasures of the Harbour is a business thriller based on incidents drawn from Adam’s own experiences as the founder of one of South Africa’s largest logistics companies.
- Make room for your protagonist to reflect on events.
- Stories are about characters’ responses to events.
- Select the point of view that serves your story best.
- Write with a crackling intensity.
Lisa-Anne Julien’s If You Save Me
If You Save Me, is a story of sacrifice and redemption. The novel swings effortlessly between London, Trinidad and Johannesburg and is published by Kwela Books.
- Throw us directly into a moment without explaining where your characters are.
- Eavesdrop whenever you can to catch the cadences of real speech.
- Allow your characters to be doing things while they’re speaking.
- Use specific and accurate detail sparingly to immerse us in the moment and to show us more about your characters.
Tracy Todd’s Brave Lotus Flower Rides the Dragon
Brave Lotus Flower Rides the Dragon (Tracey McDonald Publishers) is Tracy’s own upbeat story, poignant and, at times, humorous, about her struggle for independence and love after a car accident left her paralysed from the neck down.
- “Show” as much as possible, rather than simply tell your reader what happened.
- Give readers access to your thoughts in the moment.
- Use enough accurate details to allow us to be there with you.
Vincent Pienaar’s Limerence
Vincent Pienaar’s novel Limerence was nominated for the prestigious Barry Ronge literary award for fiction. It offers a light-hearted view of a very Johannesburg character, Scout, who gets himself into deep trouble through his love of women.
- End scenes early. Don’t allow them to trickle away.
- Leave us with questions we’d like answered
- Constantly raise the stakes for your character whether physical, emotional, mental or even spiritual.
Michele Rowe’s What Hidden Lies
What Hidden Lies (Penguin Random House), which won the CWA Debut Dagger Award, demonstrates just how much the writing of prose fiction can be honed by some experience in script writing, and vice versa. Michele is one of our small group of facilitators who with Richard, designed and runs our script writing courses and our Hero’s Journey®Course.
- One or two distinguishing details are enough for us to visualise a person.
- Don’t give these details all at once. Weave them through the scene.
- Dialogue should ideally be economical and sharp.
Joanne Hichens’ Death and The After Parties
Death and The After Parties is the story of Joanne’s journey through love grief, trauma and healing. Joanne is a member of our faculty and runs our Memoir Weekend and Writing Retreat as well as our Writers’ Circle for memoirists. She also mentors writers working on memoirs.
- Write in strong scenes, just as you would if you were writing fiction.
- Pay attention to the sensory details, which allow us to visualise the situation for ourselves.
- Don’t rush through it. Harnessing the drama often means slowing down, taking us through every moment.
Tessa Niles’ Backtrack
As one of Britain’s most respected session singers, Tessa spent 30 years working alongside the greatest names in rock and pop. If not handled skillfully, though, even an account that drops any number of famous names can be dull, and fail to engage us as readers. Happily, there’s nothing boring about Backtrack (Panoma Press).
- Voice is immensely important in memoir. Chat naturally and directly with your readers.
- Don’t just “tell” your readers what it was like. Use anecdotes which give us a sense of a time, place and the people involved.
- Write in scenes, with dialogue, detail and action.
Ekow Duker’s White Wahala
White Wahala was shortlisted for the European Union Literary Award in 2011/2012. The story concerns the relationship between a brutal moneylender Cash Tshabalala and a white drug user, highlighting the wounds that still bedevil interactions in South Africa two decades after the end of apartheid.
- It’s counter-intuitive but, in fast scenes filled with action, slow down.
- Sensory details allow us to visualise the scene and be there with the characters.
- Dialogue shows us more about the characters and their relationship.
Community News:
Jan Glazewski’s memoir, Blood and Silver (NB Books), available at all good bookstores in South Africa, will now also be found at select UK bookstores: Gardners Books in Eastbourne, John Sandoe Books, Edward Stanford, and Waterstrones, or it can be ordered directly from Central Books.
Our All About Writing associate in Business Writing, Enoch Sithole, has been awarded his PhD by Wits University, for his thesis entitled: The nature of climate change communication in South Africa – its past, political and socio-economic undertones. Congratulations Dr Sithole. We’re proud of you.
Elizabeth Eksteen has been working with us for the past several years on her first novel, a vampire story called Behind the Mask. She was a schoolgirl when she began, full of enthusiasm and verve. She threw herself into her project with the kind of uninhibited energy that instantly made her one of our favourite mentees. Now the book is done, she has published it – and created not only a website to promote it on, but a video, a song, and a range of merchandise to go with it. Check it all out here!
And some (unintended) help for writers from Patrick Mork
Richard collaborated with business guru Patrick Mork in writing a self-help book called Step Back and Leap: 9 Keys to Unlock Your Life and Make Sh*t Happen.
Naturally we’re following Patrick on social media and what strikes us is that much of the inspiration/motivation that Patrick posts is relevant for writers too. A recent post about fear offers some suggestions on how to manage this horrible condition that many writers have to deal with each time they sit down to write.
Fear of the blank page, fear of failure, fear that your writing might not be up to scratch, and so on… And we know what fear does to us too. We just don’t write. We procrastinate. We say we have writer’s block. We freeze.
Patrick offers a suggestion on how to manage that fear. He says you should ask yourself two things:
- What can I do to mitigate that scenario?
And then do it.
- What’s my backup plan if things go wrong?
And then prepare for that.
Preparation is the key. It helps you release the stress and push forward to do hard things – like writing.
