Tag: writing process

  • What part of the writing process would you outsource to a co-author?

    Last month, bestselling author Wilbur Smith announced a £15m six-book deal with Harper Collins. The deal’s most intriguing aspect is that Smith, who has just turned 80, will outsource some of the writing process to co-authors. As reported in the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail, Smith will provide plot outlines and characters. He will be…

  • How would your characters stand up to a Paxman interview?

    There’s plenty for us all to learn about the need for preparation and anticipation just from watching Chloe Smith’s disastrous interview with Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight (Tuesday 26 June 2012). The lesson is true for government ministers, but it’s just as relevant for writers who are struggling to fully prepare their characters for the story…

  • Has the film adaptation of The Four Feathers lost the plot?

    How far should a screenwriter go in changing the plot of a novel when creating a film adaptation? Michael Hauge, in Writing screenplays that sell, says that it’s a false assumption that a novel can always make a natural transition to the screen. The two forms have very different rules, he says, and the allegiance…

  • Plan to get into the right state of mind for revision

    Drafting and revision demand very different states of mind, so different that it’s tempting to want to hand the whole revision process over to someone else.

  • Hemingway was right about that first draft

    According to Ernest Hemingway, the first draft of anything is shit. Nine weeks and ninety-eight thousand words after starting my own first draft, I’ve managed to prove that he was completely right.