Jericho Writers

Here are the latest Jericho Writers newsletters:

Short & Grumpy II, the Sequel

If ever I feel alone or friendless, or fear that these emails are falling into the Great Void of Unknowing, all I have to do is to write a grumpy email about agents and/or publishers. The torrent – the surge, the tsunami, the deluge – of responses tells me that you are out there, and listening, and care as much as I do. That surge of responses deserves a direct reply. Before I get to that, though, I do need to ask for your help, please. We’re trying to figure out what we’re doing right, what we’re doing wrong, and what you’d like from us. We ask you about courses, membership, events and more. The survey runs to just ten questions. Your responses will shape what we do next. Please take the survey here. Thank you. And now for some short-and-grumpy thoughts about all things Agent and Publisher. First:- A lot of you – and I mean a lot – wrote to me with stories broadly similar to those I mentioned last week. Probably the commonest tale was the one which, simplified, runs: “An agent took on my manuscript with a lot of gushing excitement, but then, as time passed, stopped communicating with me at all.” And I repeat: that’s not OK. Yes, they’re busy. Yes, until you have formally signed with an agent, you aren’t technically their client. You don’t have an actual contractual claim on their time. But – I don’t accept that as an excuse. I once had a shouting row with an official of the Association of Authors Agents. He claimed that agents owed nothing to non-clients, because they weren’t clients. I argued – and still do – that no honourable agent can treat the community of writers with disdain. I still think that’s obviously true. And don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a problem with agents rejecting work. I don’t have a problem with them doing so with the blandest and least helpful of form-emails. But if an agent engages in a personal way with your work – perhaps they ask for a full manuscript, or they meet you at a Festival and tell you how great they think your work is, or they ask for editorial changes, or anything of that sort – then they owe you a timely, personal and considered response. If that response is a “no, sorry, changed my mind” – well, OK. That’s not what you want, but if it’s honest, clear and timely, you can’t really complain. Just seize your manuscript and make it better. Too many agents, too often, fail to give that personal, timely response, and it’s not OK. Second:- One or two people who have had bad experiences wrote to tell me that they have basically given up. They’ll write for themselves, but will no longer seek publication. People need to make their own decisions, of course, but I do think that’s a pity. The fact is, that for all its problems, Planet Agent is genuinely open to new and unknown writers. If the story you write is blisteringly attractive, it will be picked up. It will secure an agent. It will secure a book deal. From the perspective of the individual writer, these things may feel like a matter of black chance and blind luck, but they’re really not. At Jericho Writers, we see a lot of manuscripts and a lot of authors. When we see something that really dazzles, we basically know it will find an agent and a deal. Equally, some of the manuscripts we come across aren’t yet publication-ready. That doesn’t mean the author is an idiot. It just means they have more work to do. Those manuscripts, we know, are not yet ready to sell. And then, yes, there is an intermediate category of good-but-not-yet-dazzling. Those books are sometimes picked up. Sometimes not. In those cases, it is more of a dice roll. But the smart advice remains the same as it always has. Find a genius concept. Develop your craft. Tell your story well. Write better. Most of what we do at Jericho Writers is to help you do those things. Do them well enough and the whole getting published bit is reasonably easy. Third:- Avoid, avoid, avoid the vanity presses. Because it’s hard getting an agent, people are tempted into the vanity snake pit. As it happens, I think there’s a whole email’s worth of comments to make about those snakes, so I won’t say much now. Simply this: if a publisher asks you for money – via ‘partnership contract’, ‘hybrid publishing’, or whatever other term they prefer – they aren’t a publisher at all. Publishers make their money from selling books to readers. Vanity publishers make their money from selling dreams to writers. Please keep your money in your wallet and say no to the snakes. Vanity publishing, I do not love thee. Fourth:- Self-publishing is an utterly viable route to publication and readers. It’s not second best. It’s just different. The only real caution here is that you have to commit. You can’t just toss a book out onto Amazon and hope that it flies. It won’t. You must view your writing as a business and your publishing as a career. Your first book won’t make money so don’t expect it to. If you do well, though, then by the time of your third or fourth book, you’ll be seeing results that make you think, Yes, this writing lark might actually pay me. I am finding readers. I have a community of fans. I’m an author, and proud of it. Fifth:- Protect yourself. Even if you go trad, even if you have a wonderful agent, even if you have a terrific publisher, protect yourself. The single best way you can do that is to write steadily and build a mailing list. That list will, if properly managed, guarantee your access to readers and income for years and years to come. Don’t neglect it, just because your publisher looks shiny and the excitement is palpable. That mailing list is your rock. You may one day need it. Sixth – and last:- Don’t forget why you write. You never came into this game because you wanted this agent or that book deal. You came into this game because a story forced its way into your head and wouldn’t let you go. The joys and challenges of that story are real no matter what. So are the rewards. We writers are lucky. We carry joy in our heads. That’s it from me. I promised you I’d be Mr Sunshine this week and – in a slightly undependable, British January way – I’ve delivered on that, at least approximately. Go well, my friends Till soon Harry

PS: Want to talk? Let’s talk. Townhouse is the place to do it. If you haven’t signed up yet, then please do. Tis free and easy. If you want to talk to me about something else, then hit reply. According to recent genetic analysis, I am at least 70% human. PPS: You want to take that survey now, doncha? Knock yourself out, and survey yourself into a coma. PPPS: Everything we do at Jericho Writers has to do with helping you achieve your writing goals. Here are four things you could do right now. And any one of them will help you. 1. Become a member of Jericho Writers. We have packaged up the very best knowledge we have – about writing, getting published and self-publishing – and made it available online, It’s like a treasure trove of all things writery. I can pretty much guarantee it will improve your writing, and your ability to get published in the way you want. Learn more about membership. 2. Come to The Getting Published Day. Don’t fail to get published because you’re doing the basics wrong. We’ll tell you what to do and how to do it. Learn more. 3. Come to our Self-Publishing Day. I love self-publishing. I think the modern Amazon- and ebook-led self-pub model has done more for authors than anything at all since the rise of literary agents. But if you self-publish, you have to do it right. We’ll tell you how. 4. Sign up for our Ultimate Novel Writing Course. The course combines tuition in writing technique, with one-to-one mentoring, with detailed manuscript assessment, and throws in a ton of help on actually getting your manuscript published (or properly self-published) as well. I’m not aware of any course that does as much, anywhere. Our September course was fully subscribed, but we have a March intake coming up. More information here.

Jericho Writers Belsyre Court 57 Woodstock Road Oxford, OX2 6HJ United Kingdom +44 (0) 345 459 9560

The low-down on websites for authors I had some kind of web-presence for my writing long before I ever had anything to sell. But do you need a writing website? And if you do, how do you go about getting one?

NOW BOOKING: The Self-Publishing and Getting Published Day events (10% discount for members) Our two life-changing events are back this March, and bigger than ever before. Learn how to kick-start your indie career with the Self-Publishing Day, and connect with top literary agents at the Getting Published Day. Bookings now open, so get your tickets quick! The Self-Publishing Day (Regent’s College London – 14 March 2020) The Getting Published Day – Special Edition (Regent’s College London – 28 March 2020)

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Spotlight

VIDEO COURSE: Your website and mailing list (FREE for members) Taken from our Self-Publishing video course, this module is a must-watch, even if you’re aiming for traditional publication. Learn what you need from a website and how to go about getting one. WATCH NOW

BLOG: Author website essentials This toolkit covers the essential things you need to consider when building an author platform. READ NOW

NEW MENTOR: Welcome Gary Gibson! We’re delighted to welcome Gary Gibson to the Complete Novel Mentoring team. Gary specialises in sci-fi, speculative fiction, fantasy and horror – so do apply if you need expert, bespoke advice and feedback on your work. FIND OUT MORE

Content corner: How on earth do you start editing? Now, I’m no web designer, it’s fair to say. But somehow I’ve ended up designing a couple of websites myself anyway. And it turns out – there are platforms out there now that make it simple(ish) to have a go yourself. Before I got a publishing deal, I created a 100% free blog with Wordpress.org. This is easy-peasy to set up – just choose a template you like, customise as needed and off you go. You can even turn off the blog function, so it looks like a standard brochure site, if needed. The downside to Wordpress.org, is that you end up with ‘wordpress’ in your URL. Not a big deal, but I eventually decided that I wanted to upgrade to simply sarahannjuckes.com. A lot of people use Wordpress.com (different to .org) to build websites, but that was a little out of my expertise. So, I played about with SquareSpace and Wix, and eventually found that Wix was the least buggy out of the two for me. Much like my blog, I could choose a template and customise it as needed, and eventually hacked together something that looks reasonable on both browser and mobile, saving myself a few hundred monies. So – what about you? Do you have an author website? How did you create yours? Share your tips in the Townhouse, here. Sarah J

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Follow us on Instagram for more of our 'The Life of a Writer' cartoon series by our very talented Stephanie!

As always, happy writing and remember, you can contact our customer service team on +44 (0) 345 459 9560* or info@jerichowriters.com for any writing-related advice. Best wishes, Sarah Juckes Author | Jericho Writers *or if you're in the US, give us a call toll free on 1-800 454 2134

Plus – don’t miss: The Ultimate Novel Writing Course (Discounts available for members) Deadline approaching! Learn everything you need to write a novel in this year-long course and have expert tutors by your side, every step of the way. Q&A with the tutors of the Ultimate Novel Writing Course (Open to all) If you’re interested in our Ultimate Novel Writing Course and would like to know more, come along to our webchat on 4 February, 19.00 GMT. Manuscript Assessment (Discounts available for members) Our most popular editorial service matches you to your dream editor and gives you tailored feedback on your work. It doesn’t get better than that.

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Jericho Writers Belsyre Court 57 Woodstock Road Oxford, OX2 6HJ United Kingdom +44 (0) 345 459 9560

Short & grumpy

A short and irritable email this week, inspired by a trio of author-interactions I’ve had in the weeks since Christmas. Three authors. Three stories. Here they are. Author #1 Sells her debut book to a Big 5 publisher for a reasonably good advance. Lots of excitement, lots of mwahs, lots of happiness. The excitement and happiness lasts for a while, but in the weeks before publication something in the atmosphere starts to fade. A cover reveal is mishandled on Twitter. A publicist is changed, a bit abruptly. Actual, tangible marketing activity seems hard to locate. The author happens to grumble – a bit – to me about it. I ask the author what the level of supermarket orders is. She asks her editor (with whom she still has a decent relationship.) Editor says, roughly, “No, a bit disappointing unfortunately but, yay!, orders from Waterstones are yadda yadda, blah blah, change the subject.” The marketing never materialised. That’s author #1. Author #2 Has a reasonable track record over several books. Sales in one (smallish territory) have been good. Sales in the bigger, more influential markets have been weak, probably due to inattentive publishing. Reader reviews and critical reception has always been strong. Anyway, after a hiatus, Author #2 writes another book and gets a (perfectly fine) offer direct from a publisher. She goes to her agent with the offer. It is now that agent’s job to turn that offer into a contract, and to knit together a set of deals across the various English language territories, so that the author has a proper sales platform to work with. But – after weeks of delay – the agent dumps the author. Nothing to do with the author; more a change of direction for the agent. Now, it’s perfectly OK for agents to alter direction, of course, but that doesn’t, to my mind, mean that you can desert your existing clients at their moment of greatest need. On the contrary, you need to get the deal done, then move on. You take on those obligations when you take on clients. Like it or lump it. That’s one thing, but there’s another. In this case, the agent was and is part of a large and well-resourced agency with plenty of other agents. So if Agent X wants to change direction, she should damn well speak to her colleagues and say, “We can’t, as an agency, let our client down, so please can someone step in here for me.” That didn’t happen. The author – the admirable Author #2 – has a publishing offer that urgently needs attention and she’s been abandoned by both her agency and her agent. Great. Author #3 This author email wasn’t even especially grumbly. It was just a “hi, how are you” from someone I last talked to years ago. But one snippet from that conversation struck me. Author #3 got an agent. Agent launches the manuscript at the Big 5 publishers and their immediate competitors. Some nice words came back, but no offers. The author then thought, “Well, that’s disappointing, but there’s a slew of smaller publishers who might be interested,” … only to discover that her agent had no intention of approaching them. Their relationship ended right there, over the corpse of an unsold book. And I don’t like any of this. Not one bit of it. Here’s what I think: Author #1: What happened here was that a big publisher killed its marketing efforts when it didn’t get sales from supermarkets. What should have happened was that the marketing effort pivoted to be Amazon-led, not supermarket led. But no such pivot happened. The publisher hasn’t yet come clean with the author, and likely never will, but when the supermarket orders failed, that author’s career was dead – even before the first book of a two-book deal was even published. Author #2. Agents can’t abandon authors when authors most need their help. It’s fine to part company, but you have to take the author’s needs in mind when it comes to timing. And big agencies should act like big agencies. If one agent is forced to step out, another should gladly step in. That shouldn’t be forced on the agency by a plaintive author. It should – obviously – be the way the agency wants to approach its business. Author #3. If an agent takes on an author, they should take that author on. Yes, a small publishing deal will earn peanuts for the agent, but it’ll quite likely be one of the most important things ever to happen to the author in question. An honourable agent should let the big deals pay for all the deals that never quite happened. And many agents, agencies and publishers are deeply honourable about these things. I don’t want to suggest that malpractice is rife across the industry. But it is too common. And I don’t like it. These things are almost never the author’s fault. It’s just crappy behaviour by people who should know better. But because authors are (weirdly) relatively powerless in their own industry, there are no effective sanctions against bad behaviour. These things come down to a question of honour. Of honouring the broader contract between author and agent, or between author and publisher. What can we do about it? Not a lot, except call it out when we see it. What can you do about it? Not a lot, except know that you haven’t done anything wrong. It’s not you, it’s them. Oh yes, and if you start to feel like you are being badly treated by your agent or publisher, then you are quite likely right to think so. It’s time to start making plans to move on. There. Rant over. As promised: it was grumpy. Alas, however: it was not also short. My bad. I can’t really do short. Sorry. I shall be sunnier next week. I shall be Mr Sunshine, with my tapshoes on. Till soon Harry

PS: Let’s have a chitter chatter on Townhouse. If you haven’t signed up yet, then please do. If you want to talk to me about something else, then hit reply. I am a yoooman, you know. PPS: Are you crazy? If you read all these emails about writing and publishing, do you not also think you should take some action to propel, hurtle and rocket-boost your career into some loftier orbit? Here are three fine things you could do, right now: 1. Come to The Getting Published Day. Our Sarah Juckes came to this event a few years back. She got her agent right there. She was being sold at the London Book Fair a few days later. That could happen to you, you know. Details. 2. Come to our Self-Publishing Day. If the whole traditional merry-go-round doesn’t sound right to you, then walk around the back of it and learn how to market yourself, effectively, on the world’s biggest and most powerful sales platform. Self-publishing isn’t just a vanity project any more. Done right, it’s a career. Details. 3. Sign up for our Ultimate Novel Writing Course. So called because it is a course about writing novels. And we’ve tried to make it as shiny and golden as it can possibly be. Details here.

Jericho Writers Belsyre Court 57 Woodstock Road Oxford, OX2 6HJ United Kingdom +44 (0) 345 459 9560

Genre focus: Flash fiction and short stories How to write a story in under one-thousand words Brevity is everything.

NOW BOOKING: The Self-Publishing and Getting Published Day events Our two life-changing events are back this March, and bigger than ever before. Learn how to kick-start your indie career with the Self-Publishing Day, and connect with top literary agents at the Getting Published Day. Bookings now open, so get your tickets quick! The Self-Publishing Day (Regent’s College London – 14 March 2020) The Getting Published Day – Special Edition (Regent’s College London – 28 March 2020)

JOIN NOW

NEW on Jericho Writers

MASTERCLASS: Flash Fiction (FREE for members) What is flash fiction and how do you write it? Join short-story writer Amanda Saint as she reveals how you can craft a prize-winning story in under one-thousand words. WATCH NOW

WEB CHAT: Q&A with The Ultimate Novel Writing Course tutors (Open to all) 4 FEBRUARY 19.00 GMT. Join the tutors of the Ultimate Novel Writing Course ahead of the Spring course deadline for the first of our Community web chats, open to all on the Townhouse. FIND OUT MORE

WEBINAR: Slushpile Live with Davinia Andrew-Lynch (FREE for members) TOMORROW 18.30 GMT. Join us for the first Slushpile Live of 2020 with literary agent Davinia Andrew-Lynch. Submit your work for review and feedback live. FIND OUT MORE

Content corner: How on earth do you start editing? 1) Didcot Writers 500 words on the theme ‘Cloud’. Deadline 29 February 2020. 2) London Independent Story Prize 300 words with a £7 entry fee and prize of £100. Deadline 9 February 2020. 3) Retreat West 500 words on the theme ‘Abandoned’. £8 entry fee, first prize £200. Deadline 29 March 2020. 4) New Millennium Writing Awards Under 1000 words. Steep $20 entry fee, but nice $1000 prize. Deadline 31 January 2020. 5) Quantum shorts Under 1000 words on quantum physics with free entry and a prize of $1,500. Deadline 29 February 2020. What are your top tips for writing flash fiction? Share them in the Townhouse here. Sarah J

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Follow us on Instagram for more of our 'The Life of a Writer' cartoon series by our very talented Stephanie!

As always, happy writing and remember, you can contact our customer service team on +44 (0) 345 459 9560* or info@jerichowriters.com for any writing-related advice. Best wishes, Sarah Juckes Author | Jericho Writers *or if you're in the US, give us a call toll free on 1-800 454 2134

Plus – don’t miss: Ultimate Novel Writing course Spring 2020 New dates for Spring 2020 just added! Write your book alongside top tutors; attended life-changing events and get detailed feedback on your work, every step of the way. Opening section review (Discounts available for members) An editorial review of the first 20,000 words of your manuscript. Our editors read, digest and absorb your work, then they’ll tell you how to improve it. Complete Novel Mentoring (Discounts available for members) Two world-class mentors are here to give you one-to-one advice as you write or edit your novel. Join the list of success-stories.

JOIN US

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Jericho Writers Belsyre Court 57 Woodstock Road Oxford, OX2 6HJ United Kingdom +44 (0) 345 459 9560

Our March day-events are now open for booking

This March, choose between two, life-changing day events.

The Self-Publishing Day A beginner's springboard into professional self-publishing. 9.30am – 6.00pm 14th March 2020 Regent’s University, London BOOK YOUR TICKET The Getting Published Day Find your perfect agent and get traditionally published. 9.30am - 6.00pm 28 March 2020 Regent’s University, London BOOK YOUR TICKET

Which one will you choose...?

The Self-Publishing Day Want to get serious about self-publishing but not sure where to start? This unique event brings some of the most successful indie experts together in one room, and maps a blueprint for future bestsellers. Although this is an event for beginners, expect to get professional-standard tips and leave with notebooks full of information – from making the best of Amazon, all the way to how to market your book once it’s out there.   Highlights from this year include: Marketing for indie authors, with Sam Missingham Learn where to spend your time and money – and how to know you’re doing the right things. With the marketing Queen herself, Sam Missingham. The Self-publishing model Learn the fundamental blueprint of self-publishing. From how to begin, all the way to how to progress your career going forwards.

FIND OUT MORE AND BOOK NOW

The Getting Published Day In this special expanded edition of the life-changing* Getting Published Day, you’ll get to choose between two workshops per session, so you can focus on the skills you need to land a literary agent and get published. You’ll also get the chance to pitch your work directly to agents at the event and the opportunity to get feedback via a one-to-one Book Doctor. Highlights this year include: Alternative forms of publication You don’t always need an agent to get published. Learn how you can land a traditional publishing deal whilst skipping the slushpile. Dealing with Rejection Every writer experiences rejection. In this supportive workshop, super-tutor Debi Alper gives us essential tools on how to move forward positively. One-to-ones with literary agents Book an additional one-to-one session with agents Hannah Weatherill and Megan Carroll and get their feedback on your work, face-to-face.

FIND OUT MORE AND BOOK NOW

*I say life-changing, because this is the very same event where I met my own agent after well over a decade of searching. And that quite literally changed my life! As with all our events, members of Jericho Writers are entitled to 10% off ticket prices. Join now to get yours. I’ll be at both events myself, so looking forward to seeing you there – whichever one you choose. Sarah J

Copyright © 2019 Jericho Writers, All rights reserved.

Jericho Writers Belsyre Court 57 Woodstock Road Oxford, OX2 6HJ United Kingdom +44 (0) 345 459 9560

From scene to sequence

In my last email, I talked about scene building and I spoke a little as if the only two structural units in a story are the scene itself and the plot itself. But that’s not really right. In the film industry, which gets a bit more technical about these things, they distinguish between the scene and the sequence. The scene could be very short indeed: Actor gets out of car at lawn. Walks across a dark front lawn. Knocks at a door. Something like that could easily come in at under ten seconds of screen time. But then you have the sequence, which is a chain of scenes that form a logical, coherent group of their own. So Jason Bourne style car chase in Paris is likely to have multiple, multiple short scenes. Something like this: Jason Bourne jumps in car. Drives nervously away. Police sirens start to wail. He stamps on the gas. Car chase stuff. Bumping down a flight of steps in a Mini. People shooting. Cars crashing. Then, tra la, somehow Jason Bourne gets away. He ends up, safe but shocked, in an underground car park. You can see that from a movie-maker’s point of view, there are a ton of scenes to deal with and film, but from the movie-goer’s perspective, the whole thing feels like one coherent unit – ‘the Paris car chase’. Now, last week, we spoke about how the scene itself has a kind of rhythm of its own. A question gets launched. The tension around that question increases. The stakes and sense of pressure rises. Then the question is resolved or transformed one way or another. That scene ends and a new one begins. All good stuff, right? Well, it can be useful to apply the same kind of thinking to the sequence too. And here, the inner unity of the sequence often comes down to this: are the story-questions launched in each scene intimately linked or not? So last week, we looked at a very short scene of 450 words. Fiona had just escaped from some baddies. She was looking for sanctuary. She came to her mysterious Russian friend, Lev, for help. He took her to his clean, but extremely basic, squat. She effectively rejected that as a place to stay. He agreed to take her somewhere else. That was the gist of the scene. But the unity of the whole sequence flowed something like this: 1. Fiona is just driving peacefully along a Welsh road, when – boom! – she gets abducted. That out-of-nowhere quality often signals the start of a major new sequence, a major new turn in the plot. The story question is now: why has she been abducted? What is going to happen? 2. She’s taken to a barn and interrogated with violence. She believes that, even if she tells everything she knows, she will be killed at the end of the interrogation. The story question is now: will she spill the beans? Will she escape? 3. She escapes, injuring one of the bad guys in the process. The story question is now something like: Will she make her getaway properly? Or will she be recaptured? 4. It becomes clear that she’s avoided recapture, but she is very worried about whether her ever-fragile mental state will cope with what’s just happened. The story question is now: will she cope? And so on. The sequence doesn’t come to an end properly until she is back at work having, roughly speaking, survived not just the violence, but the mental consequence of it. If you look at your own work, you’ll find other similar sequences naturally jumping out at you. And – And what? What are the actual practical consequences of these thoughts? Well, there might be a few, actually. For example, it’s very common to have a lovely time writing a sequence of scenes, such as I’ve just described. The story flows. The action moves. The whole thing is as fun and easy as writing ever gets. And then – you hit the end of the sequence. You have to find your footings again in the context of the wider story. And for a week or two, you thrash around, wondering why the work has suddenly become harder. And the short answer there is: worry you not. That’s just part of storytelling. Give it time. But also, it can be really worth thinking about your sequences in isolation. Are their highs or lows sufficiently high or low? Does there feel like a real structure there? (So think of the difference between a Jason Bourne car chase and a complex story-sequence like the Fiona abduction / escape one. The movie car chase is just plain fun and it doesn’t need much structure. Your work doesn’t have special effects and it doesn’t have Matt Damon, so you need the structure.) If the sequence as a whole feels flat or lacking in intensity, it’s most likely because you haven’t quite evolved an internal sequence-structure that fits. If that’s the case, then the very simplest bit of analysis is just to take what you’ve written, scene by scene, and see how your story questions evolve. If there’s a natural, powerful movement from one scene to the next, you’re doing good. If the movement seems abrupt or too slow, you need to alter your pacing accordingly (which might mean adding or subtracting entire scenes, of course.) But really, this email is a win if it makes you think about sequences as a story-unit in their own right. The problems and solutions in writing are often really, really obvious as long as you ask the right question. And sometimes those questions need to be asked about sequences. That is all from me. I am neither ill. Nor locked in a vault. That’s a win, right? Till soon Harry

PS: Let’s have a chit chat on Townhouse. If you haven’t signed up yet, then please do. It’s free (and good things are a-coming soon.) If you want to talk to me about something else, then hit reply. I’ll get back to you as fast as I can. PPS: It is spring. There are crocuses in my garden. And we have two fine events to invite you to. They are: 1. The Getting Published Day. This is a whole day. And it’s all about getting published. Hence the name. Details. 2. The Self-Publishing Day. I’m going to let you guess what this is all about. No more clues from me. Details. They’re great events. They get incredible feedback from delegates. And I really hope to see a lot of you there.

Jericho Writers Belsyre Court 57 Woodstock Road Oxford, OX2 6HJ United Kingdom +44 (0) 345 459 9560

How to go from ‘first draft’ to ‘finished draft’ Novels are made in the editing. If you’re anything like me when writing a first draft, you’ll spend half your time trying to work out what it is you’re trying to say. And often, you don’t quite get it right first time. In this newsletter, we spotlight our best editing tips. Enjoy!

WEBINAR: Slushpile Live (FREE for members) 22 January 2020. Start the year the right way, by getting live feedback on your work from a literary agent, in the first webinar of the year. SECURE YOUR PLACE

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Spotlight

ORION UNCUT: Structural Editing (FREE for members) How does a big-five editor approach editing? We speak to a Commissioning Editor at Orion books to find out how the pros do it. WATCH NOW

BLOG: How to edit your first draft Starting the year with a finished first draft? Here’s how to approach editing, with real copy-edit examples. READ NOW

MASTERCLASS: Self-Edit your novel – Part One (FREE for members) Debi Alper is the tutor of our lifechanging self-editing course. In part one of this masterclass, she shares some of her secrets to edit your own work. FIND OUT MORE

Content corner: How on earth do you start editing? You’ve done it! You’ve completed your first draft. A lot of writers never get to this point, so take some time to crack open a bottle of wine and bask in your glory. Now, I’m afraid, comes the real work. Because this is where novels are turned from ‘okay’ to ‘amazing’...but how do you start editing all those thousands of words? 1) Read it through, all in one sitting (if you can). I like to have a notebook with me with a line down the page, noting down roughly what happens in each chapter, and anything glaring that needs to change. 2) Look at your plot. Transfer those scene-summaries onto postcards if that’s easier, and map them out across your floor or fancy-pants whiteboard. Does it work? 3) Look at characters. Think about where they are at the beginning and what they learn along the way. Do you need to change any scenes to make that stronger? Start with these three things and ensure your story is singing all the right notes before thinking about moving onto sentence-level changes. Is this how you first approach editing? What are your top editing tips? Share them in the Townhouse here. Sarah J

Cartoon

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As always, happy writing and remember, you can contact our customer service team on +44 (0) 345 459 9560* or info@jerichowriters.com for any writing-related advice. Best wishes, Sarah Juckes Author | Jericho Writers *or if you're in the US, give us a call toll free on 1-800 454 2134

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