Our Articles

‘Tale as old as time, true as it can be / Barely even friends, then somebody bends unexpectedly…’  

Yes, I’m probably showing my age here – and yes, you can quibble over whether Beauty & The Beast is a true enemies to lovers story (it’s arguably a dark romance with shades of Stockholm syndrome). The fact remains that enemies to lovers – the trope that sees two people who intensely dislike each other fall deeply in love – remains one of readers’ all-time favourites. And for very good reason... 

Enemies to lovers stories are, by their nature, tense, dynamic and exciting. Characters must move from one way of thinking – and feeling – to another that’s diametrically opposite where they began. They have significant distance to travel and a whole gamut of emotions to navigate along the way. In the hands of a skilled author, that journey can be gloriously entertaining – not least because friction between characters sparks chemistry, as well as conflict.  

So how do you make sure your enemies to lovers arc soars convincingly from ‘never’ to ‘forever’? How do you hook readers with hate, then encourage them to invest in true love? Here, I offer five tips that should help you.  

1. Consider the reasons for conflict

You need to establish your characters’ status quo before you shake it up. Why do they dislike one another, and how deeply rooted is their enmity?  

In a story with fantasy, speculative or sci-fi elements, this might be straightforward. Perhaps your characters are on opposite sides in a war for territory in space – or it could be that one is a witch hunter, while the other possesses forbidden magic and is trying to evade capture.  

Scenarios like these are fertile ground for enemies to lovers plots and tend to have high stakes – reasons for the reader to care – baked in. The fate of a civilisation might be on the line, or one protagonist’s life might be at risk if the other turns them in. 

In a real-life setting, the reasons for dislike between characters may be more subtle, and you’ll have to work harder to make that conflict matter. Perhaps your protagonists are long-term work rivals, political opponents or live life according to wildly different values. Finances, careers or reputations might be at risk, depending on the circumstances. 

It could be that your characters loathe each other after a disastrous first encounter – a ‘meet-hate’, if you will. In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice – originally titled First Impressions – Mr Darcy acts the pompous snob, but he also bruises Lizzy’s ego by referring to her as merely ‘tolerable’. This sets the stage for deepening dislike, in a great example of how brief moments can spark major misunderstandings. Now primed to dislike Darcy, Lizzy believes every awful thing she hears about him until she’s forced to think again. 

2. Shape your characters carefully  

Character is king in any great story. In an enemies to lovers novel, you need to design protagonists whose preconceptions and past wounds prevent them from seeing each other clearly. 

Ideally, the qualities of one character should trigger a strong, negative response in the other – probably one that’s rooted in the ‘mirror effect’. If Character A seems careless and irresponsible, for example, ultra-cautious Character B will likely disapprove – but is this simply because they wish they could live more freely?  

Considering this sort of dovetailing when you first design your characters is key to making an enemies to lovers arc work. It’s the complementary nature of the differences between your protagonists that will lead them to better understanding of themselves, opening the way for feelings they’d never have imagined possible. 

3. Shove them together somehow  

Some kind of forced proximity is crucial in an enemies to lovers story, because you’re dealing with people who wouldn’t breathe the same air as one another unless forced to. As an author, you have to fashion the circumstances that will bring them – believably! – together.  

In the witch hunter / secret magic story mentioned above, perhaps the hunter’s beloved little sister is dying and only an illicit spell can save her. In a contemporary romcom, it could be that two colleagues find themselves in charge of a crucial work project – and if they don’t pull it off, their firm will fold.  

Whatever the situation, your characters’ loathing of one another should be outweighed by the advantage of working together. Suddenly, they’re no longer enemies but reluctant allies – reliant on one another to achieve a goal and pushed into problem-solving as a team. 

This stage of your story offers abundant opportunities for building romantic and sexual tension, as well as including lots of witty banter – crucial if you’re writing a romcom. 

4. Plan your plot, but overlay emotion 

The road from enemies to lovers is paved with moments of realisation – revelations that show the characters they might be wrong about one another. The devotion the witch hunter shows his younger sister might humanise him, for example. Or perhaps it turns out the devil-may-care heroine in a contemporary romance is a chaos demon because she had an unstable childhood.  

Your characters might discover they have certain things in common or find themselves sharing secrets they’d normally keep locked down. Each should have traits and vulnerabilities the other would never have suspected – and every discovery should narrow the distance between them, encouraging empathy and admiration.  

Each shift in your protagonists’ thinking should be driven by plot. You need to create a sequence of events that have emotional side-effects if you want your characters’ changing feelings to seem realistic. Incidents such as getting stuck in a lift together, being held up by armed bandits or having to stand up to a bully can be revealing – prompting everyone involved to think a little differently afterwards.  

Eventually, there’ll come a point when your characters finally accept they don’t loathe one other – a-fork-in-the road moment that might involve a physical encounter or vital emotional support. If you’re writing from two points of view, characters’ realisation of their true feelings might come at different times, deepening the tension. 

5. Earn the ending

Finally, your characters need to profess their love for each other – but not before they’ve vanquished whatever force was pushing them apart, or casting them as enemies, to start with.  

In contemporary fiction, your characters will need to deal with whatever fatal flaw you gifted them at the start of your novel – the problem that, via the mirror effect, drove them to hate their former enemy.  

In a high-stakes sci-fi or romantasy story, it might be that there’s a choice to be made: betrayal of a former mentor in favour of new love, or rejection of a whole belief system.  

Whatever kind of story you’re writing, your characters need to have changed – and their individual growth should be what makes a romantic relationship between them possible.  

Want to learn more about writing romance? Join Sunday Times best-seller Rowan Coleman on our Writing Romance Novels course and learn how to create a compelling, emotionally immersive love story.

We talked last week about publishers, and whether they wanted Same-As-Yesterday-But-Different, or whether they wanted startlingly new. I said they wanted both, and I’m sure that’s right.

But how to create that shimmer of the new, the unexpected?

And, OK, there are lots of ways and I don’t propose to list them all, not least because I’d have no hope of giving you a complete list. That said, there is one superbly reliable technique that is a sheer joy both to read or write. Here’s what I mean – an example of dialogue from the delightful Alan Ritchson-led Jack Reacher series. Reacher has been arrested by the police and he’s sitting with his wrists tied with cable ties. Here’s what happens:

Oscar Finlay: Reacher, come with me.

Reacher: No.

Oscar Finlay: Excuse me?

Reacher: Not until you let these zip ties come off. We both know I didn't kill anybody, and they are uncomfortable.

Oscar Finlay: [turns to officer Roscoe] Get the box cutter.

Reacher: That's okay. I got it.

[tears off the zip ties that cuffs his wrist, then picks them up from the ground]

Reacher: You guys recycle?

The last line of that dialogue – the thing about recycling – feels to me, although perfectly fine, the weakest bit. It’s standard-issue tough guys being tough. It’s not far off Roger Moore’s James Bond dropping somebody into a vat of boiling glue and quipping, “he came to a sticky end.” And it’s all good. Remarks of this sort make for good solid genre fare, and we love them for that reason.

But the best bit of dialogue? The bit that makes you sit up and suddenly pay extra attention to what’s happening in front of you? It’s that ‘No’.

There’s no apology there. No insult. Nothing unruly. Just a simple, absolute refusal to play by the expected rules.

Reacher could have skipped the ‘No’ and gone straight to the ‘Not until you let these zip ties come off.’ That would still have communicated refusal, but it would have offered a negotiated settlement along with that refusal. And that negotiated settlement – that search for conflict resolution – is what nearly of us do, nearly all the time. If we don’t want a particular outcome, we try to dangle a better alternative in front of our counterpart’s eyes.

Indeed, this email has many tens of thousands of readers and not one of us, if tied up in a police cell, would simply say ‘No’ to Finlay’s request.

And yes, OK. Reacher is immensely strong and was never all that bothered by the ties: he knew he could remove them at will. But that act of strength is just mechanical. Big guy vs plastic: big guy wins. The more interesting part is the social part. I know what the norms are, but I’m going to act outside them.

Encountering those rejections of the socially expected is always interesting.

We’re social monkeys. Exceptions are potentially dangerous to us. If people refuse to play by the rules, our own security is suddenly in question. So – in fiction, as in life – we become hyper-attuned to non-standard behaviour.

Reacher offers, of course, a very traditional masculine toughness (combined with a very traditionally masculine lack of emotional fluidity.) But that outsider quality can come from anywhere.

It could be neurodivergence. It could be shopping addiction. It could be manipulation and lying. Or extreme shyness. In my own Fiona’s case, it’s a combination of brains and weirdness and a surprising capacity for violence. You can create your mixture as you wish.

As I say, if you get that character right, the approach always works. The thrill of that norm-breaking is so great that we never weary of it. Reacher is always Reacher. Fiona is always Fiona. You’d think that our monkey brains would say, “OK, I’ve figured this person out now, and I don’t need to get all hyper-alert when I’m round them.” But they never do. Reacher being Reacher is always thrilling. Maybe the thrill declines a little, but not much.

And –

Well, I just want to be clear that nothing about this is compulsory. You can certainly work with everyman-type characters: you just have to make sure that they encounter things that will offer a different kind of startlement, a different type of grip.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY / Reacher-y

Go on then.

Show us one of your characters being Reacher-y – acting outside the expected norms. We want to feel that sudden bit of sit-up-and-take-notice: we weren’t expecting that.

Normal rules, please. 250-300 words. Title, genre and any necessary context. Now over to you.

Please title your post in this format: title / genre / [anything else we need to know]. That will help others navigate a big old forum with speed. When you're ready, you can post your work here.

Til soon.

Harry

The best thing about finishing your book in 2026 is the staggering array of options for reaching your readers. But here’s the catch: if you pick the wrong route, you could face a detour into disappointment or, worse, a total dead end. Knowing which path to take is daunting. As an author who has navigated the Big 5, worked with agile indies, and self-published my own hits, I’ve seen the pitfalls and the shortcuts. So, fasten your seatbelt. Let’s plot the route that suits your book’s unique DNA.

1. The Watercooler Wonder

Is your novel driven by juicy moral dilemmas or a what if hook that demands to be debated? Agents and publishers call this ‘upmarket’ or ‘book club’ fiction. It’s the sweet spot where commercial pacing meets literary depth. Because these books rely on word-of-mouth and physical visibility, the right publisher is essential.

• Your Destination: A major traditional imprint. You need their sales and marketing teams to get your book into high-street windows and supermarket shelves where reading groups congregate. The prestige can also help you score screen and translation deals.
• Question to ask yourself: When I tell people the elevator pitch, do they immediately start arguing about what they would do in my character’s shoes? If yes, you’ve got a Watercooler Wonder.

2. The Hot Take

Is your book inspired by a TikTok trend, a current news event, or a cultural moment that’s white-hot right now? Trends move at the speed of swipes. And trad publishing, which can take 18 months or more from contract to shelf, is way too slow.

• Your Destination: An agile Indie press or high-quality self-publishing. You need a route that values speed-to-market so your story or guide lands while the conversation is still happening.
• Question to ask yourself: Will the central theme of this book feel so last year next year? If the answer is yes, embrace the heat and move into the fast lane.

3. The Binge-worthy Brand

Are you a prolific writer of romance, cosy mystery, or high-octane thrillers with six more plotted out? Then you could become a brand that appeals to hungry genre readers, who’re dying for the next book from their new favourite author. To succeed here, you need to be up-front and online.

• Your Destination: A digital-first specialist. They can use metadata, rapid-release schedules, and direct-to-reader lists to make your name a brand. Many also do translations because these stories can go global.
• Question to ask yourself: can I imagine a whole shelf full of books with the same huge appeal, rather than crafting one title at a time? If you’re a storytelling machine, and write the pages as fast as a reader will turn them, a digital partner could match your speed and ambitions!

4. The Cult Classic

Are you writing life-changing non-fiction, a specialised memoir, or a genre so specific it hasn’t hit the mainstream yet (Dinosaur Detectives, anyone)? If your audience is small but incredibly passionate, a big publisher might not make the sums add up. But for you, ‘niche’ is a superpower. You don't need a million readers; you need the right five thousand.

• Your Destination: Self-publishing or a bespoke small press. And you can use non-fiction content beyond books, in audiobooks, courses or paid Substack posts.  Selling direct also means you keep more profit.
• Question to ask yourself: Do I already know exactly where my readers hang out online because I am one of them? Then you don't need a gatekeeper to show you the way – or take any of your royalties! Cult books thrive on indie energy.

5. The Voice of a Generation

Is it your unusual, captivating, or experimental prose that everyone comments on first? Sometimes the hook isn't the plot—it's the way you see the world. Literary fiction or experimental memoir requires a prestige route where the brand is built on critical acclaim and awards.

• Your Destination: A literary specialist: either a boutique imprint within a big house or a prestigious independent press. They have the kudos to get your book into the hands of prize jurors and critics.
• Question to ask yourself: Is my book’s greatest strength its voice or rarity? If so, you want to find an editor with the same passion.

Remember too that books can change lanes. I first self-published my 5:2 books but conventional publishers soon made an offer that got them in stores and translated into multiple languages!

The path to publication isn't a straight road; as writers, we now have to power to pick and choose the route that matches our writing and our deepest bookish desires. Pick well and you’ll find your dream destination…

Want to dive deeper into finding your route? I'll be at the London Festival of Writing this year exploring these decisions in two panels: 'Deciding what route to publication is right for you' and 'Writing in Multiple Genres.' And if you're leaning toward the traditional route, my Path to Publication course starting 20 April 2026 walks you through crafting the query letters and synopses that open those doors.

People planning to self-publish are often advised to target a commercial genre and write a book that matches its readers’ expectations. Many indies have built successful careers on that principle, e.g. JD Kirk, Rachel Maclean and LJ Ross. However, self-publishing can also be a brilliant channel for non-commercial manuscripts in small niche markets that you want to get into the hands of readers for your own reasons. 

For example, you may have had a remarkable life experience that you’d like to share to benefit or inspire others. Or you might wish to leave a printed written record of your family or local history for the benefit of future generations. Unless you’re a celebrity, such projects are unlikely to appeal to traditional publishers, whose business model is to acquire only those books that will make a significant profit on their investment in editing, design, production, and marketing.  

As an indie author who calls the shots, you are free to publish whatever you like, regardless of profitability. Profit and sales are not the only justifications for self-publishing. Professor Dr Alison Baverstock, teaching the publishing degree at Kingston University, once said self-publishing can be justified even for a print run of a single copy. Scale and financial gain aren’t everything.   

Indeed, some of the most rewarding self-publishing projects I’ve been involved with have been low budget and low profit. In some cases, the resulting books haven’t even been put up for sale, but given away.  

My very first self-publishing project was a collection of blog posts raising awareness and understanding of what it’s like to live with Type 1 Diabetes, which affects my husband and our daughter, and by extension our whole family. No commercial publisher would have touched it, but it was a sufficiently worthwhile project to gain endorsement from the CEO of JDRF, the Type 1 Diabetes charity, and BBC Radio 4 Today anchor Justin Webb, whose son had recently been diagnosed with Type 1.  

More recently, I self-published a funny little novella – a quirky blend of second-chance romance, magical realism, and a tribute to the beauty of the Cotswold countryside in spring, and a complete departure from my established line of cosy mystery novels. Mrs Morris Changes Lanes (the title a cheeky take on Christopher Isherwood’s classic Berlin novel, Mr Norris Changes Trains) was so niche a proposition that I knew it wouldn’t sell in huge quantities, but I loved the story so much that I was prepared to invest in a beautiful hand-drawn cover by Rachel Lawston (www.lawstondesign.com) and a professional edit by Alison Jack, who had provided design and editorial services for all my self-published books. I was very proud of the resulting books. The novella took years to break even, but I’m so glad I had the skills and courage to make it happen.  

I was also involved with a series of local history books in my home village, for which I was one of the contributing writers. We had a very limited target market: local residents and the village diaspora. Yet sales have not only covered production costs, but made enough profit to fund substantial donations to local causes. 

I’ve worked on two books produced to be given away, both memoirs of terminally ill men who wanted to turn their typescripts into printed books before they died. Perhaps the most rewarding moment of my whole self-publishing career was receiving a photo of one of these gentleman with a huge smile on his face as he held the printed proof of his book. He died the next day. 

I’m delighted that two alumni of my Simply Self Publish course have recently used what they’ve learned to launch their own very valid niche book projects of their own: John Goodall’s The Infallible Fortune Teller, a widower’s memoir about his marriage to an Iranian, and Stella Darvey Joory’s Rachel: A Life in a Turbulent Country, a biographical novel based on the life of her mother. “This book was my life’s work,” says Stella.  

So, if you have a passion project that you’d like to share with the world, I hope these case studies convince you that self-publishing could be just what you need to turn your vision into reality.  

Find out more about the Simply Self Publish course here (insert link). Registrations are now open for the next course, which will run April-June. I look forward to hearing about your self-publishing ambitions.  

© Debbie Young 2026 

Last chance to register for the Spring 2026 Simply Self Publish course, which kicks off 7 April. To find out more, check out the course and brochure here.

There is a fair amount of – understandable – authorial concern about what publishers actually want.

Do they just want to follow the same-again-but-slightly-different formula? So if werewolves and vampires are all the rage, are publishers cynical enough simply to want a same-again W + V story but with a twist (set in an Inuit village, set in Edwardian London, told through the voice of a were-druid)?

Or are publishers more Zen than that? Do they wait with an open mind, not asking or expecting anything from the next manuscript they open, just waiting to see if this new tale feels new and amazing and just insistent on being published?

Because there’s reasonable support for both hypotheses, you’ll see plenty of online chat amongst writers debating this question.

But the answer is simple, and encouraging. It’s simply this: publishers operate in both ways. In fact, it’s probably fair to say that nearly all publishers operate in both ways pretty much all the time.

First, the cookie-cutter approach.

Yes, publishers like making money and they’re not complete idiots.

So if they notice were-books selling like hot garlic on a full-moon night, they will naturally want to get their hands on were-books. They’ll operate in precisely the way I’ve just described, applying a two-stage test:

1. Does this book involve werewolves and vampires?
2. If so, does it do so in a way that moves the boundary forward in some way? Does this book promise to seem fresh to a reader who’s already deeply steeped in the genre?

That second question is a complex one, because agents can’t determine the answer in light of books that have already been published. If your book gets taken on by an agent now, it may be 12-18 months before it’s available for sale. So really agents are reading the submissions pile. They’re talking to editors about what they're acquiring right now. They’re trying to judge from that evidence what will feel fresh in a year or so’s time.

Because agents have access to a much wider data pool than you do, they’re well-equipped to answer that question in a way that you’re not. And – tough. There’s no workaround, except knowing your genre and writing at what you take to be its leading edge.

There are times of publishing frenzy when this cookie cutter approach works with an insane intensity. That was true of vampire-lit. It was true of misery-memoirs. It was most astonishingly (but briefly) true of spanking novels, in the wake of 50 Shades Of Grey.

But most genres operate like this, at lower pressure, all the time. A crime editor needs to buy crime books. He or she simply won’t find a dozen astonishing novels a year, so they’ll be perfectly content to buy on the same-but-different basis. And that makes life easy. Cover designers know what kind of designs to use. Marketers know what approach they need to use. Publicists know what doors to knock on. And so on.

All that said, no one has ever entered into the books trade in order to pursue a same-but-different approach. It just never happens.

If you hang around with publishers (at glorious festivals like ours, for example), you’ll hear them talk repeatedly about passion. They all claim that theirs is an industry driven by passion, and it really is. You could work in a vinyl flooring business and have no strong feelings at all about the stuff you make and sell. That is never, ever true of publishing – not at any level, or in any firm.

So, publishers do buy cookie-cutter books and they do so all the time and without any sense of shame and they’re perfectly right to do just that.

But they also buy the bolts-from-the-blue, the lightning-strikes, the black swans. Lincoln in the Bardo and Twilight and Gone Girl and Where the Crawdads Sing, and any number of other books that looked at what everyone else was writing and just said, “Yeah, don’t care.”

Now, it’s also true that publishers have to operate under the shadow of the spreadsheet, the invisible maths of profit and loss.

Some editors, faced with something astonishing, will have a failure of faith. Roughly, “Yes, I liked this, but can I get a minimum of 10-25,000 people to think the same way? I’m not sure. This is weird.”

But phooey. Some people are cowards. There are plenty of publishers out there. There are, in fact, for any genre, easily enough editors at easily enough imprints that a really good book will find its home.

Here’s a story from film (the quote comes from this Guardian article):

As Six Feet Under producer and director Alan Poul recalls: “The story is that they did a focus group with The Sopranos pilot and it got horrendous reactions. It was one of the lowest-testing focus group scores ever – people just couldn’t understand the idea of this protagonist who wasn’t super-handsome. Chris [Albrecht from HBO] was faced with the choice of tinkering with it or just putting it on as it was. And he went with the latter. That single decision changed the face of television.”

As a group, publishing is more like HBO than not. It’ll take a risk.

In television, that kind of gutsiness is difficult and rare – because budgets are big, schedules are small, and failures matter.

In publishing? None of that’s true. Budgets are piffling. Books are abundant. Failures are so common that it’s the successes which are genuinely unusual.

From the same article, HBO’s current CEO says:

“To this day, we don’t test things,” he says. “We don’t do research about what sorts of shows we should make or what talent we should work with. It’s never been something that HBO has relied on. For me, it’s just been: ‘Is this a good show? Do we like it? Does it feel different?’"

In TV, that’s so unusual, they write articles about it. In publishing, it’s completely standard. No one ever tests. They do conduct research, yes, but (in my sense at least) that’s more because research is something that big corporates feel they have to do. I think the impact of that research is marginal at best. In the end, an editor’s judgement matters more.

The moral for you?

Don’t worry about it. Don’t sweat it. Immerse yourself in your genre, yes. (And if you don’t have a clear genre, just immerse yourself in the kind of books you like. Read lots. Read intelligently.)

After that, just write the story that grips you. Let that character invade your head. Find the voice. Believe in it. Write really well. (Craft matters hugely. It’s key.)

In the end, it just doesn’t matter much whether your book is another cookie from the same mould (but with interesting differences from the last one) or whether it’s genuinely, startlingly different. Both books – if they’re good enough – will find a home.

Publishing is a capacious industry. Its appetite is omnivorous.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY / Keeping it simple

Plain vanilla this week, folks. Just give us a passage – 250-300 words, plus a little context - and we’ll give you the best feedback we’ve got. Both barrels of it.

Please title your post in this format: title / genre / [anything else we need to know]. That will help others navigate a big old forum with speed. When you're ready, you can post your work here.

Til soon.

Harry

The first thing is that all agents will be drawn to different things. I am not a visual person so I am often not drawn to mood boards (I find them overwhelming), and I will scroll past most pitches that rely upon listing tropes. This is because many books in the same genre will be able to list the same tropes and it doesn’t really tell me anything about your book.  

Six key tips for pitching:

1. Genre/ title/ word count is really important. At a first glance it tells me if a project is something I COULD work on. 

2. A snappy one-line pitch is helpful, and I have requested many pitches over the years based on a hooky one-line. But they are hard to do well. So I am really looking for a short pitch that can tell me: who I am following, where we start, inciting incident (doesn’t have to be action but it will be the catalyst that changes things for the main character) and then where we are going/ who we are going with. This last bit will set up if it’s a new romance, if it’s a horror story, if we’re going on a quest, involved in a battle and so on. Whatever is at the heart of your book. 

3. Unique Selling Points are hard to get across in a short pitch but try and think about what makes your book special. When you talk about it what makes you excited? What makes your story stand out from potentially many other stories with similar plot points/ tropes? I always look for the pitches that tell me something about the book I am considering reading beyond vague vibes.  

4. Although I like comparisons, if you rely on the comps to be your whole pitch, I will likely scroll past. Comps help us work out the vibes of the book and how we might market it, but they do not tell us about your plot. 

As an author, approaching genre can be tricky – particularly when you consider the line between what could be considered as ‘book club’ and what counts as ‘literary’ fiction. How do you know where your manuscript sits in the market?  

As a literary agent, I spend a good chunk of my career working on fiction, thinking about how novels are marketed and trying to gauge which publishers will go for the projects I’m handling. Equally, in my work with Jericho Writers as an editor, I find it’s something that authors are always curious about: when their manuscript is ready to go to agents, how should it be pitched, and why?  

Here, I hope to unpack some of the distinctions between literary and book club fiction and help you understand five key differences between them. However, the book club and literary genres are areas of fiction where there is some overlap – it’s not so definitive as, say, thriller vs romance as a contrast of genres. Inevitably, therefore, there will be some crossover.  

In fairly broad strokes, book club is often based around more ‘traditional’ plot structures and development, whereas literary might tend to be more experimental – and foreground elements of voice, dialogue, and characterisation over plot. This could be put as simply as prioritising plot vs prioritising stylistic elements.  

Structure and character arcs: clear or ambiguous? 

When approaching story structure and characterisation, most novels will follow a traditional three-act structure: set-up, confrontation, resolution. Whereas this is typically adhered to in the plot development, building of narrative tension and character arcs of book club novels, in literary fiction the boundaries are a little more blurred.  

Literary fiction tends to be more led by theme and character; so, if your novel is written with this three-act structure informed mainly by plot events then it would fall into the book club genre. Equally, if your novel is written in a way in which this three-act structure isn’t so clearly defined (and perhaps your writing foregrounds those other stylistic aspects), then you’re likely working in the literary genre.  

Writing style and voice 

In terms of writing style, literary fiction is often championed as ‘voice-driven’. So, in the same way that structure and characterisation might inform approaches to the shape of literary fiction, so too does this level of characterisation-led storytelling often shape how that story is told. That is, literary fiction could be accessed through a unique voice with certain quirks, streams of consciousness, or in a writing style with this that reflects the character’s psyche.  

In a literary fiction novel about an unreliable narrator, the voice might be unbroken in this stream of consciousness form, or a style point might be adopted. No punctuation for dialogue, for example.  

In the way that structure generally sticks more to the traditional three-act story format in book club fiction, an unreliable narrator might in that case be shown through the escalation and reveal of plot events that highlight dishonesty.   

Consider your novel’s concept 

Think about the ‘high concept’ of your novel. Can your novel easily be pitched in a one-or-two sentence summary that will universally be understood?  

Typically, if your novel has a high concept – if it’s an easily pitch-able ‘x does y and what happens will lead to z’ sort of a set-up – then you are writing more clearly in the book club arena.  

If the concept of the novel isn’t so easy to pitch in a one- or two-liner and is more informed by themes, then that sounds like a work of literary fiction.  

Your reading habits are a tell 

In as much as the old adage ‘write what you know’ holds water, so too does ‘pitch the genre that you know’. If your reading habits tend towards book club fiction, the tendency will be that you write book club fiction. The same is true for literary fiction.  

So, when you get to that stage of submitting your novel to agents and thinking about how to pitch the genre, a key thing to do would be to work backwards in thinking about how your work might reflect your reading habits, and how this might have informed the novel you’ve written. 

Remember, the line is blurred

Lastly, to caveat all this at the very end… you’ve probably come across a big literary hit being republished as a book club edition with questions for discussion at the end. The boundaries are clear in the distinctions I’ve outlined above, but the end product of this all is publishing as a business: these genre boundaries aren’t, as mentioned, akin to romance vs. horror.  

Although you should definitely understand what you’re writing and how you should pitch it, there is room for manoeuvre in a publishing market that is (we hope) constantly developing. 

A book is a book is a book

Books are books, right? It doesn’t really matter whether you read them on a phone or a Kindle, or whether you read the paper sort. A book is a book is a book.

And yes, a pulpy thriller is very different from a piece of classy literary fiction, but most passionate readers read widely – the pulpy thrillers and the literary fiction and the niche non-fiction and work in translation and other things that just happen to strike our eyes and our appetites at the right moment on a sunny day. That’s the best way to read.

__________________________________

NEWSFLASH

We’ve extended the application deadline for Ultimate Novel Writing Programme and the Novel Writing Course to Sunday 22 March. The course starts on 1 April, so this is your last chance saloooooooon.

_______________________

At first glance, the market for books operates just as you might imagine.

Everyone sells in all formats

Ebooks are usually said to account for maybe 25% of the overall books market. I’m sceptical of those estimates, however, certainly as applied to novelists.

Self-publishers – who are overwhelmingly ebooky – don’t generally assign ISBN data to their books and those sales are excluded from most industry data. Further, the “25% overall” figure ignores vast genre disparities. Non-fiction (especially reference) is heavily print-led. So is children’s fiction.

Indeed, I had an argument just now with an AI-bot, challenging its summary and it acknowledged, “You're right that once we look specifically at adult fiction and account for the "dark matter" of the industry—self-published digital sales—the picture shifts significantly … the adult fiction category is the one place where electronic formats (e-books and audiobooks combined) are arguably the primary way people consume stories today.”

So let’s say that for adult fiction, electronic formats account for half or more of unit sales. (Print, being more expensive, accounts for more than half of revenues.)

Naturally, trad publishers offer books across every major format.

All digital-first and indie publishers do the same.

It’s true that the digital-first folk can’t usually reach High Street bookstores, but they can easily offer print books through Amazon and Amazon is still by far the most consequential bookshop in the world, accounting for more than half of most trad publishers’ revenues.

So no matter how you publish, everyone can publish in all formats, with ease.

And yet …

Despite all this, the market for books cleaves into two vast hemispheres with stunningly few points of connection.

Tradworld looks to physical bookshops as its north star.

It thinks about print before ebook. It thinks about physical bookstores before Amazon. It thinks about critical acclaim from newspapers and other sources far more than it does about reader reviews on Amazon.

To be clear, this isn’t a dumb strategy. Tradworld publishers make very healthy profits. Ten or fifteen years ago, I thought there was a significant chance that traditional publishers would just fold up and shrink to a fraction of their previous size. They haven’t. They’ve thrived.

In the meantime, there’s a flourishing host of digital-first publishers (including self-publishers, all of whom are digitally-led.)

Those guys – the Digifirsters – don’t care about physical bookshops: they have no access.

They don’t care about newspapers and traditional sources of literary praise: they don’t get any love from those places and, even if they did, it would make no difference to sales.

They may or may not care about Apple and other non-Amazon bookshops, but really Amazon is the thing. The Digifirsters are all about selling on Amazon. They arguably have more in common with people who sell household wares on Amazon than they do with the fine old literary houses who once sold Jane Austen or Herman Melville.

And as I say, these worlds barely connect – or connect to a remarkably small degree.

You can literally sell 1,000,000 ebooks on Amazon and yet struggle to shift 20,000 paperbacks through physical stores.

You can sell 1,000,000 ebooks and yet have zero reviews in newspapers. Indeed, it’s stranger than that. If newspapers do end up writing about you, they’ll say things like, “the million-copy selling author that no one’s ever heard of.” By which they mean, “the million-copy selling author that we’ve never noticed because we were looking in the opposite direction.”

What’s more, Tradworld still operates in a universe where there are such things as nation-states. Woe betide you if you sell a British book to an American reader, or vice versa.

Digifirsters don’t really notice the existence of nation-states. Book covers, blurbs, marketing strategies and digital support in general cross continents, with barely more than a tweak or two along the way.

What this means for you

All this is my own long and winding road leading up to Mount Useful.

And on the tippy-toppy summit of Mount Useful there is a sign which says: “You need to know what kind of book yours is.”

If your book is better suited to the Digifirsters, you may as well skip over agents (to start with) and submit straight to the better digital-first houses. Or, if you approach agents, you should do so aware that those agents are not about to get you a trad deal with Penguin Random House. And, of course, if your book is naturally digifirst, then self-publishing is also an option, and a very good one.

If on the other hand, your book is better suited to Tradworld, then you need to go there (via an agent) without much pondering the alternatives.

There are some general pointers to how to understand your book.

Is it commercial genre fiction, with plot more important than prose style? It might well be digital-first.

Is it a standalone book, not part of a series? It might be more suited for trad.

Is it going to appeal to somewhat self-important newspaper reviewers? Think trad.

Do you see a properly global (albeit English-speaking) market for your book? If so, digital publishing beckons.

And so on.

These are hints, not final determinations. I said the two hemispheres connect to a remarkably small degree, and that’s true. But there are still plenty of books where you could choose to go either way, and your final judgement needs to take into account all the factors, including of course your own preferences.

And – as usual, this email is too long

And – as so often, it’s hard to set out reliable, general rules.

But –

Worry ye not, oh Friends of Jericho. We created a whole month of events to help you tease these things out for yourself. We thought for a very long time about what to call this group of events – we summoned brand advisors, logo designers, and a troupe of creative artistes from Mongolia – and, for reasons that now escape me, we ended up calling it GETTING PUBLISHED MONTH.

We have sessions on self-pub, on publishing with digital-first publishers, and on traditional publishing, as seen through the eyes of a literary agent. If you’re worried about which route is right for you, then you really need to join (and watch them back on replay).

The sessions are open to Premium Members only but – and here’s a tip you can use at any time – you can join us for just one month for £30 (using the “Flex” option). Just be sure to cancel your membership to prevent auto-renew. Or get 10% off pay-upfront and pay-monthly plans by using the hard-to-remember code GETPUBLISHED10 at checkout, offer ends 31 March.

That’s it from me. I leave you with a sea shanty and a small ginger biscuit.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY / Ask us anything

Simple Feedback Friday this week. Do you have any questions? Then ask. I’ll do what I can to chip in, but I hope the Hive Mind gives generously of its honeyed wisdom. Please title your post in this format: Genre / question / [anything else if you want]. That helps others navigate a big old forum with speed. When you're ready, you can post it here.

Til soon.

Harry

Before I start, I just want to say that you guys did a good job on the Johari window / Feedback Friday exercise last week.

When I wrote the email and then set the exercise, I did wonder if lots of you would just think, “Huh? What?” and ignore the challenge. But you didn’t. If you haven’t already looked at the discussion, then do. (If you’re not a member of Townhouse, that link won’t work, but you can sign up for free here. You now don’t even need to set a password: you can just use your Google account to wave the magic wand.)

Anyway. Hold-scanning: the topic of the email.

I used to climb pretty regularly at a climbing wall centre in Oxford. I’m not an especially good climber, but there were plenty of really strong people climbing there.

Indoor climbing (especially bouldering, which is what I mainly did) tends to be short and intense. You attempt a hard route, and either get to the top (yay!) or drop off at some point along the way. Either way, your muscles should be burning a bit, so that even if you want to re-attempt the route, you need to rest a couple of minutes before you’re in a state to go again.

So: you have two minutes when you’re resting and not climbing. Or, in fact, you have quite a lot of those two-minute windows. What do you do with them?

One option is just to lie on your back and pant and look at the super-climbers who seem to bounce up routes that you can’t even contemplate.

But there’s an alternate strategy, and a better one.

You still lie on your back. And pant. And look at the super-climbers.

But this time, you really look at them. When they move so effortlessly onto that bulgy yellow hold you can barely reach, do you notice that they rock their weight away from it, before moving back towards it? Maybe that pendulum motion is part of what gives them that mysterious ability to grab it.

Or as they swarm up that overhanging wall, do you notice that they’re not readjusting their hands on the hold each time?  Maybe the seconds they shave from not readjusting their grip means they’re less likely to run out of puff near the top?

The climber who uses his or her lying-down-and-panting time to study other climbers is much more likely to progress than the rest.

The same is true, my darling sparrow, my blue-footed booby, of you.

Obviously, when you write, you work hard at putting down the best prose you can to tell the strongest story possible. Jolly good. Here’s a fresh worm for you by way of reward.

But what about when you’re doing the writer-equivalent of lying down and panting? What do you do then?

Specifically, when you read published work by others, how do you read it?

I know when I was engaged in writing my first novel, I became obsessed with trying to understand how other writers were achieving the effects they were achieving. If they did something great – how did they do it? If they did something disappointing – what lay behind that failure?

The act of reading changed completely for me. I’m now a bit less obsessive than I was, but not all that much. My editor-brain is now so automatic, I can’t switch it off.

It should be the same for you.

When you’re reading, not writing – use that time to learn. Every novel (and plenty of non-fiction) has things to teach you, but you’ll only hear those teachings if you’re alert to the messages.

If you read a book by John Smith – are his sentences better than yours? Are his descriptions more evocative? If they are: why? Does he use more complex words? (Probably not.) Does he pick out better details? If so, what makes those details better than yours? Are you not writing your description as well, or are you not seeing the scene in the first place with as much clarity?

If you read a book by Jane Brown – is her plotting better? More exciting? How does she generate the excitement? Is it greater speed (more car chases)? Or is it greater depth (greater emotional jeopardy during the chase)?

You have to track these things down. It’ll change the way you read, but so much the better. It should do.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY / That bulgy yellow hold

Bit of an experiment this week, but let’s give it a go.

Take a 250-word chunk of text from your work in progress. Pop it up on Townhouse with title, genre, and any context we need.

Please title your post in this format: Genre / title / [anything else if you want]. That helps others navigate a big old forum with speed. When you're ready, you can post it here.

Then – ignore your work. Go and jump around on other people’s posts. In each case, read the work and give a comment on it. Aim to do that with 5-10 posts in total.

And I don’t just want a comment – I want a useful comment.

A comment that’s good is, “The second sentence is given particular menace by noting the knife’s blade as well as the vase of daffodils. This is a domestic scene, yes, but we already feel the edge of danger.” That’s specific and reproducible. OK, you may not want to write a knife-blade and daffodil sentence of your own, but you can use the insight you just had when writing your own material.

A lousy comment is, “I really liked this. It felt atmospheric.” That’s not specific at all. (What did you like? How did the author create the atmosphere?) And because it’s not specific, it’s not reproducible. It gives you no insight into how you can achieve (or avoid) the same effects.

I don’t actually mind if you pop work of published authors up on Townhouse instead of your own. But the heart of this exercise is in the comments you make. Flap to it, my crested grebe. Jump to it, you wagtails and oystercatchers. I’m going to be very interested to see how we do.

Til soon.

Harry

With the return of Meet Your Match coming up, we wanted to share the advice of our Meet Your Match 2024 winner, Alessandra Ranelli, to get her top tips for polishing your pitch until it shines. This advice originally appeared in our newsletter in April 2024.

Alessandra's debut novel Murder at the Hotel Orient will be published in the UK on the 30th April 2026 (pre-order here) and in the US on the 19th May 2026 (pre-order here).

Four Things Your Pitch (Probably) Needs

1. A Hook

I know, you’re sick of reading this advice. If you already know your hook, great. If you need help, I recommend a technique I call Finding your Glimmer, which is part of my pitching ritual. Meditate, and recall the initial idea, moment, or question that inspired you. Chances are, that initial spark is closely related to the hook that will make readers buy your book.

2. Be the Same but Different

I can feel you rolling your eyes. Here is a trick: use the comp title plus a clarification.

In my query letter, I quote from one agent who described my book as a “Naughty version of THE MAID.”

• [adjective] + Comp: Dystopian Peter Pan (Lord of the Flies)
• Comp but [Adjective]: Twilight but kinky (50 Shades of Grey)
• Comp with [Noun]: Pride & Prejudice with Spice (Bridgerton Novels)
• Comp for [Target Audience]: Harry Potter for Gen Z (Fourth Wing)
• Comp in [Unique Location]: Scooby Doo in a Retirement Home (Thursday Murder Club)

3. Clear Stakes

To ensure the stakes and motivation are clear, review your pitch with the unstoppable curiosity of a toddler. Why? Why? Why?

Example: Susan Smith has one mission: destroy James Weatherby, and this boat cruise is her perfect chance…

This is going to leave readers asking why? in a bad way.Is Susan an assassin? A vengeful ex? While we’re at it, who even is Susan? Is she a teen or an adult? Be intriguing, not vague.

4. Genre

This can be explicit (In this YA romantasy…) or implied by description.

-Investigate indicates mystery or crime

-Love triangle points to romance

-High School Freshman implies YA.

Your comps may also indicate your genre, without wasting word count.

Things Your Pitch Probably Doesn’t Need

1. Your character’s name.

What’s in a name? Well, unless they’re a historical figure, not much. Consider using their job title, age, relationship status, nationality, or something that provides more information. If they’re a historical figure, their last name often suffices. Sometimes you do need a character’s name, but it’s rare you need their full name.

2. The whole story.

Focus on the inciting incident, save the twist for the synopsis. Think of this like a seduction. Leave them wanting more.

3. Modal verbs, or passive verbs. Aim to use active verbs and eliminate modal verbs. She must battle can be She battles.

4. To Follow Traditional Grammar Rules

This advice is just for social media pitches, where character count, well, counts.

- Don’t spell out numbers under 10, use digits.

- Replace and with &. Use emojis, with caution.

- Go ahead: use conjunctions or adverbs. I know, I know, Stephen King taught you never to use adverbs. He’s usually right. But Stephen King probably isn’t reading your tweet. I, on the other hand, look forward to seeing your pitches, and hope to see some of these tips employed there. Good luck and happy pitching, everyone.

Mysteriously,

Alessandra Ranelli

PS: If you want more advice, or to learn my secret ritual for developing pitches, there’s a post on my website with examples....

I thought it would be nice to start this newsletter with a profound quote about what makes a satisfying ending. What a fool. It was immediately clear that the internet has as many opinions on what makes a good novel ending as whether pineapple belongs on pizza.  

I should have seen this coming, because even among my author friends there is huge variety in our approach to endings. Some of us absolutely have to know the ending before we start writing, seeing it as a destination to be driving towards even if there are detours along the way. Some of us like to set out without a map, excited to see where the journey takes us. Some of us love ambiguous endings while others want to wrap absolutely everything up. For some, the most important thing is a last-minute twist.  

So in lieu of an amazing catch-all quote, I will tell you how I approach endings. But I will also remind you that reading helps develop writing muscles. As a reader, you know instinctively when a story is heading for its conclusion. You know which endings you have found satisfying and remember years later. You also know which endings have felt like a damp squib, a cheat, a “what on earth just happened”?  

Even if you have never written an ending to a novel before, you have experienced hundreds, probably thousands of them. As ever, listen to your internal reader!  

I don't always know how my books will end

This makes me jittery, so I have to have an ending idea before starting out. I outline my novels before I begin a first draft. But that first draft is exploratory and about halfway through, I’ll realise I know so much more about the characters but also what is and isn’t working with the plot. So I never get to the end of that very first draft.  Sometimes, I have several false starts and they all teach me something valuable to take into the next version.  

When I start the first full draft, the one that I know I will finish, I will know the ending.  

I don't save everything for the final page

If you cook someone a three-course meal, you don’t serve everything up all at once. The main course will go cold while they eat their starter, the ice cream will melt before they get to it. Your dinner guest won’t have time to savour and enjoy each dish.  

It’s the same with ‘reveals’ and wrapping up plots and sub-plots. Give each reveal and resolution a little space to breathe. Let some smaller sub-plots conclude in the run up to the end, as an appetizer for the main conclusion.   

Consider if all the storylines need to run that far or if a midpoint reveal might lift the pace, while surprising and delighting the reader.  

Reflect the ending

You don’t have to lay this on too thick, but having a mirroring moment to the opening chapter will remind readers how far a character has come. For example, if a character runs away from something in the opening chapter, have them stand their ground in the final chapter.  

Ambiguity and playing fair

Ambiguous endings are controversial. That’s why people are still arguing over the Sopranos ending nearly 20 years on. If you’re going to let readers decide how a story ends, it’s important to play fair. Give them enough tools to draw a conclusion even if you’re not confirming that conclusion on the page.  

Consider how you want your readers to feel

It’s a huge privilege for a reader to trust me with ten or more hours of their life by reading my book. I get to plant stories, images and characters in their minds, and that’s a serious honour.  

I give a lot of thought to how I want them to feel after they finish my novel and what impact I want it to have on them. It’s not just about answering the narrative questions established in the beginning, it is also about giving them something to keep.  

Do you want to give them hope? Do you want them to feel inspired to try something new or make a change? Maybe you want to leave them scared or thrilled? I like to stay with them while they reflect on the story, but some authors like to cut away early. What do you like as a reader? Chances are, that’s the kind of ending you’d also enjoy writing.  

And just remember, you don’t have to get it right first time. Like parking in a tight space, endings can take multiple attempts! You will get there in the end, and your satisfied readers will never know how many swearwords and balled up pieces of paper it took. Good luck!  

I know. You likely read the title of this piece and thought: “Mateo, why would I want to learn how to write in multiple genres, when I’m just trying to find my way through one genre?”

A valid question, but hear me out. Even if you don’t have plans to write in multiple genres (yet!), learning the how behind the why of the what will help you expand your creative arsenal, which will make telling the stories you want to tell more manageable. 

As someone whose contemporary, satirical debut novel (Black Buck, 2021) was quite different from their speculative, dystopian sophomore effort (This Great Hemisphere, 2024) this is the type of piece I wish I’d read before embarking on that journey.

Reasons for writing in multiple genres

The reasons for writing in multiple genres are vast and varied. Perhaps you wrote something and it didn’t move people. Or you went against your heart, hopped on a trend, and failed to produce anything of personal artistic value.

Then, of course, some of us are masochists (shocker!) and need a thrill in order to feel our most creative. Especially because, as the cliche goes, there’s no such thing as a loss so long as you walk away with a lesson.

And sometimes, the reason is as simple as writing a story for the story’s sake. Genre be damned.

The risks of writing in multiple genres

The thing is, writing in multiple genres comes with plenty of risks. There is a reason people say “Stephen King” and think “horror.” It’s because it’s advantageous, and financially lucrative, to carve out one lane for yourself. If you suddenly decide to swerve out of that lane, it may confuse people.

At the same time, certain genres come with certain expectations. If those expectations aren’t met, then you’ve both alienated your core audience and missed your new one.

There’s also the trap of becoming a jack of all trades, master of none. The authors we associate with certain genres have written extensively in them, taking the time to master them. This is harder to do if you’re writing widely across genres. Not impossible, but harder.

Right now, you may be thinking, “Christ, Mateo. This is a bit bleak. What are we to do?”

Fret not! Writing in new genres is hard, but not impossible. I’ll show you.

Lay the foundation

Before entering a new genre, lay the proper foundation by boiling a story down to its most basic elements: plot, dialogue, setting, character, structure, narrative style & POV.

None of this needs to be concrete, but jotting down thoughts on all of the above will make it so that you’re not starting from square one. What are some of the larger, tentpole plot points? Who is your main character and who are the people in their orbit? Is this first-person, third-person, multi-POV? Is the narrative style fast-paced, long and descriptive? Is the work split into many parts, epistolary, maybe even includes images?

List the tropes

Ideally you’ve read a few works in the genre you’re stepping into. If not, please do that! As you read these books, write down the typical tropes associated with that genre. Then decide how, if at all, you plan to adhere to or subvert them in order to realize your vision.

Just because something is expected in a genre doesn’t mean you have to do it. But if you don’t, it’s advisable to render that expectation a moot point with all of the other choices you make.

Read a craft book or two

Not all feedback is good feedback. Not all advice is good advice. But reading one or two craft books a year sharpens your creative senses, provides new strategies for how to approach a certain issue, and sometimes even gives you that boost of inspiration you need to start something new or finish your current work-in-progress. My favorites are Stephen King’s On Writing, James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure, and Roy Peter Clark’s Writing Tools.

“Okay, got it! Good to go. Thank you.”

Wait, wait, wait. We writers know that the practical, nuts and bolts of it all can only take us so far. There is that other, more abstract aspect of what we do, which speaks to those moments of vessel-like divining, so I’d like to leave you with a few things to keep in mind.

Hone your why

Ask yourself, seriously, why you want to write in this new genre, and write down a serious answer. Adding “and for whom” is also valuable. Clarifying and affirming your why will sustain you, no matter the ups and downs.

Get comfortable with feeling lost

If you’re comfortable in one genre, stepping into another could feel as if you don’t even know how to write. This is normal and to be expected. But remember that this feeling will only last until it doesn’t, and to return to your why and for whom in order to see it through. The previous steps will also help to truncate this period of feeling lost, even though there’s much to be discovered in discomfort.

Focus on the story

Focus on the stories you want to tell, with the time that you have, then go tell them. Experiment with romance if you feel as though you have something to say about the difficulties and joys of finding love in the Tinder generation. Try your hand at sci-fi to make better sense of the rise of AI, or just to expose the conspiracy that is Apple airpods, which are so expensive, yet so easy to lose. Or test the dark waters of horror because our current circumstances have more than enough to pull from in order to scare the pants off someone.

No matter what happens –– if the book you write gets you an agent, or sells one or one-million copies –– you will, without a doubt, be a better writer for having challenged yourself and expanded your creative arsenal, which will go beyond one book, and enrich your entire career. I promise you.

Trust in the process, trust in yourself, trust that the stories you want to tell want to be told. And that if you persist, you will find a way to tell them.

I had absolutely no idea what the Johari window was until my missus told me.

It’s this (image via Global Coaching Lab):

The idea is that there are things known to me and known to others, which belong in the top left panel: I have blue eyes. I write books. I like working outside. I’m bad at crosswords.

Then - more interesting now - we have things that are not known to us, but are clear to others. Maybe I’m a terrible public speaker, but think I’m good. Or perhaps I dance like a giant insect, but don’t know it. Or maybe someone fancies me, but I’m the last to know.

And the double unknown? Well, how I manifest when on my own is experienced only through my own, unreliable, inner world, so maybe there’s some significant truth about me that no one knows. For example:

If I go to bed alone, perhaps my movements seem forgetful and a little jittery, a little uncertain. But in my mind, my going to bed is the same as it’s always been, and perfectly swift and purposeful.

Or maybe I write books thinking consciously only about what would please my readers … but all the time, an early childhood tragedy threads through all my work, unseen by me and not glimpsed by others.

Now, if you use this window in the context of personal therapy, your job (as I understand it) is to shrink the right-hand side of the window, pulling the unknown into known. And perhaps you may also want to reveal more of yourself to others (shrinking the bottom left pane) in order to achieve greater intimacy with friends and loved ones.

But - ?

We’re novelists. We don’t want our characters to be too perfectly therapised – rather the opposite. We don’t want them to have great, open relationships with others. We want them to be twisted, complicated, interesting – and probably even a bit nuts. That means finding juicy ways to populate all those quadrants that the therapists want us to shrink or destroy.

And, oh boy, those quadrants are rich places to explore.

Plot-led blind spots

Obviously, there are plenty of blind-spots generated by your plot. We see our hero relaxing in a jumbo hot tub, with a bottle of champagne and a whole fleet of rubber ducks. But little does he know that the baddies are speeding towards him …

That kind of thing is commonplace, but it’s not quite what I’m talking about here. What I’m interested in today is the notion of psychic blindspots or hidden nooks. For example:

Known to others, not known to self

When Lee Child’s Jack Reacher encounters ordinary people, those ordinary people keep expecting him to react in ways that he doesn’t. His brother’s died? He’s just come through  shootout, unharmed? Ordinary People expect some grief, some shakiness – some something. But Reacher gives them... just Reacher, the same as he always is.

Those encountering him see his absences and deficiencies. Reacher himself seems barely aware of them. (Actually ignorant? Or are they just so unimportant that they don’t need head space? Not sure. It isn’t clear.) Either way, the gap between Reacher and the rest of the world is a huge part of what elevates this character from the million other action heroes.

Or take my own personal nut-job, Fiona Griffiths.

Here’s a chunk, where Fiona is having an after-hours meeting with her boss (Watkins) and her boyfriend (Buzz, who is also a police officer.)

Watkins grabs all the paperwork now and bends over it, leaving nothing for the others. I’m fed up with the overlit room and turn all the lights off, except the spot directly over where Watkins is sitting. When she glares at me, I say ‘Sorry,’ but don’t put the lights back on. It feels better now. The prickling feeling is still there, but not in a bad way. I like it. I’m beginning to feel comfortable now.

‘Isn’t this nice?’ I say to no one in particular. Everyone stares at me, but no one says anything.

Then Watkins is done. […] The meeting breaks up. Watkins says to Brydon and me, ‘Good work, well done.’

Brydon says something. I nod and look like a Keen Young Detective.

In the street outside afterwards, Brydon says, ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ll be OK driving?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not too fast, all right?’

‘All right.’

‘Back to mine?’

‘Yes.’

I don’t know why I’m talking like everyone’s favourite village idiot, but it doesn’t bother me and Buzz is used to it.

Buzz (who is stable and sane) clearly thinks that Fiona is behaving strangely, hence all the are-you-OK-isms. Watkins also clearly thinks that Fiona’s behaviour with the lights is off, even if she says nothing.

And Fiona’s self-insight here? It’s close to nil. She notes a prickling  feeling, but can’t name it. She thinks she looks like a Keen Young Detective, though it’s clear that’s not how she’s coming across. And when she talks like ‘everyone’s favourite village idiot’, she doesn’t evince much surprise or have any insight into why this is.

The delicious thing for the reader here is that we don’t actually know for certain what Buzz and Watkins see, think and understand. But we get teasing glimpses and enjoy the gap between those glimpses and Fiona’s own (hopeless) reflections.

Known to self, not known to others

Here are two more chunks:

Dad and Buzz are both tall, big men. I am five foot two and hardly big built. There’s something about the scale of the car, the size of the two men in the front, and me all alone in the back which makes me feel about eight years old. Like I’m swinging my heels on the way to the beach while the grown-ups talk about grown-up things.

The men in the front aren’t Neolithic. They’re intelligent guys who know that Fiona’s own brainpower goes far beyond theirs. So they aren’t in fact patronising her in their minds, but in Fiona’s world, she’s turned to an eight-year-old, kicking her heels and thinking about ice cream.

Another example:

I stare at my face in the mirror for a minute or two, wondering if it feels like mine. In Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the dark count is invisible in mirrors and I often feel something similar is true of me too. I can’t feel any deep relationship between the face that is mine and the person I am. Like they’re two different things. I don’t know if this is something that everyone feels.

No, Fiona. No one else thinks like this. It’s definitely just you. But this is a lovely private little place shared only by Fiona and the observing reader. We take this little nugget of insight back into the story proper, where Fiona engages with people in the world who don’t know what she thinks about when she looks into mirrors.

Not known to self or others

And in the darkest quadrant of this window, we novelists can still find something to interest us. For example:

Watkins looks up from the desk, staring at me. I don’t look away.

She says, ‘So, your hypothesis is that Langton was working for tips only on some of the nights that Khalifi was there?’

There’s a prickling feeling in the room. A sense of movement or hidden life. I don’t know why.

I say, ‘Yes.’

Three heads go back to the lists. Not mine. I’m trying to work out what this prickling sensation is. I can’t. I try to understand the feeling. What bit of me is feeling what? I try to dissect my own sensations the way my psychiatrists once taught me to, but I don’t get anywhere.

I say, ‘Langton called her mam most nights.’

Fiona, typically, confides in no one regarding her inner strangeness. What she says to her colleagues is perfectly professional, perfectly straightforward, but what’s going on is simply indeterminate at this point. It’s a feeling, yes, but she can’t name it and the others don’t even know that it’s there.

What does the reader do with this? Well, they’re also not sure of what this prickling  feeling is – but what a joyous mystery to have, and to stuff with hypotheses, and to read on to learn the answer.

The results of this use of the window is to enrich the book, enrich the text, make it multi-layered and yumptious, like the very best Parisian croissant.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY / The Johari window

No prizes for guessing this week’s task.

Go to your manuscript and pluck out some short passages that exemplify:

1. Known to others, not known to self
2. Known to self, not known to others
3. Not known to self or others.

Throw in any reflections you may have about the process of looking for those things. If you can’t come up with something, does that mean anything significant about your book?

I love tasks like this, because they’re so far away from normal creative writing challenges, but they do really feel like they might reveal something about the way we do (or ought to) write. Have fun, and go at it. When you're ready, post your work here.

Til soon.

Harry

Whether you’re a meticulous outliner (guilty!) or someone who sits at their desk each day with no idea what magic they’ll create (jealous!), you can set yourself up for success by determining seven crucial things about your story right at the start.  

As a tutor on the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme, I always begin the course by going over these elements with my students. In my view, they’re the framework around which almost every writer’s story should be built…  

1. Your character’s world view 

During your set-up, you’ll establish your protagonist’s world before everything changes. But even more than what their daily life is like, we need to know their world view, dictated by their flaw or false belief.  

By flaw, I don’t mean things like ‘they’re forgetful’. I mean something that taps into the root of who they are and informs the lens through which they see the world. 

In my novel Thicker Than Water, there are two protagonists, sisters-in-law Julia and Sienna. Sienna’s flaw is that she’s ‘rabid about injustice’ (Julia’s words). Right and wrong are black and white to her, and she becomes enraged when justice isn’t served. She believes that if people do bad things, then they’re bad people who need to pay the price.  

There’s typically a wound from which the flaw originates. Sienna’s wound is that her parents were killed by a drunk driver, who subsequently spent only a year and a half in prison. Sienna sees this as an insultingly miniscule price to pay for the two lives he took, and it’s made her hypersensitive to injustice.  

2. The catalyst  

Otherwise known as the inciting incident, this is the event that disrupts the status quo, and it should be something uniquely suited to your protagonist’s flaw.  

The catalyst of Thicker Than Water is that Jason, Sienna’s brother, gets into a car crash that puts him in a coma, at which point police discover evidence that implicates Jason in the brutal murder of his boss. Now Jason is the prime suspect, unable to defend himself, and this is especially unjust to Sienna because, in her eyes, her brother can do no wrong. 

3. What your character wants 

This one’s kind of like a math equation: your protagonist’s flaw + the catalyst = what the character wants.  

Sienna’s flaw (becoming incensed by injustice of any kind) plus the catalyst (her brother accused of a murder she’s positive he didn’t commit) equals her goal: prove that her brother is innocent.  

Every ensuing plot point after the catalyst must make it harder for the character to achieve that goal. In some cases, though, a plot point might make it easier for the protagonist, giving them a false sense of victory — because what they want is never what they actually need... 

4. What your character needs 

This is something that, in the early stages of your book, your protagonist doesn’t know. In fact, if you told them what they need, they’d tell you you’re crazy.  

That’s because their need should be at odds with their want. For example, what Sienna really needs is to accept that justice often has shades of grey: that good people can do bad things, just as bad people sometimes do good things.  

Ever since I was a small child writing stories about witches and fairies, I have identified as a writer. In my younger days, I blithely assumed that one day there‘d be books with my name on the cover and spine, just as there were by my favourite authors, Lewis Carroll, Noel Streatfeild and A.A. Milne.  

When my school careers advisor told me that sitting in a garrett writing stories until I sold some didn’t count as a proper job, I trod a more conservative career path, going from university to a series of office jobs that paid the mortgage and the bills. All of those jobs involved some kind of writing – journalism, public relations, charity administration – but on the side I kept writing my own stuff. I managed to get a few short stories and some freelance journalism published, but books remained out of reach. Despite amassing a shelf of abandoned draft novels and oodles of assorted short fiction, somehow, by the time I hit my half century, no publisher had beaten a path to my door and wrested my manuscripts from me. Then I realised I needed to seize the initiative before I ran out of life. 

To my eternal gratitude, this new resolve coincided with the emergence of self-publishing in its modern digital form. It was the age of the internet, the era of the ebook, and the advent of Amazon. These three vital developments put indie publishing and global readership within reach of every aspiring author from the comfort of their own home - in my case, from a Victorian cottage in a little Cotswold village. 

At around the same time, my journalism and PR experience led me into a part-time role at the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) as Commissioning Editor of their daily Self-Publishing Advice blog. The learning curve was intense but exciting. I couldn’t wait to put what I was learning into practice. 

Used to the small canvases of magazine journalism and press releases, I wasn’t initially confident of writing a novel fit to self-publish. So, I tested the indie waters with some non-fiction and some collections of short stories. The relative success of these niche publications gave me the courage to write and self-publish my debut novel in a more commercial genre, Cotswold Cozy Mystery. Best Murder in Show was quickly followed by six more in the same series and the first two in a different series, plus three novelettes. I was on a roll. 

Learning to market and promote my own books gained me thousands of reviews and a significant sales record - social proof of the value of my work. Then, out of the blue, my Amazon footprint was spotted by a relatively new publisher, Boldwood Books (now five years old, with over 200 authors and 10 million sales to their credit).  

When Boldwood offered me a contract for my nine backlist novels plus four to six more, I decided to give traditional publishing a chance, while reserving the right to continue to self-publish other books that did not fit Boldwood’s list. By the way, all trad publishing companies have a clear vision of the kind of books they need to acquire to satisfy their particular target market and thus their shareholders. Self-publishing is a great way to curate your own list and readership, rather than having to march to the beat of trade publishers’ drums. 

So, I continued to self-publish short fiction and non-fiction, and I have plans for books in other genres such as children’s fiction. I have plenty more self-published projects in the pipeline. My only constraint is time. 

In my view – and my agent’s - I have the best of both worlds: a trade publisher to extend my reach and reputation, plus the freedom to write and publish what I like, retaining creative control of emotive issues such as title and cover designs, and a larger percentage of royalty per sale on my self-published books. I’ve also recently started writing plays for my village drama group, which I plan to self-publish as scripts, as well as turning them into novels. As an indie, I’m not shoehorned into a narrow niche. I can diversify as much as I like. 

I’m also living proof that self-publishing is not a block on the road to traditional publishing, if that’s your ultimate goal. Having said that, I have many author friends who are so contented with their indie status that they would never cross over to the traditional sector, not even in part, as I have done. Equally, many traditionally published authors reaching the end of their contracts are migrating to self-publishing. It’s a two-way street these days, which is very empowering. 

My own success as a self-published author has made me evangelical. Having stepped down from my ALLi role a few years ago, I missed the fun of helping other aspiring authors. So, when ALLi founder Orna Ross recommended me to Harry Bingham as a potential course tutor for Jericho’s proposed self-publishing course, I jumped at the chance. And I’ve been jumping ever since - for joy at seeing so many of the course alumni go on to self-publish their books to professional standards, across a wide range of genres, from family history and autobiography to historical fiction and romantasy, and much more. 

So, is learning how to self-publish the right route for you to becoming a published author? To find out, check out the course and brochure here. Registration is now open for the Spring 2026 Simply Self Publish course, which kicks off in April. I can’t wait to meet my new students and to start them on their road to self-publishing success! 

Hello again! Welcome to the final blog in my series of monthly insights into what it’s like to undertake the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme.  

So, we’re here: month 12. 

A year ago, I joined the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme hoping to learn how to write a better novel. What I didn’t expect was that it would change how I understood myself as a writer. 

I think back to my initial decision - that this was the year I would apply for the course. I’m reminded of the definition of success I set myself, so I could judge whether the time and expense had been worthwhile. I expected to leave the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme with sharper tools, clearer habits, bigger ambitions, better plotting ability... fixes for my nascent manuscript. Greater discipline, overall. 

I expected to know exactly what questions to ask of myself. 

What I didn’t expect was to leave with fewer technical questions, but larger and more meaningful ones. Because when craft becomes embodied, the questions stop being mechanical and start becoming existential. At first, I worried this meant I had lost curiosity. In fact, it meant I had crossed a threshold. 

What this course has given me is not just skill, but self-trust. 

The writer I was a year ago chased hooks. The writer I am now trusts accumulation.  

The writer I was a year ago tried to sound like “a writer.” The writer I am now recognises my own voice.  

The writer I was a year ago thought I needed to write fast books. The writer I am now knows I write deep ones. And that isn’t a flaw—it’s a signature. 

So, back to that moment of decision. 12 months ago, I told myself that, even if nothing else were to come out of this year, I’d be happy if I could get to the point where my tutor, a two-times Booker shortlisted author, said of my work: “This is good. I like it.”  

When that day came – after being guided and challenged throughout by my tutor – it was a moment of coalescence. A bringing together of not only who I am as a writer, but why I write, and what a meaningful writing life looks like for me.  

The writer I was a year ago used to think in terms of “How do I write a great novel?”. The writer I am now is confident and happy to ask, “How do I behave in a way that makes a great novel possible?” 

As the course ends, I am realising this isn’t an ending so much as a change in how I walk into the work. 

The Ultimate Novel Writing Programme did not simply improve my manuscript. It altered my relationship with writing itself. I leave it not with certainty, but with something far more durable: clarity about who I am as a writer, and the resilience to keep going. That, I suspect, is where the real work truly begins. 

Thank you for being here across the 12 months with me in these blogs. It has been a pleasure to write and share them with you. 

Rachel Davidson was a long-term Premium Member of Jericho Writers, prior to joining our Writer Support Team. Rachel loves helping hopeful writers, such as herself, to solve their problems and take a step or two closer to achieving their writing dreams. Rachel has previously self-published a trilogy, the first of which achieved bestseller status in fourteen Amazon categories in the UK, US, Australia and Canada. She is now seeking her traditional publishing debut with her latest manuscript. You can find out more about Rachel via her Instagram @RachelDavidsonAuthor. 

I became a Jericho member back in 2018 and my debut novel THE LAST STARBORN SEER publishes with Head of Zeus/Bloomsbury this week. One of the things I love most about Jericho is that it offers such a wide range of resources, tailored to every stage of the writing journey.

Here’s my rundown of the ways Jericho Writers helped me at different stages in my journey to publication and additional resources to help you on your writing path too.

1: Planning Stage

While I was plotting and outlining the manuscript that would eventually become my debut novel, I wanted to absorb as much information about writing craft as I could. Jericho has a huge digital library of articles and videos, which I fully immersed myself in it. Much of this material is available for free. I remember three masterclass videos being especially helpful. They addressed ‘Show don’t Tell’, ‘Psychic Distance’ and ‘Voice’ – concepts I’d found harder to grasp from craft books alone, and ones that – once properly understood - really levelled up my writing.

Top resources if you're in the planning stage:

• Free resource: From Spark to Story with Becca Day
• Free resource: How To Plan A Novel: A Step By Step Guide
• Premium Member resource: Building your book with Becca Day
• Premium Member resource: 5 Things You Need to Nail Your First Draft
• Take it to the next level: Novel Writing Course: Write a novel in 8 months

2: Drafting Stage

Once I’d completed a full draft and had taken the manuscript as far as I could on my own, I was eager to get some expert feedback on it. I signed up for a manuscript assessment with Jericho, which was enormously helpful. It focused on both the positive elements of the manuscript, and those that needed further thought. It was a good introduction to constructive criticism, something writers have to navigate at all stages of their careers. Above all, it helped me hone my instincts about how to judge when editorial feedback is helpful. Oftentimes, the reader will correctly identify an issue with a piece of writing but not necessarily suggest the correct fix. Judging when to accept an editorial note - and when to challenge it - is a valuable skill all writers need to develop. The manuscript assessment with Jericho functioned as an excellent launchpad for me to then embark of self-edits. I had a clear plan in place for the areas I wanted to work on and refine.

Top resources if you're in the drafting stage:

• Free resource: 5 Steps to Turn Editorial Feedback into Action
• Premium Member resource: The Different Types of Editing with Margaret Kirk
• Premium Member resource: Take Your Novel From Good to Great video course
• Take it to the next level: Manuscript Assessment

3: Editing Stage

After I’d completed my initial self-edits and had a fairly clean manuscript, I decided to enrol on the Jericho Self-Edit Your Novel course, led by Debi Alper. I’d heard excellent reviews and was looking to elevate my editing skills. I loved the writing community I established with my course cohort and I learnt so much from reading and critiquing their work. The course was well organised and full of valuable content. What I took away from the course, was a renewed sense of confidence in my writing and my manuscript. This encouraged me to take the plunge and embark on my querying adventure.

We’ve spoken in recent weeks about opening your novel. (Why so obsessed? Because of the Ultimate Start course.)

(And – to put two brackets back to back, which is pretty sinful in almost any context – I should probably mention our Festival of Writing, which is … well, it’s pretty obvious what it is. We’ve already sold a lot of tickets, so I wouldn’t hang around too long on this one.)

But have done with parentheses.

Openings only exist so you can, many thousands of words later, create an ending. In film-lore, those opening and closing images need to resonate with each other. It’s as though the story of the film is all there in those two glimpses.

You can see a compilation of opening & closing shots on Vimeo here (you may need to create a free log in if you don’t already have one.) But one example will maybe suffice.

In the film 1917, the opening shot shows two soldiers resting, in sunlight, against a tree. The field beyond is full of flowers. The two men look peaceful and relaxed.

The closing shot shows one soldier – one of the two from the first frame – resting in sunlight against a tree. The other soldier isn’t there: he’s been killed. And the remaining soldier isn’t peaceful or relaxed: he’s exhausted and haunted by what he’s just been through. And this field, though essentially a similar sunny French pasture, has no flowers in it.

That’s all powerful enough in itself – but the symmetry of the two shots says one further thing to the viewer as well: and now we’re back to the beginning. We go again. This never stops. The meaning of the closing image is immeasurably darker than the first.

And novels?

Well, novels are bigger and more complicated than films. I don’t think that, in general, there needs to be this kind of direct conversation between opening and closing shot. I suspect the rather literal reflection I’ve just mentioned is rare.

That said, however, stories are stories. They need to have a purpose. A sense of something accomplished by the preceding narrative.

So, Pride and Prejudice starts by telling the reader that Mrs Bennett is anxious to see her girls get married – and does so via the famous line about a truth universally acknowledged.

The book ends, of course, by marrying Lizzie off to a gazillionaire. But just as the opening chapter dwelled on Mrs Bennett’s feelings about all this, the closing chapter starts there too: ‘Happy for all her maternal feelings was the day on which Mrs. Bennet got rid of her two most deserving daughters.’

There’s a mirroring here again, as well as a sense of the narrative arc. Opening: not married + underlying anxiety. Closing: Married to Mr Handsome-Rich-and-Honourable + all-round yippee-dee-doo-dah.

Last week, we took a look at an opening chapter of one of the FG books, in which we established:

1. Fiona is nuts (she can’t hold a basic conversation about jeans without comforting herself with memories of serious road accidents)
2. She’s deceitful: she thinks about road accidents, but doesn’t reveal her inner life to her friend.
3. She’s somewhat less than human in all this. Not failed exactly – but someone who is rather less than those others around her: other people could have managed this chat; Fiona’s performance was limping, at best.

Now, my book is not the sort of book that closes with a triumphant chat about jeans or new shoes, in which Fiona shows herself a master of small-talk. But the closing scene does show a kind of before-and-after comparison. It’s not that Fiona has changed – she hasn’t – but we do get to see a side of Fiona that compensates for her other deficits.

By way of context, in the course of the book, Fiona saves the life of a Ukrainian multimillionaire’s daughter. The rich guy offers Fiona some thank-you money and she (rightly and properly) says no. But he doesn’t immediately accept her refusal, saying:

‘The money is in Switzerland. Very safe. Very private. Very, very private.’

I say nothing.

‘Eleven million dollars.’

He looks at my face and the light changes and the cedars still don’t move and he gives a slight shrug and says, ‘I send you the details.’

And only then do I move.

I shake my head and say, ‘Mr Zhamanikov, I cannot take your money and my “no” really does mean no. But there are some criminals behind this whole thing—’ I wave my hand at the big house, the house where Aurelia is a prisoner of nothing more than her own head, her own past. ‘Perhaps we will catch those men in conventional ways. In the ways of police officers. Ordinary regular law enforcement. And I hope that’s what happens. But sometimes . . . sometimes, we fail. Or rather . . .’

I taper off and Zhamanikov murmurs, ‘You might need a little help.’

I echo his phrase. ‘Exactly. We might need a little help.’

Yuri gazes at me with those steady eyes and gives, again, that half-shrug. ‘OK. Then when you are ready, you give me call.’

We leave it there. The whole thing arranged as simply as calling a cab, booking a table.

The woman who carefully protected her inner life from her jeans-discussing friend is preparing to be deceitful here on a massively larger scale. She thinks she might need some cash to bring down the bad guys. Here’s someone offering eleven million bucks. And she’s happy to take it – and to conceal that fact from her colleagues in the police and, in fact, from essentially everyone. She’s not taking the money for herself. But cops aren’t meant to do those things and she blooming well does.

So she’s still deceitful.

She’s also kind of nuts too – or at least, she’s acting here far, far outside the norms of society. She shouldn’t do what she’s just done, but we know she’s not about to change her mind.

But then we need to consider the less than human bit.

Fiona has had cause to consider the seven deadly sins in the course of the book. She acquits herself of most of them, but says:

It’s the two remaining vices that give me pause.

Ira, wrath. Superbia, pride.

The two sins whose names that night filled my mouth with an awful silence.

Am I a proud and wrathful person? Was it my pride that led me down that footpath alone? Was it the boiling heat of my wrath what enabled me to do to Anselm what few people ever do to another in their lifetime?

And it is not the first time. I own it. These things fall in patterns and I deny neither the pattern nor its dark consequences. My preference for working alone. The bloodshed which so often results.

Anger and pride.

Is that less than human, or more than human? Well, naturally that’s for the reader to decide but, in the course of the book, Fiona has single-handedly – and through her own intelligence, resourcefulness and courage – defeated a particularly nasty kidnap ring. She’s happy to give her own self-summary, in very direct terms:

I confess this.

I am a woman of pride and wrath, and my soul is troubled.

I have asked for peace and peace has not come.

I have sworn at an abbot and rubbed caustic lime in the eyes of a man I almost liked.

I have done these things and I am that woman: prideful, wrathful and without truth.

I am that woman. And I repent of nothing.

So there we have an echo between opening and closing image – not in a literal way, but in the way that a reader will nevertheless intuit:

Opening: Fiona is nuts, deceitful and somewhat less human.

Closing: She’s nuts, deceitful and both simply human (flawed) and magnificently more-than-human (a wrathful angel of justice.) She’s also declaring herself satisfied to be the person she is – implicitly including her terrible-jeans-chat in that declaration. The ‘repent of nothing’ statement includes the violence she has just done to others, and includes her hopelessness with Bev a few hundred pages earlier.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think that literal mirroring makes much sense in novels. I mean: if that’s the way things happen to fall out, then fine. Just, I don’t think you have to force that outcome.

Also: I never look back at my opening when I write my ending. The ending just comes as it does. It feels right if it honours the entire preceding narrative. I don’t feel that the closing scene has to curtsey backwards to the opening one.

And also: films are visual and external. The landscapes of the novel can be both external (descriptive of the exterior) and internal (describing the human soul). The result is that the echo in a novel doesn’t have to be as literal as man-lying-against-tree. The echo can be much less directly physical.

All that said …

Yes, I think you probably should feel some echoes between opening and closing. The kind of echoes we’ve just highlighted here. Not too crass. Not too obvious. But there nevertheless. A sense of journey done, distance accomplished. To all those of you who have completed Ultimate Start, I bow to you. Well done. We will be on a new topic next week.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY / The Final Polish

This is the last of our six weekly Feedback Fridays where we pick up the theme from Ultimate Start. Today Sam Jordison requests – or, to be honest, demands with menaces – that you, “Give your opening 500 words a final polish using everything you’ve learned.”

The link you need to post your work is here. 

Oh yes, and you do remember that the Ultimate Start is Ultimately Pointless unless you Ultimately complete your novel to a very high standard. I think I know a programme that might Ultimately Help with that.

Til soon.

Harry

Last week, I said that I thought that genre-communication and authority were the two essential things to achieve in your opening pages. I thought that you were unlikely to miscommunicate genre, in which case your task now comes down to that communication of authority.

A low key opening

So this week: a worked example. I’ve chosen, for that example, what may be the most boring opening page I’ve ever written. But not bad-boring. Just low-key-boring. Here it is:

‘Well?’

Bev runs her hands down her hips and gives me a wiggle.

‘Well?’

I say, ‘Great. Really nice.’ I’m not sure what to say.

‘My jeans. They’re new.’

‘Oh.’

Now I know where my attention’s meant to be, I know how to focus. The jeans are a kind of washed-out indigo. Skinny-cut. Low-waisted, but not ridiculous. Slim dark leather belt, discreet scarlet buckle. The jeans are close-fitting enough that Bev’s phone makes a hard, flat shape in her back pocket. When I did a spell in Traffic, during my first two years in the police, and I was just a regular uniformed copper like everyone else, I remember an accident victim with very tight jeans, who suffered multiple fractures to both femurs. We had to cut her out of those jeans to get at the wounds. One of the paramedics did it with a scalpel, handling the blade delicately enough that it made only the finest pink graze down the girl’s thighs. Two parallel tracks pricked out in dots of blood.

‘New jeans,’ I say. ‘They look great! Where did you get them?’

‘It’s not about where I got them,’ she chides me mildly. ‘I’ve dropped a whole size. These are a ten.’

She gyrates again, and now I know what to say, I say it with enough enthusiasm and repetition that Bev is satisfied. We finish getting changed and troop through to the chirpily upbeat cafe, where we get fruit smoothies and pasta salads.

Thoughts on the above

So: we have two women, talking about jeans. That’s not interesting to a third-party in any context, but it’s certainly a quiet start to a crime novel.

Does this matter? Well, some authors will think it does. That’s why you end up getting those (yukkety-yuk-yuk-yuk) openings where unnamed Bad Guy slowly tortures someone (usually a woman) to death, with the whole thing related in a horribly voyeuristic way.

And, OK – there are plenty of readers out there and they all want different things. But you certainly don’t have to take that kind of (slightly desperate) route in your fiction.

I said my start was quiet, and it is, but it has a crackle to it all the same.

Here’s the opening dialogue again:

‘Well?’

Bev runs her hands down her hips and gives me a wiggle.

‘Well?’

I say, ‘Great. Really nice.’ I’m not sure what to say.

‘My jeans. They’re new.’

‘Oh.’

Bev clearly wants a response from Fiona, hence the repeated ‘Well?’ – not just a question but, in its second appearance, a slightly annoyed demand.

Fiona is clearly clueless. This is a standard woman-to-woman interaction, and Fiona has no idea what to say. She ends up saying something inoffensive, but almost devoid of meaning.

Bev (who knows Fiona and her general uselessness) then feeds her the prompt that other women might not have needed.

Fiona acknowledges this new information and gets ready to re-analyse. Here’s how that analysis proceeds:

The jeans are a kind of washed-out indigo. Skinny-cut. Low-waisted, but not ridiculous. Slim dark leather belt, discreet scarlet buckle. The jeans are close-fitting enough that Bev’s phone makes a hard, flat shape in her back pocket.

That’s all accurate enough and sensible enough, of course … except that (a) this chunk reads like an unnervingly complete police description of an item and (b) completely misses the element that Bev will want to know about: do these jeans look good on me?

Fiona’s human-radar then goes even further awry:

When I did a spell in Traffic, during my first two years in the police, and I was just a regular uniformed copper like everyone else, I remember an accident victim with very tight jeans, who suffered multiple fractures to both femurs. We had to cut her out of those jeans to get at the wounds. One of the paramedics did it with a scalpel, handling the blade delicately enough that it made only the finest pink graze down the girl’s thighs. Two parallel tracks pricked out in dots of blood.

That tells us two things, I think.

The first is that Fiona is obsessed by all things police-y and, perhaps more accurately, all things corpse-y or at least near corpse-y.

The second is that there’s something about a fashion-related conversation (however unchallenging) which does Fiona’s head in. The mental jump to bloody road accidents is her way of self-soothing.

But the next bit of dialogue doesn’t allude at all to the mental processes we’ve just witnessed. Instead, we get this:

‘New jeans,’ I say. ‘They look great! Where did you get them?’

‘It’s not about where I got them,’ she chides me mildly. ‘I’ve dropped a whole size. These are a ten.’

That is: Fiona is blatantly code-switching. She’s learned to keep the weirdness of her actual thought-processes away from others and she does so here. She doesn’t do it very brilliantly. (Her only fashion comment: “they look great!” That’s hardly Vogue-level analysis.) But she does just enough to stay on Planet Normal.

In practice, her attempt is still not good enough. Fiona has failed to notice the thing that Bev has been desperate for her to notice, so Bev has to offer still more guidance in an attempt to get what she needs.

Fiona then has enough data to do what she should have done from the very first and this episode closes with the pair of them going to the ‘chirpily upbeat café’ in the gym:

She gyrates again, and now I know what to say, I say it with enough enthusiasm and repetition that Bev is satisfied. We finish getting changed and troop through to the chirpily upbeat cafe, where we get fruit smoothies and pasta salads.

Observations

Things to notice in all this:

1. Genre

There’s not a massive allusion to genre here, but there’s enough. That allusion to the road accident victim already puts blood on the first page – and there’s a clear hint here that there’ll be plenty more to come, and not just via a non-crimey road accident. Given that readers already basically know what kind of book they’ll be reading from the title, cover, blurb, etc, the genre indicators here can be really quite low key.

• Elevator Pitch

My books are about a detective with a – uh – complicated mental life. This first page already establishes that just fine. Most women can talk about jeans without thinking about broken femurs and scalpels. Fiona can’t. That fact is established without much fuss. We don’t need fuss. We just need the smell of that core pitch very early. And here it is, neatly tied off in those ‘parallel tracks of blood.’

• Dialogue

The first “authority indicator” comes in that opening bit of dialogue. The whole opening bit only amounts to 30 words, but we already feel the pull (of Bev’s desire for praise) and the push (Fiona’s blank failure to understand what she needs to deliver.)

That push-pull – tiny and inconsequential though the conflict is – tells the reader This author knows what he’s doing when it comes to these trivial things. You can probably bet that he knows what he’s doing when the stakes get bigger.

• Character complexity

Another “authority indicator” comes in the presentation of Fiona. We have here – in only 250 words – at least four different versions of our heroine:

1. Person attempting to engage in girly dialogue, albeit badly
2. Hyper-professional police officer, able to instantly deliver an accurate and complete description of clothing
3. Nutcase, who gets troubled by (a) and whose comfort-place involves rather gruesome traffic accidents.
4. Nutcase who, knowing she’s a nutcase, keeps the loopy thoughts firmly trapped on the inside as she valiantly attempts to re-enter the scary world of Girly Chat.

And that’s it. For me, that opening page is low-key but perfectly sufficient. Any reader reading this will be reassured that this is a crime novel, and will have confidence in my ability to tell the tale.

To be sure there’ll be plenty of crime readers who really don’t want this book. Maybe they want something more immediately violent – or more immediately cosy – or written with less authorial fol-de-rol. And good: you don’t want readers who don’t want you. They won’t finish your book. They won’t give it good reviews. You don’t want to sell to people who aren’t going to be all in for you.

And yes, a low-key opening is OK – really OK – a don’t-worry-about-it OK. But you do need to ramp up before too long.

In the next scene, Bev and Fiona meet two male police officers, one of whom Bev massively fancies. The one who Bev fancies suggests they all go out for a drink, and they do. (‘I’m thinking, ‘No, absolutely, definitely not,’ but Bev is saying, ‘Yes, that would be lovely, wouldn’t it, Fi?’ and throws me her female-solidarity look hard enough that it’s probably sticking out between my shoulder-blades.’)

Then (1800 words into the book, or about 5 paperback pages) one of the officers gets a call that he has to respond to. Fiona’s the only cop there who hasn’t had a drink, so she volunteers to give him a ride. Before too long, they get to a massive hoo-hah near Brecon. (Overturned chemical lorry, with lots of very yukky smoke coming out.) And, better still as far as Fiona’s concerned, a corpse found in a remote village (2500 words into the book) … and, with all the local cops busy with their burning chemicals, it’s Fiona’s job to go and attend the scene.

So the opening page itself is low-key, but:

1. The genre is clear from the off
2. The elevator pitch is also immediately present
3. The authority signals (for “my” sort of readers) are also clear
4. The reader still only has to read 5 pages to get a sense that the story is now properly underway … and maybe 7-8 pages to find out what that story actually is.

That’s it. That’s all you need. Now go away and do the same.

Or, better still, take The Ultimate Start course, and do the same.

FFEDBACK FRIDAY / Conflict, stakes and reader curiosity

This week's Feedback Friday task is from Emma Cooper, one of our tutors on The Ultimate Start. It's this:

Share the scene in which your inciting incident takes place.

When you're ready, post your work to the forum, then read and comment on the thoughts of at least two of your fellow writers. Can you learn anything from their observations? 

Til soon. 

Harry

Why is it that the most commercially successful genre in publishing is also the least culturally respected one?

It’s a conundrum that has haunted romance writers like Cathy haunted Heathcliff; since Darcy met Lizzy. (BTW, I know that Wuthering Heights is not a romance novel. Please don’t write in.)

Romance fiction has, for many decades, been a quietly thriving genre, turning over roughly £20 million a year in sales in the UK alone. This exploded during and after the pandemic and continues to grow exponentially – thanks, in part, to the early democracy of the BookTok community on social media platform TikTok, and the unashamed devotion of a new generation of readers.

Romantasy – love stories set in fantasy worlds that are loaded with magic as well as sexual tension – has swept through fevered imaginations like magical wildfire. Onyx Storm, the third in Rebbeca Yarros’s Empyrean series is the fastest selling adult novel to be published in the last twenty years. Hot and spicy forbidden encounters, like the viral TikTok sensation Twisted Love by Ana Huang, have also thrilled readers around the world.

Elsewhere, high concept romantic comedies starring smart women with brilliant minds, like Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis, have made us laugh, aspire and fall in love with the meet cute all over again. In the UK, authors like Jessica Stanley, (Consider Yourself Kissed) Beth O’Leary (Swept Away) and Saara El-Arifi (Cleopatra) are helping shape this revival, alongside the authors who have been giving us beautifully crafted, quality loves stories for decades: the likes of JoJo Moyes, Jenny Colgan, Katie Fford and Veronica Henry. (Oh, and me!)

Suddenly, what publishing has long considered a bit niche and low prestige has become an engine with many moving parts – and it’s keeping the publishing and bookselling industry going, virtually single handed.

We who love to read and write romance have good reason to be thankful for Gen Z’s unashamed adoration of the genre. But underneath all the bells, whistles and dragons, we know one thing is fundamentally true…

We love to fall in love on the page.

We need to escape reality (which is increasingly unappealing) and explore our own feelings, hopes and desires through the safe harbour of romance fiction.

So why is reading romance so often referred to as a ‘guilty pleasure’? What is there to be embarrassed about? The answer, of course, is NOTHING.

The power of love, including romantic love, is central to the human condition. Since Plato considered the intrinsic need for humans to find their other half, the subject of falling in love has fascinated philosophers, writers and artists. So when did exploring these ideas become something to be looked down on, joked about and sneered at? I could write a long essay on reasons that might have something to do with the patriarchy… Instead, I’m just going to celebrate the many reasons why the perception of romantic fiction is changing, as well as why it matters now more than ever.

Romance is the most inclusive and diverse genre I know. All stories, your love stories, are welcome here. Yes, romance give us swoon-worthy book boyfriends/girlfriends/elves – but it also gives us a space where hope is in action. Where self-discovery is pro-active, and where people of all identities can foster agency and innovation.

Romance fiction is, so often, activism too. It shows the way to break down hate with love – to see the humanity in all people, even people you think you detest (see the ‘enemies to lovers’ trope!) Romance allows us to imagine a world that has a happy ever after. Twenty-first century romance in particular is about empowering readers to make decisive choices that often require great courage and empathy. It’s a genre that fully deserves the increasing levels of respect it is garnering.

In short, reader, I do believe that romance can save the world.

So… If you’ve ever thought about writing romantic fiction, or are in the middle of writing the kind of love stories that you long to read, now is the time to seize the day. Add your story to the wonderfully happy and delightful army of romance novels that are lighting up the globe with love.

Let’s save the world together.

Feeling fired up? Join Rowan on our inaugural Writing Romance Novels course, starting 11 May 2026.

Graham Bartlett talks about the art of tricking your reader... and no, you don’t have to write crime or thriller novels to find it useful. Drawing on his thirty years as a detective and his experience as a crime writer, he shares five practical techniques to up your storytelling game.

Back in the day, I was a detective. For nearly thirty years my job was to investigate crime and catch criminals. I was OK at it, not the best but then again not the worst. After all, they kept me doing it, even promoting me a few times, so I must have had something about me. 

Now I am a crime writer which means I’m also an avid reader, I go to events, I mentor and teach other crime writers; I’m fully immersed. However, once I reveal my previous profession people bestow me with mystical powers. The number of conversations I have which go along the lines of, ‘Well if you didn’t guess the killer I must have hidden them well,’ (possibly, but I never work it out); ‘Can you be on my murder mystery team as we’ll be a shoe in then?’ (I was once on one with a former home secretary, everyone put their faith in us and we were appalling) and ‘You must have plots and twists coming out of your ears,’ (nope. I have to work as hard as everyone.) 

How so, you might ask? Well, it’s a completely different task. When I was catching criminals, I relied on witnesses, forensics, technical evidence and even the odd admission (yes, there were one or two.) The job was knowing where that evidence might lie, finding it then packaging it for interview, charge and eventually court. 

Finding a killer in crime fiction is  far more subjective, so writing it should involve more trickery. Unless you want it all out on a plate you are unlikely to craft a fictional murder with five eye witnesses, four sources of the suspect’s DNA together with damning CCTV, phone location data and the suspect’s vehicle triggering Automatic Number Plate Recognition to and from the scene. Instead you need to seed subtle, seemingly meaningless clues throughout. You should shine a light on pointers which beef up your red herrings while having the real suspect hidden in plain sight. 

S.S. Van Dine’s rules of detective fiction may not survive in the modern age but they do make the point that, as authors, we must play fair with the reader. There is nothing I like more than being surprised by a reveal or plot twist, then to go back and slap my own brow for missing all the breadcrumbs laid out for me which, even being a former detective, I had completely overlooked. 

When I’m writing, I leave worrying about those clues until the second or third draft. I pepper the OMG moments only when I know for sure what’s going to happen and who’s to blame. 

How do you do that then? As ever, read as a writer and see how the experts do it (yes, Agatha Christie, I’m looking at you) then try it for yourself. It takes practice and honest beta readers who will highlight any giveaways, but here are five techniques to trick your reader, but within the rules: 

Bury your clue in mundane detail 

Example: After the murder, your killer runs through a forest tripping over roots and snagging his clothing on branches. That is never mentioned again but a torn jacket gives them away in the final act. Then it dawns on the reader how it was ripped. 

Show your clue from the wrong perspective 

Example: The detective notices a suspect nervously rubbing their hands. She assumes guilt. Later it is revealed that they had a medical tremor so we discount them. But the real clue was that they never once asked who the victim was. 

The "absence" clue. 

Example: Classically, from Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Silver Blaze, this is the famous "curious incident of the dog in the night-time," where a dog's silence reveals the culprit. The dog did not bark because the thief was someone it knew well, proving the theft was an inside job. 

A seemingly innocuous act becomes significant 

Example: The small woman is removed from the crashed car, then the scenes of crime officer moves the seat forward to examine underneath it, indicating that the seat would have been too far back from the pedals for her. Therefore she couldn’t have been driving but was placed in the car after the fact. 

If you’d like more invaluable insights from Graham you can join him on the next intake for Writing Crime and Thriller Novels. Fancy meeting him before you commit to taking the course? You can book a 20-minute Meet Your Tutor session for just £20, which is fully refundable against the cost of the course if you go on to study with us.

I’ve written a few books of non-fiction, and had a brilliant time doing so (with, erp, maybe one exception). And one of the things that really stuck in my head came from my agent.

We were about to pitch a book on the basis of a short proposal: basically three sample chapters + an outline of the whole book + the book’s introduction. I had thought of the intro as being the least important part of that package, but my agent told me no, it was crucial. I had to think of it, he said, as a manifesto for the book. A declaration of intent, but one that also laid out an argument to the reader: “Here’s why this topic is so important / interesting, and why you won’t be happy unless you buy this book.”

So I took my intro more seriously and rewrote it. We took that proposal out to market. By that point, I was fine with the chapters themselves and had a good, strong introduction. I was much blurrier about the actual outline, though – so I fudged the issue, and wrote an outline that kinda looked like a proper outline. It had all the right headings, but it was deliberately cryptic. My actual intentions as to content remained obscure.

Thanks to my agent’s insistence on getting the presentation right, we got a couple of huge offers and accepted one of them. We then had a Woo-hoo-we’re-so-excited lunch with the publishers at a posh place in London, and after an hour or so, I said, “Guys, the book outline I gave you was kind of cryptic. Don’t you maybe want to know what this book is going to be about?”

And yes: they did – and I told them – but they didn’t really care. They bought the book, and were happy buying the book, without knowing much about what was going to be inside it.

The point is:

1. They trusted my manifesto-style introduction. They thought, “Gosh, yes, this is an interesting and important topic which will engage plenty of our readers.”
   
2. They looked at my three sample chapters and thought, “Yep, this guy can write and this is the kind of material that will engage a broad audience.”

That was it. They didn’t need more. They trusted me (rightly) to do the rest well.

It’s much the same with the opening of any book – novels, included.

Obviously, you don’t open a novel with something that sounds like a manifesto… but that’s more or less what you’re doing anyway. You’re saying to the reader, in effect, “You like novels that are [literate / suspenseful / raunchy / funny / weird / whatever] and this novel is going to completely satisfy that desire in you.”

Those opening pages constitute a promise (“here’s what’s on offer”) and a convincer (“And boy, it’s going to be good”) all in one.

Now, plenty of writers are seduced into thinking that they can only achieve those goals via the sort of gimmick that opens a Bond movie: masked gunmen, alpine setting, ski chase, huge cliff, certain death … but wa-hey – Union Jack parachute opens and theme music begins.

That approach works for Bond movies and it works for some novels, but it’s not compulsory. The only elements that have to be there are:

1. Genre promise. You have to announce, accurately, “this is an xyz kind of book” – a police procedural, a literary novel, a hist-fic epic, etc. Most books don’t fit into a clearly defined genre, of course, but they still have to announce their niche. “I’m a funny, book-club style novel about relationships and loneliness in a digital age.” You’re giving co-ordinates to the reader, and those co-ordinates must be accurate. (That’s why those Bond intros work: you know exactly what kind of film you’re about to watch – a promise made, then kept.)
   
2. Authority. You need to convey authority. You need a reader (who may not have read any of your work before) to think, “Yes, I can trust this person to deliver the promise that is being made here.” And again: authority doesn’t need ski chases and parachutes. When you walk into a bank to take out a loan, you wouldn’t feel comforted if your putative lender were dressed in a yellow ski-suit and spouting double-entendres. The way you need to display authority will vary according to the book you’re writing.

And of these two, the key is authority.

Not many of you are going to falsely signal “gory, Nordic horror novel” when the book is actually going to turn into a sun-drenched rom-com, set over a Provencal summer. So, in effect, it’s authority you need to worry about.

And?

Well, now is a good moment for me to remind you that The Ultimate Start - our latest self-paced video course - is running at the moment. There are well over four hundred of you already taking it (I’m staggered), but you can easily jump in, if you’re a latecomer. The course is £49 if you’re not a Premium Member, but it’s as free as the wind, if you have the wisdom to be a PM. The aim of the course is to get your novel started on the right track – and of course to introduce you to our Ultimate Novel Writing Programme tutors, in case you’re thinking about taking that most excellent course. 

Next week, I’ll talk about how authority can be made to work on the page – with or without ski-chases, yellow jump-suits and plenty of men-in-black getting shot.

FFEDBACK FRIDAY / Setting the scene

This week's Feedback Friday task is from Philip Womack, one of our tutors on The Ultimate Start. It's this:

Rewrite your opening 500 words, this time trimming any unnecessary backstory or description. 

When you're ready, post your work to the forum, then read and comment on the thoughts of at least two of your fellow writers. Can you learn anything from their observations? 

Til soon. 

Harry

Hello again. Welcome back to my series of insights into what it’s like to undertake the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme.  

Month Eleven is all about the self-publication route and author-led marketing. I have self-published a trilogy of three books. I learned a tonne. And now, I’m aiming for a traditional publishing deal with a small or independent press. 

That might sound like a contradiction - especially in a month where we’re talking about the power of self-publishing and author-led marketing. But for me, this isn’t a rejection of self-pub. It’s the result of having truly lived it. 

I did the experiment. I ran the numbers. I stood on the other side of my three respective launch days and asked: Is this the life I want as a writer? 

And now I have my answer, I’m headed for traditional publishing. Why? Well, in no particular order: 

1) I write literary fiction: My work probably isn’t going to compete head-on with highly commercial genre fiction that sells in big volumes and lends itself nicely to series. Never say never - but realistically, the manuscripts I’m producing now feel better suited, more at home, with a small or indie press. 

2) I’ve already proven what I needed to prove: My first book reached #1 in 14 Amazon categories across four countries - the UK, the USA, Canada, and Australia - on publication day. It has since revisited #1 in Canada. That bestseller ribbon meant something. It still does. 

But what mattered more was what I learned about visibility: how to get strangers to notice a book, buy it, review it, and then come back for the second one. I’m always happy to be transparent about what that required - in terms of money, time, and emotional energy. Suffice to say: I did it, I got the t-shirt, and that chapter of my life is complete. 

3) I want to focus on being a writer first: Traditional publishing gives me the greatest chance of being single-minded about story. Self-publishing - brilliant as it is - requires you to also be a marketer, data analyst, strategist, and brand manager. I’ve worn those hats. Now I want to hang them up. 

4) I want longevity: I want to be in this world for a long time. Talking about books. Talking about writing. Building a small but deeply engaged readership - not expending attention and effort chasing the next algorithm shift. And I’m incredibly lucky: I now have a job that allows me to live inside this writing world every day. It’s taken the pressure off my manuscripts to “perform.” I can give myself time to grow. 

The reality behind my bestselling ribbon? I published my first book in 2017. Back then, Amazon categories were pretty hidden and murky. I paid someone to help me analyse them because you had to know which questions to ask. The goal? To be a big fish in a very tiny (but valid) pond on publication day. 

Today, tools like Publisher Rocket make that easier, but the principle is the same: strategic positioning. 

Then came launch day. I worked my friends, family, colleagues — anyone who would listen. The book was discounted to 99p. I made 217 sales across the globe, which was enough to reach #1 in those carefully chosen categories. 

Later boosts came through BookBub advertising — an excellent tool — but my ROI remained negative. 

This isn’t a complaint. I had a ball. But it taught me something crucial: selling a book is not magic. It requires attention, focus, skill, analytics, and upfront investment. Exactly what any publisher must invest. 

And that knowledge? It changed me. 

So, would I self-publish again? No. Definitive no. 

The work I’m doing now through the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme is aimed squarely at traditional publishing. 

My last three manuscripts tell their own story. One has had 63+ rejections and now lives in a drawer. One is currently querying: one full request, twenty rejections so far. And now, there’s my UNWP work-in-progress.  

What if this one also faces the same fate? Well, I’m currently ‘composting’ two more novels. I’ll begin again. Because I now understand where my energy belongs. 

Self-publishing gave me clarity. It showed me what can threaten to stop me turning up to my writing - and what always brings me back to the keyboard. It taught me where my emotional boundaries lie: what is within my control, and what never will be (hello, agent submissions). 

So, my goals are simple and stubborn: become the best writer I can possibly be and stay around long enough for success to have a chance to find me. 

That’s where author-led marketing still matters to me — not as a hustle, but as a slow-building relationship with readers. A long game, not a launch spike. 

This month’s focus on self-publishing and author-led marketing isn’t about pushing one path. It’s about giving us the full map. The Ultimate Novel Writing Programme doesn’t sell fantasies. It teaches us students how the industry really works - across all routes - so we can choose with clarity instead of hope, and with strategy instead of fear. 

I’ve walked one road already. Now I’m choosing another - eyes wide open. And that, to me, is the real gift of this course. 

Rachel Davidson was a long-term Premium Member of Jericho Writers, prior to joining our Writer Support Team. Rachel loves helping hopeful writers, such as herself, to solve their problems and take a step or two closer to achieving their writing dreams. Rachel has previously self-published a trilogy, the first of which achieved bestseller status in fourteen Amazon categories in the UK, US, Australia and Canada. She is now seeking her traditional publishing debut with her latest manuscript. You can find out more about Rachel via her Instagram @RachelDavidsonAuthor.

Hello again. Welcome back to my series of insights into what it’s like to undertake the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme.  

Month Ten is all about getting published via the traditional route. All routes under this umbrella expect some form of submission package: a query letter (more likely an email), a one-page synopsis and an extract of the beginning of your manuscript – often the first 3 chapters. 

So, all I have to do is take my years of writing — the head-in-hands moments, the hours spent staring into the middle distance, my constant, chronic fear of the delete button — and package my story into a nice, easy to ‘get’ product statement. Simples, yes?  

No, not really. But bear with... because it really is important that we learn to approach the publishing industry with our eyes and hearts happily open. 

I’ve been honing my writing craft for over ten years now. My last-but-one completed manuscript collected sixty-three submission rejections (I stopped sending it out because I’d run out of suitable ‘open to submission’ agents). The manuscript currently doing the querying rounds is up to over twenty ‘thanks but no thanks,’ responses. I plan to give it a total of at least sixty-four chances of rejection.  

I have also entered many book competitions over the years and driven myself mad with hope that this one will see value in my writing. On longlist announcement days, I was not easy to live with. I stopped counting the competition entries, having eventually wrangled my hopeful heart into more of a ‘think of the entry fee as a donation to the writing community at large and forget about it,’ approach.  

At various moments in these ten years, whilst crafting and sending my stories out into the world, I have felt incredibly foolish, laughably ridiculous, beyond ‘past it’, alienated from the latest ‘in crowd’ and somewhat demoralised by the whole process.  

Which, I think, simply proves I’m a rational human being. Even seriously accomplished writers find the packaging of our artform somewhat grotesque. Take my Ultimate Novel Writing Programme tutor, Andrew Miller, a twice Booker Prize-shortlisted author. When we talked about elevator pitches, he placed his tongue firmly in his cheek, and said what I reckon every single novelist throughout history has thought at some point: if I could summarise the whole novel in just one sentence, why did I bother to write the novel? It was wonderful to hear a respected author speak aloud the market’s strangeness – the nigh on violent act of having to compress a novel into just one or two sentences. 

But art has always lived inside markets, whether I like it or not. All serious writers have engaged with this reality and endured it with their eyes open. This need to package, whilst it feels antithetical to ‘art’, does sharpen the work and is a vital necessity. 

The often-unspoken truth about The Submission Package is that the elevator pitches, synopses, and comp titles aren’t actually about the book. No: they’re about helping tired, overworked humans decide where to place their attention. That doesn’t make submission packages very noble beasts, but it hopefully makes them more understandable. It’s not about ‘selling out’ your hard artistic effort. It’s about translating it so it can intrigue.  

So, though not easy, embracing the task of distilling my book forces me to be clear on what the story is about. Naming its core ethical and emotional question strengthens my commitment to that question on each page, within every sentence. Choosing suitable comparison titles situates my story within a living conversation - the same kind of useful shortcut to deep impact that simile and metaphor offer within prose. Working on my submission package means my book knows itself better, and its artistic impact can only grow because of that.  

Pulling together a whip-smart submission package, finding the right agents, and choosing the best route into traditional publication are all vital, pragmatic actions that authors have to take.  

Over the years, I have had the great fortune to be exposed to the wisdom and expert advice of other writers in all guises – not least, peers who understand what receiving hundreds of rejections each year feels like. I have had conversations and practical support which has kept me turning up to my writing, even when the vast silence from ‘Publishing Land’ has made me doubt my sanity.  

If I may, therefore, I’d like to leave you with one further thought: publication is a deeply uncertain thing, but community never is.  

Rachel Davidson was a long-term Premium Member of Jericho Writers, prior to joining our Writer Support Team. Rachel loves helping hopeful writers, such as herself, to solve their problems and take a step or two closer to achieving their writing dreams. Rachel has previously self-published a trilogy, the first of which achieved bestseller status in fourteen Amazon categories in the UK, US, Australia and Canada. She is now seeking her traditional publishing debut with her latest manuscript. You can find out more about Rachel via her Instagram @RachelDavidsonAuthor.

When I knew I wanted to write a book, it wasn’t the idea, or the vocabulary, or the fact that I didn’t think I was good enough that was stopping me; it was the question of how I would ever find the time. Back then, I was working full-time and had four children. I barely had a chance to have a relaxing bath at the end of a long day, so what chance did I have of writing a whole novel? 

What I eventually realised was that I was waiting for a perfect pocket of time: a clear desk, an empty house, candles burning… but that version of ‘writing time’ was a myth. It was never going to happen. Instead, I wrote for half an hour in my lunchtime, and another half an hour when I got home. 

Most writers don’t struggle with ideas. They struggle with finding the time – or rather, the belief that writing needs more time than they have. 

I didn’t magically find more hours in the day; I just stopped waiting for those perfect writing circumstances that would never come. 

These are my top tips for making writing achievable, even when it has to compete with work, health, caring responsibilities, or Peppa Pig in the background… 

1. Set realistic targets  

Realistic being the keyword here. If you say to yourself, ‘Right, come hell or high water, I’m going to write 2000 words today’, great! Go you! Look at you setting the bar high. 

But let’s say you have a meeting that runs over, or one of your kids pukes all over your laptop. Come the end of the day, you haven’t even opened the thing, let alone written a word. 

That pressure you’re putting on yourself? That sense of failure? It’s the enemy of creativity. Writing a book thrives on momentum, not punishment.  

Smaller, achievable goals will keep you coming back. That’s how your book will get written. 

2. One line is better than nothing 

Let’s be honest, if you write one line a day, and only one line a day, it will take you a long time to write a book. But momentum beats volume. Every. Single. Time.  

That one line? That might be the line that hooks an agent. It might spark an idea for a twist. It might simply remind you that your book exists. Either way, that’s progress; you can’t edit a blank page. 

Does that one line need to be written on your laptop in tranquil surroundings? No. It could be on the back of a receipt, a napkin, a takeaway carton. It still counts. You’re still writing a book.  

3. Decide in advance when you’ll write 

Now, this might sound contradictory given what I’ve just said… but there will be moments when you can carve out a block of time. Even if that means getting up an hour earlier than usual, or going to bed an hour later. Beth O’Leary wrote The Flatshare during her commute to and from work.  

The key isn’t to say ‘I’m going to write a whole chapter at half past five in the morning’. It’s committing to getting up a bit earlier and opening the document. What you want to do once that document is open is up to you. You might want to research, or tweak what you’ve already written. You might stay in bed and think. It all counts. 

Protecting this time in advance will take away the daily battle with yourself – the question of ‘Will I/won’t I work on my novel today?’. This is your writing time. Be all L'Oréal about it. You’re worth it. 

If you'd like more invaluable insights and supportive advice from Emma, you can join her on the next intake for the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme or the Novel Writing Course. Fancy meeting her or another tutor before you commit to taking the course? You can book a 20-minute Meet Your Tutor session for just £20, which is fully refundable against the cost of the course if you go on to study with us.

Today –

If I’m honest, then –

That is to say, if I were to sum up all that I have to say on this Furiously Fun Friday on this Jaunty January morn, then –

Why –

I have nothing. My pockets are empty, the cupboard bare. Even the cat has a sad and solitary look.

I was not burgled. No one robbed, pilfered or mugged my words from me.

But –

I had a stock of words and -

Last night I gave them away. To you. I gave them to you.

Now, if you were One of the Many who came to last night's Elevator Pitches webinar, then I salute you. I hail you. I give you a plump and quivering partridge to do with as you wish.

If you were not, well, NO PARTRIDGE for you. I am not in the habit of giving out BIRDS to those who make not the slightest effort to –

But we’ll not quarrel. If, let us say, you were last night detained by an unfortunate youth in need of help in his journey to Ouagadougou – or Albuquerque – or Ystradgynlais, then you did the right thing by not attending. And your no show DOESN’T MATTER AT ALL.

That's because you'll be able to watch a FREE replay of the workshop next week, once our small team has had the chance to put it online. We'll include the link in next week's Tuesday Newsletter and post it on Townhouse. You'll need to sign up as a member of the community before you can watch - but again, that's free, free, free. 

I think that the ideas contained in yesterday's webinar are the most important, and amongst the most overlooked, in the whole of the writer-craft universe.

If you get your core ideas right – well, honestly, the rest of it is just basic competence and hard work. If your core ideas are feeble, no amount of competence will ever see you home.

What’s more, when it comes to selling your book (traditionally or as an indie author), the book with the strongest core pitch – the best DNA – will always win and should always win.

I often talk about an elevator pitch, but I get hesitant about that term.

On the one hand, I like it because if you only had 20 seconds to describe your book, you’d want to cut to the thing that will most excite the listener – will force them to ask you for more information.

On the other hand, a think a lot of writers think, “Ah yes, I’ll write my book, then I’ll find some glossy slogan to stick on top of it, and that slogan will surely, surely make people want to buy it.”

That’s the thought I want you to discard. Any marketing slogan needs to flow straight from the core idea of the book. The cover flows from the core idea of the book. The title, your query letter, all the marketing yadda – that all flows from the core idea of your book.

And the text! Your text! That too comes from that same cold, sweet spring. When all those things line up behind a clear compelling proposition, then success beckons.

So get that proposition right. From the start ideally, but from right now if you’ve not properly thought this through already.

If you came to the webinar and offered a pitch or asked a question, then thank you. If you didn’t, then do watch the replay.

It is, as I say, probably the most important lesson I ever give.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY / The instant hook

This week's Feedback Friday task is from Holly Seddon, a tutor on The Ultimate Start course. And it's this:

Identify what the hook of your novel is and share in the forum along with your 500 word opening taking into account what you have learned so far. Before posting check for any energy or intrigue drops.

When you're ready, post your work to the forum, then read and comment on the thoughts of at least two of your fellow writers. Can you learn anything from their observations? 

Til soon. 

Harry

Gyamfia Osei is a literary agent at Andrew Nurnberg Associates. Named a Bookseller Rising Star in 2024, she has built a list of award-winning and bestselling authors writing from middle-grade and YA up to adult fiction.

Gyamfia represents children's and young adult (YA) genre fiction as well as a select list of adult commercial fiction and narrative non-fiction. Here, she offers a range of insights and actionable tips to support authors working on YA novels – but as is always the case with great advice, most are applicable to writers of any genre.

1. Know the market, but lead with authenticity

When it comes to writing young adult fiction, there can be real pressure to tick off whatever tropes are currently dominating the market — enemies to lovers, 'not like other girls', love triangles, and so on. But for readers, it's usually clear which stories come from a place of authenticity, and which are trying to chase what the author believes is ‘working’ right now. 

It's worth remembering that once a book is sold to a publisher, it often won't reach shelves for 12-18 months. By that point, today's popular tropes may no longer be what readers are gravitating towards. Instead of writing to the market, focus on what generally excites you. What kind of story would you want to read? Authenticity almost always resonates more strongly with readers than trend-chasing.

2. Get into your character's head

Strong plotting and immersive worldbuilding are important in young adult fiction, but voice is often what first grabs the reader’s attention. Before you even start writing, take the time to get to know your central character — or characters — inside and out, so their voice(s) shine through. 

First person remains a popular choice when writing young adult fiction because it allows the reader to form an immediate connection with the protagonist. Readers don't need to like them, but they do need to understand them. And before that can happen, you as the author need a deep understanding of who they are, what drives them, and how they see the world.

3. Lean into emotions

There's a reason why books like The Hunger Games, Heartstopper, and A Good Girl's Guide To Murder have built such devoted fanbases. They're very different stories, but they share one crucial element: emotional depth. 

The teenage experience is defined by heightened emotions — love, jealousy, anger, joy — and capturing that intensity on the page is what makes young adult fiction so powerful. When you're writing the big plot twist or dramatic moment, don't just focus on the what. Dig into the how. How does this development affect your characters emotionally? How might a teen reader see themselves in these reactions?

4. Let your characters lead

Trust your characters to make their own decisions without needing an adult to constantly step in and show them the way. Teen readers want to watch characters test boundaries, make mistakes, and work things out for themselves. 

Teachers, guardians, and mentors can guide and support, but the most meaningful choices should belong to the characters themselves. Even poor decisions can be powerful, as long as they feel earned and contribute to the character's growth. 

5. Stay true to teens, if they're your audience

The line between adult fiction and young adult fiction has become increasing blurred in recent years. Adult readers (including myself!) are reading down, and teen readers are reaching for the adult shelves. While this has created exciting commercial opportunities for books with broad appeal, it also means that we need to be mindful of protecting stories written specifically for teenage readers. If young people are your target readership, keep them – and their needs – firmly in your sights.

Writing with young adults in mind might involve considering appropriate ‘spice levels’ (code for how much intimacy is shown on the page), but it more often comes down to character journeys.

Ask yourself whether those journeys feel relatable, authentic, and emotionally engaging for a true teen reader. When that connection is there, YA fiction can be at its most powerful. 

Want more advice from Gyamfia or one of the other literary agents we work with? Book an agent one-to-one session to get feedback on the first 5,000 words of your novel, your query letter and your synopsis. During a friendly, supportive call, you’ll receive constructive advice on honing your submission pack, plus insight on your novel’s commercial potential from an industry expert.

Let’s talk about dark stuff.

You know… secrets, trauma, murder, toxic relationships, betrayal, obsession, grief, manipulation, psychological warfare disguised as small talk over coffee.

Fun, right?

If you’re writing thrillers, crime, horror, dark romance, or anything remotely gritty, dark themes come with the territory. But writing them well? That’s a whole different skill set. Anyone can throw a dead body into chapter one. Not everyone can make readers feel something while they’re reading it.

So let’s break it down.

Dark doesn’t mean miserable

There’s a big difference between dark and depressing.

Dark themes work best when they’re balanced with moments of normalcy, humour, warmth, or hope. Think contrast. A tense interrogation scene hits harder when it follows a cozy family dinner. A shocking betrayal feels sharper if you’ve just watched the characters laugh together.

Real life isn’t wall-to-wall trauma. Neither should your novel be. Give your readers breathing room. (And give yourself some too.)

Make it emotional, not just graphic

Here’s a common mistake: equating dark with violent.

You don’t need to describe every drop of blood or every gruesome detail to make something unsettling. Often, what isn’t shown is far creepier than what is. I always like to use horror movies as an example. Now, sure, there are people who LOVE movies where every limb being chopped off is shown in graphic detail. (I’m not one of those people, but you do you.) What I find scarier is movies where the scary thing is hidden. I know it’s there. The music, the atmosphere, the lighting etc all tell me there is something bloody terrifying about to happen, but what happens in my mind is WAY scarier than anything that could be shown on screen. It’s the same with books.

If you’re purposefully writing gory fiction, fine. There’s a market for that. But if you’re leaning more into the commercial fiction side and want to appeal to as many readers as possible, instead of focusing on gore, focus on:

• How the character feels
• What they’re afraid of
• What they’re losing
• What this moment changes for them

Emotional darkness sticks longer than shock value. Psychological damage > splatter scenes. Every time.

Let your characters carry the weight

Dark themes work when they’re personal.

Readers connect to people, not concepts. So instead of “this town has a dark past,” show us how that past ruined someone’s marriage. Instead of “she survived trauma,” show us how she flinches when someone raises their voice. Let your characters embody the darkness. That’s where the power lives.

Don’t romanticize the bad stuff

If you’re writing about abuse, addiction, manipulation, or violence, be mindful of how you frame it.

You don’t need to preach. But you also don’t want to accidentally glamorize something destructive unless that’s part of the story (and even then, there should usually be consequences). Dark themes feel more real when they’re messy and complicated, not aestheticized into something shiny. Toxic is toxic, even if he’s tall and broody.

Use darkness to reveal truth

The best dark moments aren’t there just to be edgy. They reveal character. They expose secrets. They force decisions. They strip away masks.

Ask yourself:

• What does this dark moment change?
• What does it reveal?
• Who becomes someone new because of it?

If the answer is “nothing,” the scene probably doesn’t need to exist.

Protect your own mental health (seriously)

My darkest novel is The Woman In The Cabin. It’s also my bestselling novel (just goes to show, readers love darkness!). But I didn’t write that book in a healthy way. I spent way too much time with the darkness inside those pages. It became all consuming. By the time I finished writing it, I was exhausted, miserable, and found myself all-consumed by the bad in the world. It’s no coincidence that my next book was called a ‘popcorn thriller’ and reviews said it was ‘not as dark as The Woman In The Cabin’. I literally wasn’t capable of doing it again!

Writing dark material can mess with your head. You’re spending hours inside imaginary trauma, after all.

So:

• Take breaks
• Watch something light after heavy writing sessions
• Move your body
• Talk to real humans
• Don’t binge-write murder scenes at midnight for three days straight (Ask me how I know.)

You’re allowed to care for yourself while creating heavy stories.

Remember: Readers love the dark… when it’s done well

People don’t pick up dark novels because they want to feel awful. They pick them up because they want to feel something. They want intensity. Catharsis. Suspense. Emotional payoff. They want to explore scary or painful ideas safely through fiction.

Your job isn’t to traumatize your reader. It’s to take them on a journey they won’t forget.

Now go ruin someone’s fictional life.

Our expert tutors are here to guide you, whether it’s building heart-stopping suspense, crafting complex characters, or mastering the art of the twist. Take your crime and thriller writing to the next level with our expert tutors. Work one-to-one with thriller author Megan Collins on the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme, or join crime author Graham on our six-week Crime & Thriller course to master suspense, plot twists, and red herrings.

Today and for the next few weeks, we’re all about openings.

That’s in honour of our new self-paced video course – free to Premium Members – called The Ultimate Start. The course aims to get your novel off to a bang … and to introduce you to our ever-fabulous Ultimate Novel Writing Programme tutors. Each module of the course is presented by a different Ultimate Novel Writing Programme tutor. If you’re even half-curious about the course, you should definitely take a look. Lesson one is now live with new lessons dropping on Mondays. 

This is also a good moment to mention my webinar next week (29 Jan) on Elevator Pitches, which is free and open for all to attend. (Info here.) Most people think about pitches as something you consider long after the text is complete – a marketing sticker you glue onto an already-finished product.

I don’t think that’s especially helpful, however, because really the marketing concept needs to be baked into the book from the very start. You need to think of the pitch less as a marketing slogan, and more like the condensed essence of the book – a blueprint. And if you get that right, then everything else flows – from text to marketing slogans, and from cover design to query letters.

Those two themes – opening pages and novel blueprints – combine very sweetly in this insight:

Your opening pages need to offer a glimpse of the heart-of-the-heart and the soul-of-the-soul of the book.

It’s OK (actually, it’s good) if the glimpse is oblique or cryptic. You can trust that readers will smell it anyway, like a truffle buried at the root of a tree. And if you have a perfectly designed blueprint / pitch with everything neatly lined up behind it, then that opening page will also cohere with your title and your book cover and the blurb on the back … and so the scent of that opening page will be reinforced before you start.

Now all this sounds a bit woo-woo, I know. (It’ll be a lot less woo-woo if you come to my elevator pitch workshop.) But here are some examples:

Fiona Griffiths, Book #1, Talking to the Dead

The pitch: “Murder story, involving a detective who used to think she was dead.”

Excerpts from Chapter 1

“Beyond the window, I can see three kites hanging in the air over Bute Park. One blue, one yellow, one pink. Their shapes are precise, as though stencilled. From this distance, I can’t see the lines that tether them, so when the kites move, it’s as though they’re doing so of their own accord. An all-encompassing sunlight has swallowed depth and shadow”

…

“I’m going to be a policewoman. And just five years ago, I was dead.”

The last bit there is a direct invocation of pitch: Here’s someone who is clearly alive, but she used to be dead. That, very succinctly, is the paradox at the heart of Fiona’s  existence.

But the opening paragraph does something similar. The kites move (so they’re ‘alive’), but there are no lines tethering them and all depth and shadow has vanished, so it’s as though the kites have become stencils – mere copies of kites, not real ones. Are these kites real or just painted copies? It’s not clear. That’s the same basic paradox, but in oblique form.

Fiona Griffiths, Book #2, Love Story, with Murders

The pitch (series): “Detective who used to think she was dead” – as above

The pitch (book): “Love story – with murders (!)”

Excerpt from Chapter 1

“Penry opens his hands in what’s meant to be a spreading gesture, only they never get more than about eight inches apart. It’s as though the ghosts of his handcuffs are still there.”

The “alive or dead?” theme is instantly mirrored in the “captive or not captive?” image here.

The love story with murders bit is perhaps a bit less well captured (my bad), except that this opening scene has two proper friends (=love) discussing a recent prison suicide (=murder), so both things are entangled right there on page 1.

Fiona Griffiths, Book #3, Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths

The pitch (series): “Detective who used to think she was dead” – as above

The pitch (book): “Detective (with pre-existing identity confusion) goes undercover.”

Excerpt from Chapter 1

“I bite down onto my thumb, hard enough to give myself a little blue ledge of pain. I let my mind rest on that ledge, while the scenario in front of me plays itself out.

‘And these are all employees? Contracts in place? Bank accounts in order? ...’

‘Yes. They are all contracted employees. We have their contracts. Their bank details. Everything. But two of the people – these two,’ he says, circling two names on the spreadsheet, ‘these two don’t actually exist.’”

Again, you have the ‘Does it exist or doesn’t it?” question popping right up in the first chapter. And the thing about biting down onto the thumb is speaking directly about a kind of mental ill-health – not in a loud, shouty way, but still: an unmissable indicator.

Now, if I’m honest, I think that the second and third examples here are missing some central image that tells us what the book is going to be about (as opposed to the series.)

In Book #6 of the series (where the theme was theft and fakery in the world of Dark Age antiquities), I had one of Fiona’s colleagues build a dinosaur out of office stationery, which she then exploded with a crossbow, also made from office stationery. She then says:

“And that’s how we are ‒ me, Jon, the bones of the fallen ‒ when Dennis Jackson [Fiona’s boss] comes in.”

And that’s a perfect image: the fakery, the death, the long-ago past – the perfect way to tease the reader with what is to follow.

And it’s not just a tease: it’s a promise. You’re effectively saying: “You smelled something in the furniture of this book – the cover, the title, the blurb, the slogans – that hint at a blueprint you simply can’t resist. This first page / first chapter promises you that I, the author, understand that blueprint and will deliver it … and it’ll be every bit as enticing as you expect.”

How could any reader not respond?

In short:

1. Know your blueprint – understand in absolute clarity the purpose of your book. Why are you writing it? What makes it special? What is the heart-of-the-heart of your book’s appeal to the reader?
2. Make sure that those themes glitter beneath the surface of those opening pages. Make sure that you wink at the reader and reiterate that opening promise.

Yes, you have to do other things too (settings, character, a hint of story), but hinting at your themes early on is a key piece of delivering a totally coherent and utterly irresistible package for the reader. Do jump into that course on opening pages – especially, if you want a little taster of the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme experience. And do come to my workshop.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY / opening pages

No normal Feedback Friday this week. Instead, I want you to do Megan Collins’s homework from The Ultimate Start course. That homework is this:

Look at your opening 500 words and post in the forum here. Ask if your peers can guess your genre from this opening. Post to the forum, then read and comment on the thoughts of at least two of your fellow writers. Can you learn anything from their observations?

Ask any cop what the go-to insult of those hilarious people on a night out is and I’ll bet you they reply with, ‘Oink oink. Can anyone smell pork?’ As you can imagine that splits their sides. So much so that they often ask the comedian to come and spend the night in their free bed and breakfast facility to reward their wit.

As writers, we are always being told to ‘show’ through the senses. How do things sound, smell, feel, look, taste? The good news is that police stations and crime scenes are replete with stimulants to excite each sense, except maybe taste.

Immersing the reader

So, unless you’ve been in the police or had the misfortune to grace the inside of a cell block, been victim or witness to a violent crime or worked in a mortuary, you might only be able to imagine the unique, gut wrenching smells that such workplaces emanate.

Take a cell block – or custody suite as they are sometimes pompously called. Who’s resident behind the three inch green (or blue) steel doors? Well, you have drunks, vagrants, prisoners entering their third shower-less day, the incontinent (often deliberately so), the dirty protestors and just your average Joe whose fetid footwear stands sentry outside their cell. Add to that the whiff of cleaning fluid and the cremation of microwave ready-meals and you start to get an idea of just how violently the olfactory glands are assaulted.

What about the sounds? It might come as a surprise that many prisoners don’t just settle down quietly with a book and wait for their turn to be interviewed. Some like to remind the custody officers they are still there, sometimes in quite colourful terms. A few tenacious souls believe that if they punch, or headbutt, the metal door often enough they will break through to freedom. Unsurprisingly, their neighbours have a view about this constant racket and offer to rearrange the culprit’s body parts the moment they meet. On a serious note, there are far too many people with mental health problems in police cells and the sounds of their distress can be heartbreaking.

As well as the din created by the prisoners, custody staff often find it difficult to gently close the cell doors when a hefty slam seems far more satisfying. Their key-chains jangle at every move and police officers’ radios squawk and bleat pretty much constantly.

It’s no less distinctive out at crime scenes. I remember, as a tender eighteen-year-old recruit arriving to the report of a man being beaten half to death behind some shops in Bognor Regis. As we stepped out of the car, I asked my tutor what that smell was. ‘Get used to it son, it’s the cocktail of death.’ Luckily this chap did not die but the aroma still lingered. The blend of blood and alcohol produces a sickly sweet, yet ferrous, smell. It’s quite distinctive but strangely not that unpleasant. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t buy it as a fragrance but it’s not as revolting as the cell block or, worse still, the lung-lingering stench of a decomposing body or the odours a body wafts during a post mortem.

Applying this to characters

If your protagonist is a police officer then never forget they are human beings. Both of my non-fiction books deliberately depict what it feels like to police certain incidents. Cops experience fear, dread, pain and PTSD the same as everyone else. They also have to show gargantuan restraint (imagine interviewing a child rapist and keeping your anger in check), stem the giggles and turn to gallows humour to get through the day. You will want your readers to really care about your characters so showing these states, maybe through ‘close point of view’, is essential. Don’t be afraid for them to cry, get angry or make mistakes as, after all, aren’t these the symptoms of stress and isn’t that great to put your characters through? I’m often accused of subjecting my fictional protagonist Chief Superintendent Jo Howe to the most dreadful jeopardy, but that’s the point!

If you'd like more invaluable insights from Graham you can join him on the next intake for Writing Crime and Thriller Novels. Fancy meeting him before you commit to taking the course? You can book a 20-minute Meet Your Tutor session for just £20, which is fully refundable against the cost of the course if you go on to study with us.

One of the most famous haikus in the Japanese canon is this:

An old pond.

A frog jumping into

The sound of water.

That’s a literal translation, but (if I understand this right) the ambiguity of what the frog is jumping into (the water or the sound?) is there in the seventeenth century original.

The poem is partly famous because it epitomises the art-form’s focus on the single moment. It’s as though the poem is trying to give you everything you really need to know about one particular moment, without trying to draw out any lessons from it.

Just – there was a pond. A frog jumped in. Plop – the sound of water. No need for further discussion. That’s just how that particular moment was. A single significant moment captured with extreme brevity.

But …

Human minds don’t work quite like that and human language is the same. So, yes, a frog jumping into water is just something that frogs do, a perfectly normal observation. But a frog jumping into the sound of water – well, I guess frogs do that too, but it’s a very different type of thought. The frog becomes suddenly a thing of energy and movement and magic, not a small, cold wet thing you could hold in the palm of your hand.

And then again: we start with an old pond. I’m guessing we see something with mature weeds, an unruffled surface, a lack of movement. But then: a dart of movement and a very temporary sound. So something old still flickers with something evanescent and alive. Our sense of the pond at the end is changed from what we imagined at the start.

Now – haiku and novels: not natural bedfellows. Given that I tend to write long – my first novel was 180,000+ words – haiku are a very, very long way from my place of happiness.

But – it struck me that our books often contain secret little haikus of their own. Here are some examples of what I mean:

1. Handmade kitchen furniture in ivory. A range cooker in Wedgwood blue. More flowers. Venetian blinds, sofas and sunlight.
   
   
2. Behind us, a row of Edwardian houses. In front, a strip of grass. Then the river. The grass has been recently mown and the air smells of cut grass and river mud.
   
   
3. Summer-evening normality. A few lawnmowers still buzzing. Kids being ordered off their bikes into dinner. A couple of fat blokes with white legs and unflattering shorts talking rubbish over a garden fence.
   
   
4. Warm air and quiet streets. Daylight, or the memory of it, still alive in the sky. I’m feeling spacey.
   
   
5. Not mountainous exactly, but high moorland. No dead miners here, just sheep looming white in the tussocky grass. No cars. No buildings. No people.

• The grass around the car park is shorn so close that it’s burned and brown. Car windscreens catch the sun and throw it at me over the tarmac. Over the other side of the road is a field, spiny with marsh grasses and a board offering land for sale.

• Six days slide by almost unnoticed. Dark fish in an urban canal. Sleep and I aren’t best of friends.

• I see Brydon at table. White parasol flapping in the sea breeze. Shadows jumping to avoid the sunshine.

• Sea breeze. Gorse and broom blazing yellow in the hedges. Then a field of sheep and my first view of the lighthouse.

I hope you feel some haiku-ishness here. What I mean is fragments of text that

1. collect together a small handful of ordinary observations
2. Don’t especially try to connect those observations
3. Don’t especially try to comment on those observations.
4. Don’t feel like a sudden random jump into a completely different way of speaking or writing.

At the same time, you just can’t put things like this down on the page without the reader creating some kinds of connection for themselves.

So take the snippet about that suburban evening – lawnmowers and kids on bikes and men with white legs. Those are, in a way, just three truthful but disconnected observations about a sunny evening in outer Cardiff. But – they all have the smell of family and order and social connection. Fiona has none of that, or not in an ordinary way. So by presenting those images, Fiona is also offering us a little haiku that says something like:

Summer evening:

The sound of lawnmowers and children.

I don’t fit.

Or take the first example – a description of a rich woman’s kitchen. Partly that is just a straightforward way to describe a room (units = ivory; cooker = posh version of blue.)

But it ends with a tiny little haiku that seems to insert sunlight as part of the actual furnishing of the room. Something like this, in effect:

Venetian blinds

Sofas and slatted shadows

Sunlight.

Just as Basho’s frog was jumping into water and into sound, here the room is furnished with physical things (sofas, cookers, flowers) and also light, that’s been given a kind of order by the blinds. The purely physical melts a bit into something wider.

And sometimes the haikus just sneak their way into the text without needing much modification at all. Like this, for example:

Six days slide by

Dark fish in an urban canal

No sleep for me.

Now, I definitely, definitely don’t advise stopping your prose and just dropping chunks of (slightly weird) poetry into the gaps.

But that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about finding ways to drop together a small collection of observations that make perfect sense in a purely literal way … but that offer something extra as well. Basho’s frog. A suburban world that excludes its observer. A kitchen that seems furnished in sunlight.

In one way, this is easy writing: you’re just making plain statements without any kind of rhetorical complexity. But it’s also subtle writing: you’re arranging things so that those plain statements amount to something more than the sum of their parts.

I’ve never really stopped to notice this before: it was a Christmas gift of a book of haikus that alerted me to it. But – it’s an easy technique, and it’s a powerful one. And fun.

New Year snows.

Pine needles on the floor.

The empty page.

Give it a go yourself – or, just as good, look back at your text and see if you do this already. And if you’re a Feedback-Friday-er, then give this week’s task a go.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY / haiku

So: haiku

Find two or three short snippets from your book that feel a bit haiku-y, then actually rewrite them as haiku. So first give us the text as it is in your book, then the same thing in haiku form. (Or roughly haiku form: I don’t care about exact syllable counts.) When you're ready, log into Townhouse and share your work in this forum.

I’m really excited to see what you come back with. Good luck!

Til soon.

Harry

Hello again. Welcome back to my series of insights into what it’s like to undertake the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme.  

Month Nine is all about learning to edit our own writing. When I first started taking my dream of being a published novelist seriously, the editing phase felt like going to the dentist: necessary, but uncomfortable. I didn’t know where to start, what decisions to make, or how to break the task into chunks my writer’s brain could handle. Every change felt like vandalising something fragile — taking a knife to a newborn. 

Now? The editing phase is the part I look forward to most. It’s when I feel at my most creative and most deeply engaged with the art form. 

Drafting, for me, is like pulling together a big lump of clay and roughly squishing it into the shape I’m after. I’m sketching characters broadly and trying ideas I don’t yet fully understand. I feel self-conscious around them — they don’t know me, and I don’t know them — but I follow the impulses that arrive. By the end of the first draft, that clay is at least “head-shaped.” 

Then editing begins. Sharpening, distilling, refining. This is the stage where the novel’s face starts to emerge. Suddenly I discover the real reason for a character’s behaviour. I feel a spark of satisfaction when a plot beat clicks neatly into place and reveals what I meant all along. The book’s heartbeat grows stronger. Editing becomes creative play rather than the punishment I once feared. It feels like discovery, not destruction. I’ve learned that editing isn’t a penance — it’s the gateway to mastery. 

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t frightening. This is the phase when the “real world” draws closer. My once-private, infant novel is getting ready to be read — and that’s when doubt creeps in. What if the entire story is wrong? What if everyone laughs? What if readers miss everything I hoped they’d see? Decision fatigue sets in. I hear phantom footsteps as the draft edges toward daylight. 

That’s why I’ve worked so hard on my own self-editing skills: because they are essential for surviving feedback. Every writer who wants to be read will face multiple layers of it — agents, editors, beta readers, early reviewers. As the line from the film, The Wife goes: “A writer has to be read, honey.” Readers complete our art in their minds, and they bring their own interpretations — sometimes beautifully, sometimes bafflingly. The feedback can be well-meaning yet difficult to absorb, and the emotional whiplash can be painful. The market phase isn’t cruel, but it is real. 

For me, editing is where I reconnect with my North Star. I remind myself why this story mattered to me in the first place. I return to its emotional and thematic core. I protect my voice — because if I am not being fully myself in my own work, then whose story am I telling? I also get clear on my boundaries: the non-negotiables, the lines I will not cross. In this process, I try to behave like a tree — roots deep, branches flexible. Standing firm in my creative convictions, yet able to bend toward insight. External critique can deepen the roots, if I let it. 

This is why I don’t self-edit alone. I need trusted critique partners. I need people who can teach me craft techniques. I need professional eyes to remind me of the commercial realities of the book world. I need a toolkit of approaches that help me see my own pages afresh. Good self-editing is equal parts internal skill and external support. 

Editing isn’t the end of writing; it’s where the writing becomes itself. Over the years, I’ve gathered tools, gathered my people, and learned how to refine with increasing confidence. And I expect to spend the rest of my writing life doing exactly this. 

A big part of that growth has come from investing in tutored courses — including programmes like the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme. If you want guidance, structure, accountability, and a community of thoughtful advisors, you would be hard pushed to find a better foundation for your own creative development. 

Rachel Davidson is a long-term Premium Member of Jericho Writers prior to joining our Writer Support Team, Rachel loves helping hopeful writers, such as herself, to solve their problems and take a step or two closer to achieving their writing dreams. Rachel has previously self-published a trilogy, the first of which achieved bestseller status in fourteen Amazon categories in the UK, US, Australia and Canada and is now seeking her traditional publishing debut with her latest manuscript. You can find out more about Rachel via her Instagram @RachelDavidsonAuthor.

So… perhaps you are thinking about enrolling on a Jericho Writers course - the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme, for example. You’re considering how the logistics would work, realising you can make it all happen and starting to get excited.

But then something disconcerting happens: you hear a whisper that won’t disappear. You may have met it before - in writing or in your life more broadly.

Who am I to do this?
What if everyone else is more talented, more educated, more real than me?
What if they find out I don’t belong here at all?

That voice is familiar to every writer I’ve ever taught or mentored, and it is one that I hear too. It’s part of what we term impostor syndrome. It’s the fog that rolls in precisely when you dare to make something new. And often, that voice doesn’t even belong to you. It comes in borrowed tones: an unsupportive friend, a disbelieving parent, a teacher who once said you’d 'never make it.' Perhaps it’s the lingering weight of class and education — the sense that stories are for other people, those who went to different schools, read the right books, had the right accent. We cannot deny that structural inequality is a thing, and deeply impactful.

The first lesson you must learn is this: those voices may live in your head, but they were put there by someone else. You can thank them for their contribution, and then quietly show them the door. Here are some suggestions for how you might go about it, drawn from my first teaching book, The Alchemy…

Name the impostor (and its chorus)

When you hear, You’re not really a writer, address the source of that claim.

Ah, impostor. There you are. It loses power when you shine a light on it. Then listen closely — whose tone is that? Your old boss? A teacher’s clipped remark? An entire cultural system that teaches some people art is a luxury rather than a right?

PAH!

Once you know the owner of the voice, you can answer it. Because imposter syndrome is rarely born of arrogance or delusion; it’s often the bruised echo of exclusion. Naming the chorus that sings inside your head is the first step toward writing in your own voice.

The function of self-doubt

I am wary of anyone who claims never to feel self-doubt. Doubt, after all, is not proof of weakness; it’s a sign of thinking. It’s what intelligent, creative people do when they look at the vastness of what they don’t yet know. It’s the mind taking stock, the imagination testing its own boundaries.

Self-doubt, in moderation, is a function of intellect and creativity. It keeps you curious. It stops you from becoming complacent. But — here’s the danger — it can turn carnivorous if you feed it too much. Don’t let it eat you up. Doubt should prod you into refinement, not paralysis. It’s the small flame that sharpens your awareness, not the wildfire that consumes the whole forest.

So when you feel uncertain, don’t panic. It may mean you’re growing. Just don’t let that alertness harden into self-hatred. You can hold the doubt lightly, examine it, even write it into your work, but you needn’t obey it.

While I am on this point, whatever happens in your writing and publishing life, guard against bitterness; the bitterness that can come from disappointment. Bitterness is entirely corrosive: of relationships, creativity and joy.

Progress over perfection

The impostor’s favourite weapon is perfectionism. It tells you, If it’s not brilliant, it’s worthless. But that’s an impossible standard, and it kills creativity. In The Alchemy, I talk about gentle productivity: measuring progress by compassion, not punishment.

Ask yourself each day: What can I do gently today? Maybe it’s fifty words. Maybe it’s rereading a paragraph. Maybe it’s rest. Small acts accumulate. Writing a novel is an endurance event made of many tiny mercies. You don’t need to be magnificent; you need to persist. (Although do try to be magnificent!)

Educational ghosts

Many of us carry the ghosts of our schooling. The red-pen humiliation. The essay returned with 'You don’t understand' scrawled across it. (I always mark in green, by the way!) The implication that writing belongs to cleverer, posher, more literary people. If your education was patchy, or practical, or stopped too soon, you might still feel that someone else has the key to a room you’re locked out of.

But you’re not outside the room — you’re building your own. I might argue that the books which changed literature were written by people who didn’t fit the mould. The rough edges of your experience will become the texture of your prose. You don’t need to write like the canon; you need to write like yourself.

When those ghosts start muttering 'Not for the likes of you', remember: they are history. You are the living, present tense. Do also remember that, even if you are lucky enough to have a loving family about you, if this is something you are becoming, and if you have done something visibly clever, it’s possible that your family, friends and acquaintances will still think you’re a bit of a twit. Often, we get swatted back to our earliest pathology and to the role that, often unwittingly, groups of people have assigned to us.

It’s a bit like Christmas with your family, I always say. Nod politely. WE know the truth, right?

The evidence file

Keep an evidence file. Each time you show up to write, note it down. Each time you finish a scene, ask a good question in a workshop, or receive a kind word from a reader, write that down too.

When the impostor chorus gets loud, open the file. Look at what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter if it’s messy or partial. The point is to prove to yourself that you are here, doing the work. Facts are stronger than feelings, and seeing your own persistence in black and white can be the best antidote to doubt.

Comparison: the false arithmetic

On a course, it’s easy to look sideways. Someone’s writing glows; someone’s structure looks tidy; someone already has an agent. The impostor feeds on this. But comparison is a false arithmetic. You are not on the same timetable as anyone else. Some of you are writing in stolen moments before dawn; others after the kids are in bed. Some have studied literature; others have lived it. All of it is valid.

Your only reliable measure is this: Did I attend to my own work today? That’s the only question that matters.

Community

Talk about it. Say, 'I feel like a fraud.' Watch the nods around you. Everyone does, even those who seem most secure. The silence around impostor syndrome is what gives it teeth. When you share your doubt, you build community — and community softens the fear.

I tell my students: the most important conversations aren’t always about technique. They’re about resilience, about how to keep faith with the work when your head fills with noise. Every time you speak honestly about that noise, you make the space safer for someone else. It’s like passing on the baton and why I have been very open about my difficult background and, as far as I can, the complexity and challenges of my roles now, which include complex needs in my immediate family and coping with chronic illness (which is not to say that everyone must do this; some people do not feel safe so doing and that is fine).

Also, it’s important to distinguish publishing from writing. You can attend to your writing but, although it can be different if you are self-publishing and good at the business side, there is little of the publication side of things which you can control. If you can strengthen self-regard and nurse the sense that you have done a bold thing and the best work you can do, the situation will be easier for you to manage.

The alchemy of belonging

Gentle productivity says this: you don’t have to earn your belonging. You already belong, because you are here, doing the work. Self-doubt, impostor feelings, the internalised voices of class or family or fear — these are part of the creative landscape, not proof of your fraudulence.

You may never silence them completely. Few of us do. But you can learn to write alongside them. You can make a kind of peace. You can even turn them into fuel — the friction that sparks empathy, complexity, tenderness in your prose. It took me some time to grasp this, but now it underpins everything.

That’s the alchemy: transforming doubt into story, anxiety into attention, fear into the persistence that finishes a book. So when you sit down tomorrow and that old chorus begins — your teacher, your parents, the inner critic, your dodgy ex-husband, that friend who’s been a bit snarky — take a breath, smile, and start anyway.

You belong here, writer. You always have. The trick is simply to keep writing until you believe it. We are all here to support you.

Anna

If you'd like more encouragement from Anna, you can join her on this spring's Ultimate Novel Writing Programme. Fancy meeting her before you commit to taking the course? You can book a 20-minute Meet Your Tutor session for just £20, which is fully refundable against the cost of the Programme if you go on to study with us.

In my closing email of 2025, I talked about cliff jumping – growing your wings on the descent – accepting that you have to embark on your novel-writing project knowing that, right now, you don’t have the tools to deliver it.

In this, the first email of 2026, I want to pick up that theme of taking flight, but in a different context.

Novels cover a lot of space. They have big jobs to do. You have to herd your characters from here to there, reveal information, generate and delineate conflicts, mention settings and all that. Most of the time, your prose just needs to pull its boots on and get those jobs ticked off your immense and ever-growing list.

But for what? Why?

Yes: because a well-constructed, well-told story generates emotional power all of its own. That’s a win. But your prose doesn’t always have to wear boots. Everyone now and then it can do a hop, skip and a jump. A little leap into something higher, lighter and wider.

Here’s what I mean. Here’s a passage from one of the Fiona books (this one concerned with the archaeology of Dark Age Britain) as I could have written it:

At one point, I have to go back to Cardiff to receive my Formal Written Warning from Bleddyn Jones and some pretty blonde bob in Human Resources. And when that happy ritual is complete, I head home for some fresh clothes and find, waiting on my doormat, some padded envelopes with my eBay treasure.

My Roman glass. A silver bell. Some beads of Whitby jet.

When Katie tells me that she’s arranged for the dig at Dinas Powys to be re-opened, just for a week or two, just so the initial exploratory project can be completed as planned, I give her six of my Whitby beads. She will scatter them into the trench and cover them over with soil. When they are ‘found’, they will be logged, analysed and uploaded to the project website.

Eighteen beads left.

That passage does literally everything that’s plot relevant: Fiona secures some ancient jet beads and inserts them into a dig-site, for reasons that only become clear later in the book.

So far as Prose-Wearing-Boots is concerned, this passage is a perfect tick. No words wasted. Job done. Move on.

But?

Every now and then – and certainly not too often – we want something higher, lighter and wider, no? Something like this (with additions underlined.)

At one point, I have to go back to Cardiff to receive my Formal Written Warning from Bleddyn Jones and some pretty blonde bob in Human Resources. And when that happy ritual is complete, I head home for some fresh clothes and find, waiting on my doormat, some padded envelopes with my eBay treasure.

My Roman glass. A silver bell. Some beads of Whitby jet.

When I go back to Oxford, to interview more academics or sit across a table as Oakeshott’s grieving students explain to me how utterly surprising and mysterious and inexplicable his death was, I keep one hand in my pocket, where I keep my two dozen beads of Romano‒Celtic jet.

Roll those beads round and round, little emissaries from a distant age, and I remember that nothing is for ever.

King Arthur was not for ever.

His defeat of the Saxons was not for ever.

Inspector Jones of the Irritating Beard: he too is not for ever.

When Katie tells me that she’s arranged for the dig at Dinas Powys to be re-opened, just for a week or two, just so the initial exploratory project can be completed as planned, I give her six of my Whitby beads. She will scatter them into the trench and cover them over with soil. When they are ‘found’, they will be logged, analysed and uploaded to the project website.

Eighteen beads left.

And nothing is for ever.

That’s 100 additional words, but those words give us a vastly expanded view of the moment. All of a sudden, Fiona has reduced the present moment to a tiny dot on a vast historical timeline. First Arthur and the defeat of the Saxons – then Inspector Jones – then who knows what? Nothing is for ever.

That’s a bland truism of course – we all know that nothing is forever. The sun will explode, the turtles holding up the world will get tired, or whatever else. But because Fiona calls our attention to this truth, stretching history out for us to see, we also come to feel how small our place in it is. That sudden change of perspective lifts the whole passage.

And one more thing. Fiona has been investigating a death – Oakeshott’s. His former students and colleagues find that death surprising and mysterious, and so it is. But it also a tiny dot on a vast timeline. Fiona considers his death and her Romano-Celtic beads in the same moment.

We feel something different about this death, about Fiona and ourselves because – just for a moment – Mr Prose-In-Boots gave way to Ms Prose-with-Wings.

You don’t have to do it.

You can’t do it much or often without seeming dull and self-important. But? It’s fun to do sometimes – and it can be the handful of herbs that scents the whole pot.

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY / Nothing is for ever

So: wings.

Give me any passage where Ms Prose-with-Wings takes over (however briefly) from Mr Prose-In-Boots. Sometimes, that might just be a phrase or sentence. Sometimes, it could be a chunk of 100 words or more.

But dig it out and let’s admire. When you're ready, log into Townhouse and share your work in this forum.

Spread joy. 

Til soon. 

Harry 

A new year always brings a fresh page. For writers, it’s a chance to pause, reflect on what worked (and what didn’t), and think about how we want to show up for our writing in the months ahead.

At Jericho Writers, we’re writers and word-lovers at every stage. Some are published, some are drafting, and some don’t write at all, but we all love reading and keeping creative routines.

So, for 2026, we asked some of the team to share their insights, approaches, and lessons. From small daily habits to protecting mental space, from letting go of comparison to finding joy in the process again, here’s how the Jericho Writers team plans to keep moving their words forward this year and maybe inspire you to do the same.

Finding joy and avoiding pressure

Hear from some of the Marketing & Membership team on how they’re rediscovering the fun in writing.

"My next book releases in March and is totally done - I've finished my proofread and it's now off with the publisher to work their magic. For reasons that I'll go into in my next Diary of a Published Author episode, I've decided to hold off on signing a new contract, which means for the first time since I got my book deal in 2021 I am not writing to deadline. Let me tell you - it has been SO refreshing. After going through a phase of feeling like I'm on a literary conveyer belt, I'm actually enjoying writing again. So if I had one tip to offer up the people reading this who are still hoping and praying for that full request or offer, it would be to enjoy writing to your own schedule while you still can. Once you get published, your writing becomes a business, and it is very easy to lose the joy, so make the most of this time you've got where you can just write because you LOVE it." — Becca Day

"I'm contracted to write another book in 2026, and will also be working on editing the novel that's due out in July. My creative focus for next year is going to be on refining but embracing my own process, as well as remembering that comparison is the thief of joy. As anyone who's met me on Townhouse, at Festival or on events may know, it takes me aaaaaaaaaaages to get 'inside' a book idea - but once I do, I tend to work quickly and intensively. This year, I've let myself panic about this way too much, and I've compared myself to far more organised (less chaotic!) writers. 

In 2026, I intend to stress less and be kinder to myself. I want to remember that no two authors work in the same way and that it's OK for the start of my projects to be slower and less apparently 'productive' than might be the norm for others. I hope that accepting this will mean I'm less frustrated in the early months with my next manuscript and therefore feel happier to keep showing up, even when the words aren't flowing easily." 

— Laura Starkey

"Alongside my work at Jericho Writers, I’m a yoga teacher and I notice a lot of overlap with writing. Progress doesn’t come from pushing harder or doing more. It comes from showing up, working with what you’ve got, and paying attention to what actually feels like can be done.

Some days I do a full hour’s yoga practice, other days I just roll out the mat and breathe. Both count. Fitting writing into my day isn’t about adding more, it’s about seeing what I can take away to make space for it.

I’ve found routines work best when they follow your energy rather than fight it. Writing, like movement, is a long game. The goal isn’t punishment or perfection. It’s staying well enough to keep going."— Tanya Lewis

Consistency and daily habits

Tips from both the Writer Support team and Marketing team on building routines that actually stick.

"It's easy to set yourself a goal for the New Year. You start off enthusiastically and then a week, a month or two months later you start to feel as if you've failed because you haven't stuck to that original goal and beat yourself up. Which leads to giving up on your goal altogether.

It's much easier and realistic to start small and build on it.

Start with half an hour per day, writing, research, anything at all to do with your writing but dedicate that half an hour solidly to your project.

It's not really the motivation that gets you to the end goal, it's discipline.

When that becomes part of your schedule (they say it takes on average 72 days to form a new habit) and if feels more natural then forced, you'll find that you naturally drift over the half an hour towards an hour. There'll be times that you can't fit it in, that's fine, give yourself the space and grace to fall and get straight back on. Let your writing become a new part of your life.

And don't forget to celebrate the small wins." — Cleo Slevin

"My writing goals this year are to finish the second rewrite of my current manuscript and to keep querying the previous one (I'm setting myself a goal of at least 80 rejections). Every "no" still means the work is moving forward!

One mindset I really believe in is frequent and regular turning up to one's writing. It is a fundamental foundation that's easy to overlook because it's not flashy or a quick-fix! And on the days when you really, really don't want to or think you can't, simply aim for 5 sentences or write for just 10 minutes. — Rachel Davidson

"2026 is the year of getting more words on the page. It’s time to ignore the inner voice that screams, “The character arc isn’t there yet,” “I need to do more research,” or “Why not try outlining again?” These are all things that can be fixed in the edits. For now, it’s the first draft that matters most." —Jonny Milne

"For 2026, I'm aiming to introduce more structure into my week and organise my time more clearly. I am an avid note-taker but can find it difficult to carve out time to sit and write for a project I do alongside Jericho Writers, often preferring to strike while the words are flowing. For the New Year, I want to carve out more time regularly to sit and dedicate to writing, mimicking the inspiration I find in our Writing Rooms and particularly the members who consistently showed up in the Writing Retreat. By committing to my writing, it helps me get in the right headspace and even have further ideas for content that I can then pitch. With all of this I also want to be kind to myself and recognise more when I am not in the right headspace at that moment. For those moments, I can go back to my other creative outlets and hobbies, which often help kickstart that motivational path anyway. So in 2026, I'll build more of a schedule but also remember to stop and take a break when needed too. Take time to enjoy reading, being out in nature or just having a small sweet treat!" — Emily Mitchell

Taking breaks and self-care

Advice from our Courses team and People & Services team on stepping back and looking after yourself while writing.

"I am not a writer, but for what it's worth, I think my advice to anyone is to accept that sometimes you need to take a step away and give yourself permission not to write/work on your to-do list etc. Working to your targets and holding yourself accountable is obviously great, but sometimes we also need to remember that we're human (and life gets in the way!) and we also need to take time out to decompress and get perspective too." — Rachael Cooper

"Remember that writing a novel isn’t a race. If the words stop flowing and you find yourself stepping into 2026 without touching your manuscript, give yourself permission. Breaks aren’t a loss of momentum; they’re a clever way of tricking your brain into having ideas again. Sometimes the clearest ideas arrive only after you’ve closed the notebook or laptop, and taken some time in the world outside your novel." — Verity Hicks

"My advice for setting good habits for the new year is a simple one: read! We sometimes hear from writers who feel they only have time for writing rather than reading, but whether you're able to read five or 50 books in a year, it will still make a difference to the strength of your writing. Others can worry about accidentally absorbing another author's voice, but this (very small) risk is vastly outweighed by the skills you'll learn from reading the best novels and non-fiction. Whether it's keeping up-to-date with the latest titles in your genre, setting a New Year's resolution to tackle some of the unread paperbacks on your shelves, or reading short stories in pockets of time, reading more will develop your storytelling skills and creative mindset." — Imogen Love

As we step into 2026, one thing’s clear: there’s no single “right” way to write. Whether you’re sneaking in ten minutes before your 9-5 job, enjoying long stretches of uninterrupted flow on a Sunday, or just showing up day after day, the trick is to keep moving forward. And taking breaks count!

From all of us at Jericho Writers, here’s to a year full of curiosity and creativity to keep things interesting. Whatever shape your writing takes, may it surprise you and keep you coming back for more. Happy New Year and happy writing!

Ray Bradbury, the author of Farenheit 451 and much else, was a fan of the future. A fan of boldness and technological adventure. 

In an interview with the New York Times, he said, “If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business because we’d be cynical: ‘It’s gonna go wrong.’ Or ‘She’s going to hurt me.’ Or ‘I had a couple of bad love affairs so therefore …’ Well, that’s nonsense. You’re going to miss life. You’ve got to jump off the cliff all the time and build your wings on the way down.” 

That cliff-jumper is you. It’s me. It’s all of us. 

It’s certainly true for any first-time novelist. My first book was a giant 180,000 words long. (And yes, it went to print at that length. And no, it’s not a length that publishers are especially looking for. But if a book is good enough, the length is kinda immaterial.) 

I was naïve. I literally had no idea that writing a book and getting it published might be hard. I just assumed I could do it, and would do it. My track record (Oxford University, fancy American bank) was one of achievement. I knew I liked reading. I’d always assumed I’d end up being an author. So: write a book – how hard could it be? I knew how to write a sentence, so just do that over and over, and I’d have a book. 

Everyone receiving this email is less naïve. The tone of voice needed for a fast commercial adventure-caper was not the same tone as that had produced success in Oxford philosophy essays. Once I’d written 180,000 words, I looked back at the start and realised it was … ahem, in need of vigorous editing. The kind of editing that involved selecting 60,000 words and hitting Delete. So I deleted the rubbish and rewrote it. Wrote it better. 

But: 

That wasn’t a failure. It was the second most important step on the road to success. The most important was writing the first word, the first sentence, the first paragraph, the first chapter. The most important step is always the same: it’s jumping off the cliff in the first place. 

Deleting 60,000 words was the next crucial step: acknowledging that what I’d done wasn’t good enough; that more work could fix it; that I needed to design and use some better wings. 

But you don’t get to the better-wing-design stage until you’ve got to the plummeting-downwards-out-of-control stage. You need them both. 

And honestly: the challenges probably get a little bit less as you write more books, get them published, get paid, learn the industry, build a readership. But each book is its own cliff – its own well of uncertainty. 

As you know, I’m a huge believer in nailing an elevator pitch before you start writing. I don’t care about pretty formulations – I don’t mind whether you have the kind of phrase that would look good on a book jacket or movie poster. But a list of ingredients that would spark interest in a potential book-buyer? That’s essential. 

But oh sweet lord, there is a huge gap between knowing that you have, in theory, a commercially viable novel and actually making it so. I have sometimes written books that flowed, start to finish, with no huge mid-point challenges, but those have been the exception. Mostly, there’s been a hole – a gap – a problem. 

I’m not a huge fan of pre-planning novels in vast detail. (But do what you like: it’s whatever works for you.) The only way to find that hole is to leap off the cliff. It’s the flying through the air that tells you what wings you need. 

So jump. 

Be uncertain. 

Jump anyway. 

Take the biggest boldest leap you can, knowing that you don’t have the answers. 

Just jump. 

Jump knowing that your wings aren’t ready. They get born by jumping. Wings that surprise you and delight you and complete you. 

So jump. 

Good luck. And happy Christmas. 

FEEDBACK FRIDAY / Sharing your darlings 

It’s Christmas. So – take the day off – or the week – or the fortnight. 

Eat mince pies until your eyes bulge. Eat until you smell of chestnuts and nutmeg. Give presents to your kids. Wear baubles in your hair. Hide chocolate coins in your garden, then dig them up with a five-year-old watching in wonder. 

And – well, hell, if you want to be Christmassy with your fellow writers, then share your darlings. Choose any 250-300 word passage that you really love, and share it. Give feedback to others. When you're ready, log in to Townhouse and share your work in this forum.

Spread joy. 

Til soon. 

Harry 

As the year draws to a close, we wanted to pause, take a breath, and say one very important thing: 

Thank you. 

This year was shaped by you showing up. Showing up to the page, to the live sessions, to the writing rooms, and we’re so proud of what this community has achieved together. 

Here’s a snapshot of what was accomplished in 2025: 

107 success stories celebrated 
Across our Premium Members, course alumni, and editorial clients, we celebrated 107 writers who went on to have books published, sign with literary agents, and place in competitions. Watching your journeys unfold never gets old and is the best bit of our jobs. 

5 brand new Premium Member courses released 
This year we added five new courses (that are totally free to our Premium Members) to support them at every stage: 

• Write With Jericho 

• Introduction to Crime Writing 

• How to Get a Literary Agent 

• Introduction to Creative Non-Fiction 

• Introduction to Self-Editing 

136 live online events hosted 
Including 16 industry insight events with literary agents and 19 feedback events, all designed to give you access, insight, and practical next steps. 

4 intensives held 

We hosted Getting Published Month, The Write That Book Bootcamp, Build Your Book Month, and the Writing Retreat, giving our writers even more opportunities to learn, create, and connect. 

72 hours spent in the writing room 
Quiet focus. Shared accountability. Real progress. These hours mattered. 

Over 1 million words read 
That’s how many words were submitted to our First 500 competition. It was an extraordinary reminder of just how much talent exists in this community. 

312 writers welcomed to the London Festival of Writing 
A highlight of the year, filled with learning, connection, and the kind of creative energy that stays with you long after the weekend ends. 

6 bursaries funded 
Because access matters. We were proud to support low-income writers in continuing their writing journeys. 

Launched our revamped Townhouse community 

Our new and improved community space has given writers a place to collaborate, share, and grow together, making our collective creativity even stronger. 

Every number above represents real people, real effort, and real belief in the power of stories. Whether this was the year you finished a draft, signed with an agent, attended your first live event, or simply kept going when it felt hard, it all counts. 

With thanks and excitement for the year ahead, 

Becca, Head of Marketing & Membership

The market for books is weirdly open and weirdly opaque, both at the same time.

It’s open in the sense that you can walk into a bookshop and see which books are being heavily promoted (front of store, price discounted), which books are being merely sold (round the side of the store, spines out), and which books – too often your own – aren’t being sold at all.

You can also pick up any book to get a rough measure as to critical acclaim and any sales records the book may have. On Amazon, you can go one better and get an actual sales rank, brought up to date every hour.

It’s really easy to get captured by these things. “So-and-So’s Book X is doing really well, so I should make mine more like that.” “Famous Author Y always writes along these particular lines, so I should do the same.”

But those conclusions are dangerous and often completely misleading. So, to mention just a few issues:

1. A book may have pride of place on a bookstore’s sales table, simply because a publisher has paid for it to be there. The book may be selling badly and be actively loss-making and be generating despondent “where did we go wrong?” type meetings at the publisher.
   
   
2. A book may become a bestseller, simply because enough supermarkets have bought and then discounted the title. Those supermarkets have the sales power to create a bestseller – footfall is the single most potent sales tool there is – but the retail buyers making the acquisition probably never read the book before buying it. So, what you’re looking at is not much more than a random effect. (That said, you do probably need to have sold your novel to a Big 5 house, via an agent, even to place a stake at that particular roulette table – so in that sense, it’s very not random.)
   
   
3. Amazon sales rankings are hugely responsive to quite small changes in sales. So, for a book to gain or lose 10,000 places in a day is common. For books with lower sales, a shift of 100,000 places may well signify extremely little in practice.
   
   
4. Critical acclaim can be carefully manufactured by a publisher. That and sales outcomes are two very different things and in most cases publishers will only care about the latter. And critical comments are very carefully culled. An ambivalent piece with a single strikingly positive phrase will be clipped down to that phrase alone. Additionally, by the time a consensus builds, critics are nervous to do their job. So, for example, Kazuo Ishiguro is obviously a terrific novelist… but it’s also obvious that his Dark Ages novel, The Buried Giant, is kinda awful. No one ever dared say so, though.
   
   
5. A US bestseller can flunk in the UK and vice versa. People often try to analyse what it is about US tastes that differ so much from UK tastes – but a big point here is that outcomes in traditional publishing have a large component of pure, random luck. I’d say a really strong title matters. And no book becomes a lasting bestseller unless it has some genuine merit. But plenty of good books flunk. If your title is bought by the US and the UK, then great: you get a seat at both roulette tables. But the spins are separate and outcomes are only weakly correlated.
   
   
6. A book that does amazingly well online may never find any meaningful print sales at all. I can think of a UK crime author whose digital sales (via a digital publisher) ran very quickly into seven figures. A print deal soon followed, and it was assumed at the time of signing that a big print bestseller was the natural outcome. But it wasn’t. The print book did OK, but it was nothing like the runaway success of the digital one.
   
   
7. A famous author doing very well at his/her game may not mean anything at all about whether that particular market is a good one for you. So, let’s say that you notice a new Dan Brown or John Grisham novel making headlines and grabbing sales slots. You might think that producing weirdly written novels about secret codes is a good game to get into – or that the world badly needs another legal thriller. But the point is that DB / JG have now created their own genres: people who like Dan Brown / John Grisham books. The JG reader may well read no other legal thrillers and certainly not be desperate to find new authors in that niche. You essentially can’t tell anything at all from the current sales history of more established authors.

So, what do you do? How are you meant to navigate?

One piece of advice – widely offered – is just to write to please yourself. I think that’s wrong. I think it’s foolish. Yes, you need to please yourself. And yes, you need to find joy and satisfaction and meaning in what you write. But you also need to make sure that there’s a market for what you write. Opaque as the books market is, you do still need to interrogate it for whatever lessons you can learn.

Here are some rules which are, I think, dependable.

Look at recent debuts. The books that are making their debuts today are books that were acquired by publishers (roughly) 12-18 months ago. Without being a literary agent, you can’t know much about more recent market activity, so those debuts are your best bet. Don’t just look at the promotional chatter about those books. Try, if you can, to find any data on whether the books are considered to have sold well. If a publisher bought a book 15 months ago and is making good money from it today, it’ll want another book in the same broad genre.

Know your genre. The best – really, the only – way to understand movements in the market for your genre is to participate fully in that genre, as reader. To consider the whole romantasy genre, for instance – to understand what’s ‘current’ there – means reading widely in the genre. I’m not a big fan of slutty faeries, so my guess as to what to write in that genre would offer absolutely nothing by way of insight. But if you read what others are reading, then the book you want to read next is probably the one you want to write. You’ve effectively turned yourself into the Ideal Reader for your novel.

Don’t just think about your genre. If psych thrillers are doing really well commercially, then your historical espionage novel with an unreliable narrator fits into the same broad cultural trend.

So read widely. Pay particular attention to recent successful debuts. Read in your genre and out of it. Write what you love – and what there’s a market for.

And?

And don’t be seduced by shiny chatter and sales blurbs. Those things deceive as often as they inform – and actually, probably, a lot more often.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY / The big random thumb

OK, I don’t want to know if you have a shiny opening to your book, or if your battle scene is great. This week we’re going to do the Big Random Thumb. Basically: does your book look strong enough when we just search out a perfectly average passage? Is there something there to convince a reader that you’re worth trusting?

Give me page 42 from your manuscript. If you want to jiggle the start a little bit in order to find a chunk that has some coherence out-of-context, then fine. But not much jiggling – the less, the better. Page 41 or 43, if you don’t want to start at page 42.

250 words total, please. As usual, title, genre, and a line or two of explanation. I’ll pop my own page 42 sample up on Townhouse too, so you can take a look at what the Big Random Thumb finds with me.

When you're ready, log in to Townhouse and share your work in this forum.

Til soon.

Harry

(This is not an opening; this is a parenthesis.

You may skip it, if you wish – you may metaphorically flip the page – you may prefer your cup of cocoa and your comfortable slippers – but,

You skippers, flippers and people in slippers,

You may CRIPPLE your chances of novel-writing GLORY if you don’t grab the LAST CHANCE to take out an annual Premium Membership at a stonking 30% off.

I suggest that you:

1. take out the membership,
2. commit to taking at least 3 lessons of any one of our Premium Membership (PM) courses (choose whatever feels most timely to you now), then
3. Relish in how the membership is worth your investment.

And with that goodly message resounding in your head –

I now declare this parenthesis over.)

Good.

The idea for this email was sparked by the opening to a YA novel that was on Townhouse this last week.

The central image was kind of amazing.

An end of season fairground. A cold day, heading into sunset. A Ferris wheel not turning because of a broken gondola.

And – a boy sent up to climb the wheel, to fix the broken gondola strut.

And – that boy, walking in cheap trainers on the loft of that wheel, for a moment silhouetted against that sunsetting London sky.

Good, huh? I mean, that image is so striking, you could remember it for a long time. It would be hard to put that book down in a bookstore. It’s hard not to think of the boy, on that wheel, with his mallet for thumping gondola struts.

But (to my mind and other people may differ), that scene wasn’t quite flowing right. Now, to be fair, that’s pretty standard and is to be expected. The whole point of Townhouse is to present work that isn’t ready in order to get it ready.

And two points struck me in particular. The first is that we, as writers, have very long to do lists, especially when we’re less experienced, and especially when we’re opening a novel.

So, just from the top of my head, we have to:

• Establish location
• Establish character
• Get some kind of story questions moving
• Including (probably) a little bit of razzle-dazzle to convince the prospective reader that they have to stick around.
• Write decently
• Paint quick descriptions of any other characters who are kicking around. (The scene in question had two.)
• Deliver atmosphere
• Avoid sloppy language
• Delete redundant language
• Offer some kind of thematic resonance
• And so on.

That’s a lot. And I think that, often and not just with opening pages, writers are so busy trying to deliver This, That and the Other, that they lose sight of the little bit of magic that brought them to this scene in the first place.

And – we have a boy walking the arch of a Ferris wheel against a crimson London sky.

And – that boy is feeling the air move and considering the slipperiness of the wet metal beneath his trainers as he walks that curve.

That’s the magic. Everything else has to bend to that.

So, for example, we do need to know about the colour of the skyline, because that’s part of the drama. We don’t need to know where the fairground will fold itself away for winter.

We do need to know about the fair-owner yelling up at the kid, because he’s clearly part of the scene, but he should be pushed away and (for now) be made secondary. And so on.

Find the magic and prioritise it.

Not just with openings, but everywhere. What’s the magic? Is it central to the scene? If not, make it central.

And on this particular occasion, there was a further difficulty. We have two images and they’re both amazing:

• A boy on a Ferris wheel, silhouetted against a crimson London sky
• That boy feeling what it’s like to be forty feet off the ground and with the evening air moving around him.

But the first of those images is a distance shot. We’re a long way from the boy’s inner thoughts. The second of those images is the exact opposite: it’s all about the boy’s inner thoughts. The two camera angles are basically incompatible, and we want them both.

The solution here is about starting distance and moving steadily in. From silhouette view, to some closer-range view. (e.g.: “The boy had a rucksack of tools, on his shoulder, but he wore it lightly, as though unconcerned.”) Here, we start to move from general silhouette, to closer-up detail, but still nothing about the boy’s inner world. Then you’d shift to something closer still. (“He wore cheap trainers, one dirty white lace was already starting to come undone.”) Then you can reveal something of his inner world, and then, if you want, the boy can actually take over the narrative himself. (“It was high, and it was dangerous, but it was beautiful and it was lovely.” – that’s now the boy thinking, not the narrator speaking.)

So that’s basically the secret. Move from out to in, but do it gradually, so the shock doesn’t seem abrupt.

If you want one other tip, then give proper time and space to your touch of magic. You don’t need to rush away. Your reader won’t want you to.

FEEDBACK FRIDAY / Scene

This week, I want a scene where you have a lovely image or moment that you want to make central and memorable.

What I want is:

• Title, genre, a line or two of context.
• The magic: a line or two explaining where you think the magic lies in this scene
• The scene itself: our usual 250 or so words.

You get extra points if the little bit of magic coheres nicely with your themes and elevator pitch. When you're ready, log in to Townhouse and share your work in this forum.

Got that? You got it, I know you do.

Til soon.

Harry

Hello again! Welcome back to my series of insights into what it’s like to undertake the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme.  

Month eight – two thirds of the way through the 12-month course – and we are talking endings.  

Real life rarely gives nice, neat, ‘everything now makes sense’ endings. I think of moments in my life that, in hindsight were endings: the slice of pie my father saved for tomorrow, believing he had a tomorrow. The last time I carried my son on my hip, or the last time my daughter was happy to hold hands in public.  

Endings are important in stories, and I have a theory as to why: our own mortality, the inevitable ending we all face, is a major reason the artistic endeavour of novels exists. In short, we read novels to practise dying.  

A novel demands we invest in the illusion of a life – a life we go on to learn the rhythm of. We become familiar with its timescales and habits; with the loves, regrets and transformations its characters undergo. And then we’re asked to face the ending of these. We turn the last page and find we have to leave. Novels are rehearsals for mortality – a way to practise the art of letting go. Furthermore, the novel (though I’m happy to include poetry in my thesis) is the only art form that does this. Great paintings, transcendent symphonies? These imply, but a novel enacts. 

A painting or a song is experienced in the immediacy of the present — it’s capable of evoking eternity or the sublime, certainly — but it cannot carry us through a life lived in time. Whereas a novel unfolds like consciousness. It moves us through sequence, choice and consequence, memory and application. It requires duration, mirroring the shape of a human life. It delves into the interiors of others: we become mind-readers when we are novel-readers. When a novel ends, it doesn’t just stop, it dies – and as readers, we feel that loss. How many of us approach the ending of a great story with dread, not wanting to let the characters go? Isn’t part of a great ending, from a skilful author, that bittersweet realisation that you’re never going to hear that character say another thing? You’re never going to experience any more of their possibilities. These endings echo our own.  

In most great novels, the ending doesn’t just provide narrative closure. It asks questions: where and what is the meaning of the story? Has it done enough? What regrets remain, and why? Is there redemption available, or merely resigned comprehension and deflated acceptance? These are life’s big, keep-you-awake-at-three-in-the-morning questions. Music and paintings gesture towards these, but only fiction makes us experience them. 

But there is a paradox, too – as the novel dies, as the people inside it vanish, there are also beginnings. Something of a book’s characters can remain with us. We get to consider what happened and imagine their next steps. Perhaps we will discuss them with friends and, through those conversations, test out our own life narratives and soul yearnings? We may even – those of us writing a series – get to write up what comes next. The metaphysics of the novel intrinsically binds beginnings within endings. 

Which is maybe why, in this month of learning all about how to craft a brilliant ending, I actually find myself turning towards the beginning of my manuscript.  

As I have been writing my way towards the end of my first draft, I’ve been experiencing more and more of a ‘stop’. The words I could conjure were brief; sketchy. Writing began to make me feel a bit burned. I was charred wood, and the story wasn’t getting inside of me anymore. It was because the narrative ending of the story needed more supporting structure at the beginning.  

So – as in life, as in novels, endings have beginnings. By working through my Ultimate Novel Writing Programme course materials and discussing the detail with my tutor and peers, I’m better able to understand the significance of my book’s ending – and see how the structure of the beginning affects it. Heading back to the start of my novel has made the ending feel more alive. I can positively feel it inflating. 

Endings are powerful, and we writers bear a weighty responsibility for them. If you agree with my theory, we’re purveyors of rehearsed mortality – which might be the most human act of all. If you’re anything like me, you might want to get some help and assistance with shouldering that responsibility. For that support, I can highly recommend the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme! 

The Ultimate Novel Writing Programme (and its little sister, the Novel Writing Course) run twice a year. Our most intensive tutored courses, they offer writers more personalised, one-to-one support than is available through any other online writing course. To find out more about either, or to apply to be part of our next cohort, visit the Ultimate Novel Writing Programme or the Novel Writing Course web page. You can also contact us at any time to chat about your writing journey and explore which, if any, of our courses or services could help you. We love to chat with authors, and we will never sell you a service that we don’t think is the best fit for you – so don’t be shy!

Rachel Davidson is a long-term Premium Member of Jericho Writers prior to joining our Writer Support Team, Rachel loves helping hopeful writers, such as herself, to solve their problems and take a step or two closer to achieving their writing dreams. Rachel has previously self-published a trilogy, the first of which achieved bestseller status in fourteen Amazon categories in the UK, US, Australia and Canada and is now seeking her traditional publishing debut with her latest manuscript. You can find out more about Rachel via her Instagram @RachelDavidsonAuthor.

I’ve been a working novelist a long time. My first book came out in my twenties – a long time ago now – and my last four were published by Penguin Random House. I thought I knew the business: how novels work, how publishing works, how to hook readers. But becoming a mentor was a surprise. I’ve mentored writers of all ages and backgrounds, from the US to the UK to Australia, and six lessons have come up again and again. To my surprise, mentoring has taught me – or reminded me – so much about being a novelist. 

1. No One Is Born a Novelist 

We often talk about people having innate talent, and there’s something to that, but no one is born knowing what it means to be a working novelist. You have to learn two things: how to construct your novel, and what a reader, including agents and editors, will want from it. No one is born a novelist. There are things you can learn, and people who can teach you. 

2. Know Your Market (and Respect It!) 

One thing I say most to new novelists: know your market. Understanding where your book belongs is the smartest strategy. Think like agents and editors think. Research what’s being published in your genre and read hit novels in that area. You’d be amazed how many writers don’t really know their market. Seeing how empowering it is to understand that has made me rethink my own. 

3. The Opening Chapter Is Everything 

I’ll confess something. I didn’t realise how important your opening chapter is until I became a mentor. I knew in theory, but now I see it. (Not least because I also do Jericho’s Agent Submission Pack Reviews, and you really notice it there.) Your first chapter is your big chance. Agents decide within a page or two whether to keep reading – and so will readers. That opening must show who your protagonist is and what kind of world they inhabit, just as it’s about to fall apart. Make sure your opening sizzles. 

4. No, Wait! Character Is Everything 

When talking about novels, we often focus on plot, but it’s great, clear characters that make novels sing. Not their name or hair colour or funny brooch, but who they are deep down. What do they want? What will they learn they wanted all along but didn’t know? And how do you make the reader their confidante? Every novelist needs to get their book to where the character’s desires and needs are central to the reading experience. 

5. Learn to Hear the Music of Your Novel 

Many mentees bring work that feels uneven, and I’ve realised how much novel-writing is about rhythm. A novel is like a symphony: harmonies, instruments, crescendos. Every scene contributes to the whole. You don’t hear it on day one; you find it through writing. This has brought me back to my own work: you can hear the music of your novel – and you must.

6. We All Need Feedback 

I’m in a writing group with other novelists, and I still rely on their feedback. (In fact, I just took my next novel to them.) If you have an honest friend, that might be enough, but often you need a professional ally who will tell you the truth, kindly but clearly. That’s what a mentor does. It’s not just advice; it’s someone on your side in the hardest stage of a novelist’s life: before success. Writing is full of feedback – from agents, editors, reviewers – but it’s at the beginning that it matters most. And here I am, years into a career, still wanting it. Novel-writing begins as a learning process but remains one, and that’s the joy of a long-term career. You never stop learning – or wanting to get better. Put that in your heart, and you won’t go wrong. 

Work one-on-one with Neil Blackmore or any of our expert writing mentors & book coaches. Our mentoring service is like a choose-your-own-adventure for writers. Pick a package that fits your needs, and use your hours however you like. Each package includes your mentor’s reading, editing, and any calls or video chats. Find out more.

In an excellent email earlier this week, and in her full blog post here, my colleague Laura Starkey wrote about what our team is actually looking for when we read your first 500 words for our current competition. (Competition details here – but don’t wait around, entries close at the end of the weekend. Oh, and don't forget you've got until Monday to join us as a Premium Member for 30% off. More on that below...)

To summarise, our readers all highlighted slightly different aspects of what they were after:

Verity: “I’m looking for a character I’m going to want to stay with for the whole story – and they don’t have to be a good person! Show me something of who they are.”

Tanya: “I love it when a character shows a bit of vulnerability or their slightly messy, less likeable side.”

Becca: “It’s essential that your reader roughly understands who they’re following and what’s going on.”

Kate: “I want to feel what the character is feeling, while still getting a sense of the plot.”

Imogen: “A clear sense of genre is crucial.”

Jonny: “I’m already assuming the sea is stormy, the rain is heavy ... I want to dive straight into the action.”

Kat: “I’m looking for a truly original concept brought to life with exceptional writing.”

Rachel: “I’m looking for ‘sweets’, something intriguing and slightly unexplained.”

Laura: “I need to feel like I’m in a safe pair of hands – that whatever questions an opening provokes are going to be answered, and in an interesting way.”

That sounds like a slightly overwhelming list, but I think it’s doable and doable without the need for huge fireworks. Here’s one of my openings. I think, as it happens, I have a yen for pretty tedious openings, which doesn’t sound like a generally fantastic idea, I know.

Here’s the start of the third of my Fiona books – an opening that revels in its own boringness:

I like the police force. I like its rules, its structures. I like the fact that, most of the time, we are on the side of ordinary people. Sorting out their road accidents and petty thefts. Preventing violence, keeping order. In the words of our bland but truthful corporate slogan, we’re Keeping South Wales Safe. That’s a task worth doing and one I enjoy. Only, Gott im Himmel, the job can be tedious.

Right now, I’m sitting in a cramped little office above the stockroom at a furniture superstore on the Newport Road. I’m here with a DS, Huw Bowen, recently transferred from Swansea. A finance guy from Swindon is shoving spreadsheets at me and looking at me with pained, watery eyes. We have been here forty minutes.

Bowen takes the topmost spreadsheet and runs a thick finger across it. It comprises a column of names, a row of months, a block of numbers.

‘So these are the payments?’ says Bowen.

‘Correct.’

The finance guy from Swindon wears a plastic security pass clipped to his jacket pocket. Kevin Tildesley.

‘So all these people have been paid all these amounts?’

‘Correct.’

Tax deducted, national insurance, everything?’

‘Yes. Exactly.’

The only window in the office looks out over the shop floor itself. We’re up on the top storey, so we’re on a level with the fluorescent lighting and what seems like miles of silver ducting. The superstore version of heaven.

Bowen still hasn’t got it. He’s a nice guy, but he’s as good with numbers as I am at singing opera.

I bite down onto my thumb, hard enough to give myself a little blue ledge of pain. I let my mind rest on that ledge, while the scenario in front of me plays itself out. I’m theoretically here to take notes, but my pad is mostly blank.

‘And these are all employees? Contracts in place? Bank accounts in order? Anything else, I don’t know … pension plans and all that?’

‘Yes. They are all contracted employees. We have their contracts. Their bank details. Their addresses. Everything. But two of the people – these two,’ he says, circling two names on the spreadsheet, ‘these two don’t actually exist.’

Bowen stares at him.

His mouth says nothing. His eyes say, ‘So why. The fuck. Were you paying them?’

That’s just shy of 400 words, so in the competition I’d get to have another 100 words involving manila folders and payroll audits and the like. Just to be clear: this opening would never win a competition. That doesn’t mean it’s the wrong opening for the book – I don’t think it is. Just that the Competition Opening genre demands a bit more tarantaraa than this one offers, and some books don’t want to do their tarantaraa upfront.

Character

That said, I think that the opening broadly ticks the boxes that wanted ticking. So on character, we said:

Verity: “I’m looking for a character I’m going to want to stay with for the whole story – and they don’t have to be a good person! Show me something of who they are.”

Tanya: “I love it when a character shows a bit of vulnerability or their slightly messy, less likeable side.”

Kate: “I want to feel what the character is feeling.”

We start off with a fairly general paragraph about the police: roughly, “Yes, I like the police, but it can be very dull.” That’s OK by way of character intro, except that you might find at least 50% of coppers saying something similar – perhaps without the Gott im Himmel, perhaps without the "bland but truthful". But still, this paragraph isn’t one to clinch anything.

250 words in, however, and we get this:

I bite down onto my thumb, hard enough to give myself a little blue ledge of pain. I let my mind rest on that ledge, while the scenario in front of me plays itself out. I’m theoretically here to take notes, but my pad is mostly blank.

That “little blue ledge” is unique to Fiona. The fact that she injures herself to cope with the tedium. That way of phrasing it. Tanya wanted something “slightly messy” – and boof! This character’s mess involves totally pointless self-harm on the very first page. We know the character’s feelings immediately and we already know they’re going to be an interesting one to watch.

Story

In relation to story, we also said:

Kate: “I want to … [get] a sense of the plot.”

Imogen: “A clear sense of genre is crucial.”

Jonny: “I want to dive straight into the action.”

And? 

Well, the clinching bit here is the last bit of dialogue:

[Bowen’s] mouth says nothing. His eyes say, ‘So why. The fuck. Were you paying them?’

And that’s the book, right? – or at least the first part of the book. An ordinary furniture shop in a Cardiff retail park has been scammed into paying out £38,000 to two non-existent employees. That’s hardly a corpse on page 1 – it’s a tedious fraud on page 3 – but we have action (kinda), we have genre, and we have the first indication as to what story lies ahead.

And of course, you can rely on readers here. Absolutely no one is going to think, “My word, this is going to be a boring novel. Our hero-detective is going to spend 400 pages analysing spreadsheets until she finds the white-collar culprit behind this minor scam.”

On the contrary, they think, “Uh-oh, this is going to lead to some kind of murder and there’s going to be some much bigger crime here and Fiona’s going to get in over her head and there will be Shenanigans. She’ll probably explode something or sink something or throw someone over a cliff.” They think that because they can read the promise of the cover, and the blurb and their knowledge of what a crime novel is. That’s why most of my books don’t actually start with a corpse discovery. They don’t have to. Readers know what’s coming up and they love the tease. A sense of the plot (Kate’s phrase) is more important than an opening that has bullets flying. (Which is also perfectly fine, but optional.)

Sweets and safety

Our readers also demanded:

Kat: “I’m looking for a truly original concept brought to life with exceptional writing.”

Rachel: “I’m looking for ‘sweets’, something intriguing and slightly unexplained.”

Laura: “I need to feel like I’m in a safe pair of hands.”

And honestly? I don’t think I’ve delivered for Kat. There is, I think, a properly good idea underlying this book, but it doesn’t show its hand in that opening 500 words. That’s why the First 500 is a bit of an art form in itself. It is a good way to find the best opening; not necessarily a good way to find the best book.

But the Rachel / Laura ideas here are interesting – safe pair of hands + a couple of sweeties. I especially like that idea of sweets: Raymond Chandler used to type his novels on fairly small bits of paper and he demanded of himself that each page contained one little spill of magic. It’s a good discipline.

In my view, the magic offered can be relatively low key. That ‘little blue ledge of pain’ counts. I think the final line or two (“Why … were you paying them?”) offers just the right amount of bite for this stage of the story. The ‘pained watery eyes’ – well, that’s not quite a spill of magic, but it tells us quite a lot about who we’re with and what we’re doing. We know without being directly told that poor old Kevin Tildesley is not very masculine. He’s a man of spreadsheets and watery eyes and plastic badges. Bowen is a man of thick fingers, sweary eyes and limited comprehension.

We also understand Fiona’s predicament: she’s understood the numbers (which Bowen hasn’t) and she’s a woman of action who’s not afraid of the fraud (unlike Tildesley, who is.) And she’s been there for 40 minutes. And this is a cramped little office shoved into the roof of a furniture store.

Most of all, when I reread all this, I think: “Yes, I’m confident in this author. I can tell – from those character details, some word choices, the dialogue – that this author has confidence in the story they’re about to tell. In fact, they’re confident enough to start with an overtly boring opening: one that talks quite a lot about how unexciting this all is.”

And for me – when I’m choosing a book to read, not when I’m judging a first 500 competition – I look for two things.

Confidence is the first. Anything to tell me that I can trust this author with the next few hours of my time.

Clarity, or something like it, is the second. I want an author who is going to make it easy for me to immerse myself in his or her world. I want that the author to serve me and my needs. I don’t want to read a book where I’m meant to be admiring someone else’s wonderful art. (I mean: I’m happy to admire great writers. But I’ll only admire them if they reward my reading.)

An opening is a joyful thing. It’s a table full of objects, concealed by a black velvet cloth. The author catches the reader’s eye, winks, and removes the first of those objects… or perhaps only reveals an edge, or some dimly lit surface. The game is fun, because what else lies beneath the cloth? That first glimpse is a clue – a tease – but we are still far from whisking away the whole cloth.

***

FEEDBACK FRIDAY / Openings

OK: bit of a weird one this. We’ve been talking about openings, so I’m going to ask you for an opening. But I don’t want to tread on any first 500 toes.

250 words or so. Let me have it. When you're ready, log in to Townhouse and share your work in this forum.

Til soon.

Harry