Good to Great

There’s a sweet sadness about early September, isn’t there? The leaves aren’t quite turning, but they’re thinking about it. It isn’t quite cold enough for socks again, but my morning toes aren’t always so sure about that. The kids go off to school again, bravely, marking off their little transitions towards adulthood. And holiday mess is either put away, or lying around in piles, eyeing us balefully, awaiting disposal.

I mostly like the season – I just don’t want the kids to get a day older, really. I’d happily glue them into some groundhog present, where school always involves projects on the Vikings, and science classes revolve around magnets and things dangling on string.

And as for you? Ah me and oh my gosh – you’re to go back to school too, my hearties, and starting RIGHT NOW. Because, this week, we have a new course out, and it’s a goodie.

Specifically, we know that most readers of this email are reasonably seasoned writers. Few of you are hesitating over the very first pages of your very first manuscript. Far more of you are deep into your first novel, or working on your second or third. You’ve mostly wrestled not just with writing a book, but with editing it too. Plenty of you have made a serious assault on Planet Agent, and are planning further raids with some sober expectation of success.

This course is for you: the serious, competent, experienced writer. We call it Good To Great, because that’s the hurdle you now need to clear. You need to go from acceptable competence to writing something so compelling that an agent (or editor, or reader) can’t refuse the proposition you offer.

That’s a big ask. I’d say that plenty of people – if they’re serious, competent and committed – can end up putting together a decent novel. Something shipshape and watertight. A novel that feels tight and well-fashioned.

But none of that is enough. The competition writers face is heinous. If you’re a debut athlete, you work your way through multiple lower-level competitions until you’re expected to face an Olympic final. If you’re a debut writer? You get no kindness at all. No mercy. You are sent in to compete, immediately, against the most famous writers of the day. Your books are sold at the exact same price. And those other writers have a vast advantage in terms of sales footprint and brand recognition and marketing oomph. So, yeah, good luck.

This course is my best attempt to give you that luck.

Our aim is to help you, the competent writer, bring your book to the point at which an agent has to take it seriously. Yes, personal tastes and market movements will always play their part, but quality is still the most important factor in what gets bought and sold. Quality is the thing that kicks open doors, that arrests the flow of an acquisitions committee.

The first lesson in the course is free to all and I honestly think it’s one of the most useful teaching tools I’ve ever produced. The lesson is entitled ‘Pitch, Theme, Character’, but really it’s about how to lay out the foundations of your novel so that saleability is built in from the very start.

Most people (the merely competent authors) write the book that they want to write then consider their pitch as a kind of marketing sticker to be glued on top.

You, my fine furry friend, are not aiming at the merely competent. Your pitch is not going to be glued on; it’s going to be foundational. And it’s not just the story idea that matters here. We’re want to ensure that absolutely everything lines up behind a stellar pitch: plot, character, themes, settings – everything.

If you can do that – find a compelling pitch, and centre every aspect of your novel on fully delivering that basic promise – then the only remaining challenge is one of execution. And, OK, execution is a challenge, but it’s a doable one (and one which other lessons in the course will attack in plenty of detail.)

The first lesson is, as I say, free. You can find out about it here. The whole course is available to Premium Members and I’d just love it if you took the whole lot.

Feedback Friday this week is going to pick up on the task in that first video, so do please get stuck in. With any practical accomplishment, it’s never enough to read, or listen to, theory. You have to put it into practice. Actually shaping the words on a page or screen IS part of the learning activity. And when you team that up with Feedback Friday – where lots of intelligent and constructive writers in the same basic place as you offer a ton of thoughtful feedback – well, the learning impact is doubled, or trebled, I’m certain.

The leaves are on the turn. It’s back to school time. Your toes are cold. Let’s up and at em.

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FEEDBACK FRIDAY: PITCH, THEME, CHARACTER

You need to register for the course here to get your first lesson free.

Watch that video; the assignment won’t really make sense without it.

Then, I want:

A total of about 300 words that comprises your:

• Very short pitch for the novel. (Nothing fancy or clever or abstract please. A short list of key ingredients is fine.)
• Notes on theme, character, settings, and anything else that seems relevant to you.

I want to see a great pitch and a set of notes which tells me that your book will be firmly centred on those strong foundations.

This could, just possibly, be the most important and transformative writing exercise you ever do, so jump to it.

That’s it from me. Post yours here.

Til soon.

Harry