"What is voice?" "How do I find it?" These are questions I hear often from clients, and there's no clear-cut answer. There's no "formula". Your voice simply means your particular way of placing thoughts on the page; your style of writing. What makes you distinctively "you" as a writer. And the way to discover it…
Quick Tips #6: Theme
I find that many writers I work with (for those of you new to my site, I'm an editor as well as an author) are a bit fuzzy about theme. Some writing courses and literary "experts" can be pretentious about it, making beginner writers feel they'll never be able to understand the concept fully, let…
Why I Write
I received these emails a few days after my debut novel, The Library of Unfinished Business, launched last week. "Hi Patricia, I loved your book! I couldn't put it down once I got into it, and finished it last night. I think it’s brilliant the way you handle the plot with all its twists and…
Quick Tips #5: How to publish a novel
Write a bad one.Fix it. (This step will take many months, and sometimes years.)Cry. (This will happen during points 1. and 2.)Finish it, to the best of your ability. Wallow in existential angst wondering if the best of your ability is enough.See point 3.Bravely send it to beta readers, then fix it some more.Get thoroughly…
Launch Day!
“I recognised the handwriting, and the words. They were mine. It was the first paragraph of my novel; the first words I had written all those years ago in my tiny university flat, the first brave steps of an odyssey that would ultimately lead me here, to this strange and marvellous Heaven.” So says my…
Interview with the Author
My debut novel launches this Tuesday, 1st March. I have a number of interviews lined up, with various media outlets, and I've been preparing. I put together a mock interview, asking myself questions and answering them. It was very useful, and I'm sharing some of it with you today. It will give you a little…
The Naming of Things: Choosing a Title
It’s only two weeks until my debut novel is launched, and the PR is ramping up. At the beginning of this month I finally revealed the book’s cover and title: The reaction, particularly to the title, was unanimously enthusiastic, with many people saying they were intrigued, hooked already, and that they could not wait to…
Cover Reveal Day!
I'm delighted to reveal the cover of my debut novel, "The Library of Unfinished Business". And here's the cover blurb: "Maurice, a small-town librarian, dies one Monday morning in a fiery car crash. Finding himself in a very unexpected afterlife, he befriends Kit, who knows more than he should about Heaven—and about Maurice’s life on…
Quick Tips #4: Dialogue
Dialogue is one of the trickiest things to get right. It requires a good ear, and the ability to make speech sound natural even though it is probably the most carefully constructed, "artificial" component of any fictional work. What I mean: Counterintuitively, dialogue in fiction should not mimic everyday speech. Humans say a lot of…
Quick Tips #2: Write Small
It's tempting to think you have to "write big" about big issues. It's much more powerful, however, to write quietly; to whisper the most profound things. Even better, to "get out of the way" and let those things whisper their power all by themselves. Often what we leave out - or what we gently brush past…
Patricia Bell, Author 