How to Write Better Books

Some tips for writing better books from our founder, Booker listed, award-winning author of literary and historical fiction, Louise Dean.

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1. At the core of every good concept is a paradox. (Find it, and you’ve got a story.)
2. Don’t write for money. Don’t write for free. In other words, don’t write to make sure you can eat, but don’t spill your words without getting paid for them. Making it your living is the best way to keep your standards high. Besides no one wants anything that’s free.
3. A novel is best with one timeline for the main story, written in the present tense, narrated in the third person. Now we have that sorted let’s move on.
4. The voice is yours. Fix your mind on someone you care about and feel relaxed enough to be yourself, probably someone dead, and talk to them. Sing your heart.
5. In the first chapter everything changes. It’s all messed up right now! But remember, you and me both know it’s going to get a whole lot worse for Mrs Wright or Mr Wrong.
6. Stop making excuses for not writing, like plotting or research. Do research late into the writing.
7. The plot happens after the first draft is done and dusted, when the story has worked you out.
8. Your main character is the part of you you’ve been trying to hide your whole lifetime, but he or she looks like someone you were fond of in childhood and has one or two good points and bad habits robbed from people you work with.
9. Every novel is a tragedy, even when it’s comedy.
10. You’ll never write better books if you don’t read better books. Start reading them. Hundreds and hundreds of them, and get yourself a professional juicer like The Novelry. They’ll show you these three noble truths:

Your story (courtesy of Tolstoy):

All great literature is one of two stories; a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.
—Leo Tolstoy

Your plot (thanks to Epictetus):

Difficulties are things that show a person what they are.
—Epictetus

Your material (thanks to Miranda July!):

There’s no law against asking strangers about their lives and feelings, although sometimes it really feels like there is.
—Miranda July

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