Three ingredients that trump every other technique in writing.

Hemingway said that writers are all apprentices in a craft where no-one is a master.

I've been reading a lot about how to make your writing really shine, unputdownable, compelling – and I've been coming across a lot of persuasive arguments along the lines of: increase the stakes for your protagonist (I got this from Writing the Breakout Novel), and putting conflict on every page.

But @BubbleCow, that clever bovine, got me thinking with his post about 7 books every writer should read, and, combined with a quick look at the decade's best-selling fiction books in the UK, I realised that these 'how to write' books and tips are missing something.

I know I'm going to break some hearts here, but the Da Vinci Code, Twilight and the Harry Potter books are not particularly well-written – I've read them all - Dan Brown's writing is cliché-ridden and clunky; I frequently laughed out loud at some of Meyer's phrasing and story-elements, and Ms Rowling is a keen lover of the adverbial speech-tag, and adverbs in general, with an awful lot of 'telling' going on – cardinal sins in most 'how-to' books.

But these people are doing something right – lots of people love their work – and you could split the income of anyone of these writers between me and my blog-readership and we'd still have more money than we would know what to do with it for the rest of our lives.

So what's the secret?

It comes down to three essential things, and if you do these things supremely well, then you can get away with a whole multitude of other sins. These magic ingredients are story, romance and milieu.

Story

We've all read those books where we've become so gripped by the story, that we've been gobbling up the pages just to find out what happens. I've been there, and when you're in that moment you don't care how it's written, you just want to know the outcome.

The idea that 'story trumps all' hit home whilst reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (another massive bestseller now made into a film) – it starts off with an unclear prologue, then a whole chapter of backstory told in flashback, then chapter 2 begins with another massive info dump – three sections in and the main story hasn't started - and I'm thinking as I'm reading, how did this get past an editor?

If the story is strong enough, readers don't care if it's front-story, back-story, exposition, flash-back, prologue, past tense, present tense, or told rather than shown – if the story is gripping, no one gives a monkeys how it's delivered.

Romance

Stories that capture the essence of romance sell by the bucket-load – this explains why books like the Twilight series have done so well. I've tried hard to understand why these books have swept the board in sales when there are clearly so many better written vampire stories out there – and it's down to romance - and what could be more compelling than forbidden love? Romance sells, pure and simple – so I'm off to buy some 'how to write romance' books.

Milieu

This is the final element that I think if you do very well you can get away with anything. If your writing has the power to transport the reader completely to your story-world, making them forget their troubles and stresses in the real-world, then you're on to a winner. One writer is supreme at this – Tolkien – and his books will continue to make money for ever more. It's not just fantasy, historical and sci-fi books that can do this, stories set in the contemporary world can equally transport the reader into their story-world. I found this with Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting, Faulks's Birdsong had a similar effect on me.

So, I'm going to work harder to make sure I've got a little more of these things in my writing.

More sex please, we're writers

Why writers need more sex.
Two pieces of advice I've heard about writing sex scenes:
1. Leave it behind the door, what is inferred is better than what is described
2. Literary sex cannot be titillating or arouse, because if it does it's pornography
Neither of these views I'm particularly comfortable with, and here's why.
Leaving it behind the door
When I'm avoiding writing a scene, it's usually because I'm scared because I don't feel I can do justice to it. I've learned that this is exactly the moment when I should be rolling up my sleeves and dealing with it. Not producing a sex-scene because it's hard to write would be like not writing a huge payoff scene because you can't quite imagine what the protagonist would actually do/say when confronted with the truth. It's no excuse.
Sex should be treated like anything else you're writing about, if you don't know enough about it, you're probably not going to write about it convincingly. If you're going to write about forensic pathology, you need to know about it. Same with sex – let's get researching.
Literary sex cannot be titillating
I think the idea behind this advice is probably meant to mean that if the sex is just there to titillate, it doesn't belong in literary fiction – but even with this qualification I'm not convinced. You'd write an action sequence to exhilarate, a love scene to move, so why not a sex scene to arouse? Is it because it's just sex we're talking about?
Any scene, sex or otherwise, should reside within the overall structure of the novel for a reason. If the dramatic demands of the story require a sex-scene, it should be included, and if the story demands it, why not make it sexy?
I'd love to hear what other people have to say about this.

Weak Become Heroes

Overcoming fear in writing

Not all fear is bad - some fear will compromise your writing, but some will actually make it better.

There are two kinds of fear that a writer has to negotiate. Those fears that everyone has to deal with: fear of being alone, of never finding love again, of wasting your life in a job that's slowly killing you. Fear of never seeing your loved ones again, of losing your career, your partner, your house; of being attacked or abused, of the unknown, of dying. The fear of coming to the end of it all without having achieved what you always meant to achieve.

These fears are good fears, these are the things that remind you of what it means to be human, that connect you to everybody else. For a writer, they are grist to the mill, fuel for the fire. We all love a fluffy story and a happy ending, but for a story to resonate, to touch upon universal elements important to all of us, the writer needs to know his fears, to have spent time with the coward within - not only will he come closer to himself, but to the whole human race.

But there are also bad fears - the fears that will stop you writing freely and fluently, fears that may even stop you writing completely - but even these you can turn to your advantage.

Fear of being a bad writer

I don't believe there's a writer in the world who hasn't had this thought at one time or another. This is a very reasonable fear, and it's very possible that you are in fact a bad writer. Even the best writers in the world will write something appalling now and again - Hemingway said that the first draft was always shit, so you're in good company.

The fact is, it's quite alright to be bad. If you can recognise the fact that your work is bad you're already half-way to being a great writer - it's only by recognising the bad that you can start to make it good.

And even if you are a universally appalling writer, that can be fixed - by practice and learning. If you want it enough, you can get it. Check out this post for some ideas of where to start.

The thing is, you have to allow yourself the space to be bad, otherwise you're in danger of never writing anything at all.

Fear of criticism

This is a very real and understandable fear, and for me personally, was a turning point in my journey as a writer - the ability to invite and deal with criticism. There are generally a number of ways of dealing with it - ranging from heart-break and self-doubt to slavishly addressing every comment made about your work - clearly the correct response lies somewhere in between.

Even if you don't respond to criticism at all, you have to learn to deal with it, and I would suggest you learn that as soon as you can. It will feel like a baptism of fire, but you will be a better and stronger writer for it. It's best to learn how to take it from those you invite to read your work, or from fellow writers now, because if it ever gets published, absolutely anybody can say what they like about it, and worse, print or publish that opinion so anybody else can read it!

Fear of what people close to you will think

For a novice writer, this can be a real hurdle to get over when starting out. What will my mother think about my Oedipal theme? What will my partner think when she realises I've been imagining sex scenes like this? What will my parish priest think about the black mass in chapter 12?

Pick your own complex, but the reality is, if your writing with these constraints, you're never going to be a good writer. The only constraints you should apply are those demanded by technical considerations - pace, story, character etc.

You may elect to avoid certain subject matter due to you own personal taste - this is acceptable - but don't do it because your worried about what your mum might say. Chances are she's read, thought, or done much worse anyway.

Stay Cool, Stay Unpublished.

While it would be easy for me to sit here and pontificate about what I think I know about good writing, the truth is, I'm unpublished, and while you may have read some of my work, I suspect the majority of my massive blog-following haven't.

So with the intention of giving you, my blog-reader, genuine value, I've decided to post on a subject of which my credentials are impeccable, something which I have deep and penetrating knowledge of, something which none of you can doubt I know exactly what I'm talking about - being unpublished.

The truth is, any idiot can get published - all it takes is hard-work and dedication - what's really hard is staying true to yourself, releasing the unpolluted, artistic genius inside you - when every one else is prostituting themselves to the fickle whims of the general.

Stanislavski once said that you need to love the art within yourself, not yourself within the art. Tracey Emin said, I am my art. Who you going to believe?

Here are my tips on keeping it real and staying unpublished.

Write an inaccessible and unreadable novel

To be truly great, a novel must be impossible to read, and while a whole book could be written about how to achieve this, a genuine artist hasn't got time to read, so I'll give some easily digestible tips on how to do it.

Focus on the first page, if you get this right, the reader won't read past it, and you can put any old drivel beyond it. The key is to make the writing dull, flat and lifeless - take the essential elements of drama, and avoid them at all costs. There's no place here for character or story, description, foreshadowing, atmosphere or intrigue - include these, and people may be inclined to read on - besides, these things require knowledge of craft, craft implies work and is therefore menial, and not the objective of the true artist.

You'll often hear the maxim 'show don't tell', but a genuine artist knows this is poppycock - a genuine artist tells it how it is, because he knows best right?

Here's an example of a great opening line - 'The person attended the event, and felt nothing at all.' This succeeds on so many levels - a character is introduced, but we learn nothing about them, there is a complete absence of description; something happens, but we don't know what. The narrative voice tells us what the character feels, and it's nothing at all. So much achieved with so little. Genius.

Free yourself from restrictive synopsis expectations

Despite all this, there's still always the possibility that someone will hail your novel as a post-modern masterpiece and thereby compromise your cult-following of one, so best to head that popularity off at the pass with a truly artistic synopsis.

The good news is, if you've followed my advice in the previous section, it will be nigh impossible to write a traditional synopsis as nothing will actually happen in your story. Still, you need to write something, so this is the place to indulge back-story and description (preferably static), maybe even include a flash-back or background that has no real relevance to the MS - also, try to focus on secondary characters, or characters that don't even turn up in the MS - you're a creative writer, be creative.

Create a truly unique query letter

Mainstream advice will encourage you to pitch your novel first in your query, but we're not talking mainstream, we're talking integrity, so you need to make the entire query about yourself. It's also worth remembering that agents work for you - so I'd suggest pointing this out to them as early as possible in the query. Remember, without you, they're nothing. For a really powerful touch try severing a body-part and including that in the submission pack - if that doesn't convince them of your artistic credentials, nothing will.

Hopefully, there's some method in this madness.

Go Figure - metaphor and simile in fiction writing

Figurative speech is part-and-parcel of what writers do. What more powerful tool is there to describe something than to compare it to something else?

Some readers love the gratuitous use of figurative speech, other readers hate it - I tend to lean toward the latter. This isn't because I'm not a fan of a well-turned comparative phrase, it's just that there's a tendency to overuse them, quite simply because they can be so effective.

I think a well-observed and simply described detail can be worth a thousand clever similes. So when can metaphors and similes become a problem? Here's my take on it.

When they draw narrative focus to irrelevant details.

It is the writer's duty to do what the Russian Formalists called 'defamiliarization' i.e. to represent familiar things in unfamiliar ways, and figurative speech gives us an excellent opportunity to do it - but there's a difference between familiar and relevant. If our heroine is on a train going to meet her lover, do we really need to be distracted by a clever observation about suitcases in a luggage rack mating like tortoises as the trains stops? No, I don't think so either. Details can reinforce mood, strengthen the narrative, and even provide symbolism - but leave the mating suitcases at home.

When the comparison distracts from the thing it's seeking to describe.

If the comparison is actually more fascinating than the object/situation it seeks to shed light on, then in my book, it's failed. When the suitcases come together like lips smacking in a post-coital kiss - what are you actually thinking about? Chances are it's not suitcases.

When the comparison is offering no fresh insight into the thing it seeks to describe.

Water tinkled off his chin like Stuka dive-bombers unloading their bomb-bays. I'm sorry? How is this offering the reader any real, fresh look at some man's dribbly chin? For a comparison to work the things compared have to be comparable.

I think it's quite possible to fail on all above three points and still provide a witty or clever comparative phrase, and I think this is another reason why some readers can be forgiving of a metaphor or simile that doesn't make my three points. But I think this makes for superficial writing - style over substance - and I'm a firm believer in striving for both.

Try taking the three point challenge on your metaphors and similes.

(N.B. the cheesy examples here are all my own work - any familiarity to anybody else's writing is purely coincidental. Actually, I'm quite warming to the Stuka dive bombers...)

That's Entertainment

My muse is like Lazarus. I'd hoped for one of those classically-draped, voluptuous-nymph type muses not dissimilar to the one on the left, but I went and got a dead guy. And he's about as forthcoming as a corpse.

I know some writers' muses never stop yammering away but I have to resurrect mine every single time, and if I look away for a moment, he dies another death. Sometimes I start the raising ritual and he comes leaping out of the ground with something to say, but most times he's changed the rules and the process becomes longer and more esoteric, and when he does finally show he doesn't say much at all.

But the fact is he needs me as much as I need him, so we work it out.

And I'm not complaining. Even though I know you can earn more on the dole than the average writer makes in a year, even though I understand you'd struggle to make up the numbers for a small dinner-party with authors who make a living from their work.

So why do I do it?

Well, it's to do with something Lazarus knows well. Our time here is finite, and there's nothing like a whiff of your own mortality to put a fire in your belly. Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone. I didn't say that, but I wish I had. It was Pablo Picasso, and I'm not going to argue with him.

The Sound of Inevitability

Everyone's a writer these days. I'm not sure if that's a consequence of social-networking sites and the advent of blogging, or if these things have just revealed the fact. A few days spent on Harper Collins's online slush-pile Authonomy brutally demonstrates that there are thousands of writers, both published and unpublished, desperate to get someone in the industry to read their current manuscript, never mind publish it. Nowadays, even your own mother won't read your work without a compelling reason to do so.

So, while blogging, Facebook, Twitter, Authonomy, youwriteon etc have opened up many more avenues for writers to get noticed, they've also increased the noise that the industry gatekeepers are expected to monitor, and for those of us on the other side of the fence, it's increased the number of things we need to be savvy about.

So what does this actually mean for unpublished writers? Here's what I think I know so far.

First the old fashioned way:

1. Write a searing Novel

Time was, apparently, when just a good idea and a few chapters could secure an advance, but that isn't going to happen now. So first things first - forget about getting published - just concentrate on writing the best novel you can possibly write. It can't just be average, it can't even be above average - it has to compete with the best so it shines out from all the other thousands of novels dumped online.

2. Write a searing synopsis

Yep, every writer hates doing this, but it's time to learn to love it, because if you don't, no-one else will. There's two types of synopses you need: a pitch, which seems to be what the US literary agents tend to favour, and what I call a classic synopsis, which is a chapter break-down of the book, which UK agents tend to favour - check submission guidelines carefully. Talking about what these synopses are and how to write them is a book's worth of material alone, but here are some online articles that I've found useful.

Mastering the Dreaded Synopsis

How to Write a Synopsis

Writing a Novel Synopsis

Writing the Novel Synopsis

Writing a Synopsis from the Ground Up

Sample Selling Synopsis

3. Write a searing query letter

This is the third and final part of your 'traditional' submission pack, which will normally consist of a query letter, synopsis and 3 chapters/50 pages/7-10 thousand words of the actual manuscript. Once again, how to do this is another post, but there's plenty of material out there on how to do this from people better informed than me.

The new-fangled way:

4. Get an informative and good-looking web-site

If anybody these days becomes remotely interest in anybody else they'll type their name into Google - if nothing comes up, they'll probably just bin the manuscript and move on to the next. Give them one less reason to do so - get a web-site that will keep them interested. Also, you need to support your web-site with a genuine online presence, as addressed in the next points.

5. Get your opening chapters on youwriteon and Authonomy

If you haven't, why not? Scared of someone pinching your idea? Trust me, they won't. Scared of negative feedback? Do you think negative feedback won't happen if you get published? Best get used to it now.

5. Get ubiquitous

By which I mean, get on Twitter, get a Blog, and while you're at it, you might as well get on Facebook, Bebo and MySpace - get everywhere in fact - but if you do nothing else, get on Twitter - there's a mine of useful information for writers out there, plus the opportunity to network with published writers, editors and literary agents. No one is going to pluck you out of obscurity.

6. Learn to pitch your work

There was a time when this seemed impossible to me. I'd spent years writing a synopsis, then I learned to write a pitch, and when I signed up for Authonomy, I had to pitch the novel in less than 25 words. I learned how to do that, then someone on Twitter asked me about my novel, and I had to sell it in less that 140 characters! So that makes the number of synopses a writer needs to four:

1. Classic Synopsis
2. Long Pitch
3. Short Pitch (less than 25 words)
4. Ultra-short Pitch (less than 140 characters)

I'm still working on number 4, but I'm getting there!

Do I have any idea what I'm talking about? If I'm getting it wrong help me get it right.

Something up ahead?

This wasn't the post I was going to write - I was going to write something about shouting into a void, but today, I feel a little different. Today I don't feel like I'm shouting into a void, I feel like some people are actually liking what I'm doing, because today The Chicken Factory is at number 7 in the youwriteon.com charts.

Now, I'm sensible enough to know that it's very unlikely to remain so for the duration of the month, and I'm also experienced enough to know that the prize - a professional critique - can be disappointing and unhelpful.

What it does mean though is that my peers have rated the opening of my novel very highly, and for today at least, I feel good about my work. Writing and the road to publication is littered with heart-breaks, so I'm going to allow myself a little feel-good time, before I roll up my sleeves and get back on with being an unpublished author.