Beyond Evil (43 page)

I’m not saying I would like to write a whole book on a laptop in the front seat of my car, but the important thing is the ability to think, not the quality of the space in which you think.

My writing tips relate to the discipline of being a writer. These hints and tips might not work for everyone, as writers work differently, but these are the guidelines I set for myself.

Accept it won’t be good at the beginning and keep going
Like a morning jog, the hardest part of writing is setting off. All that stands before you is 100,000 words and you do not know what they will be. So you can turn off the computer and do something else, or else you can plant that first word on the page and keep going.
One of the problems I have, whenever I start a book, is that the last piece of writing I have seen of mine was a completed manuscript that had been rewritten and reshaped countless times, and so it represented my very best effort. When I start something new, it is back to unpolished, and so it is too easy to think that it just isn’t good enough. It is the same for new writers, where you set out with grand designs of the next great novel of our time, but then stall through lack of confidence after a read-through of the first couple of chapters.
Break through that and keep going. The later parts of the book will be easier to write than the opening chapters, where you will find your style and your rhythm. I rewrite my opening few chapters more than any other part. Just accept that and keep going.
Write it how you like it
I set out with one goal whenever I start a book, and that is to write something I like. It might be that your ambition is to write for fun, not to be published, but whatever your motivation, there is no point if you don’t like what you have written. Write what you want to read, not what you think other people want to read.
So don’t follow trends or piggyback other ideas. Don’t write about a boy wizard who goes to wizard school just because Harry Potter was very popular. Write it only if you like it. A story written by someone whose heart wasn’t in it will be just a book without heart.
If you write what you like, all you can hope for is that other people like it too, and even if they don’t, at least you can be happy that you think it is a worthy piece of work. You can hardly expect other people to like it if you don’t like it either.
Be prepared to cut out things you like
One of the hardest things about rewriting is editing out passages or phrases you like, because they sound good or convey a certain message. To put it bluntly, if something doesn’t add to the story or character, get rid of it.
Not one reviewer will say, ‘Poor story, but it was worth reading the whole book for that second paragraph on page thirty-seven.’ If it is a good story, the removal of irrelevant passages, however well written, will enhance it, rather than detract from it. On the other hand, if you can only write one good paragraph, stick to the day job.
If you really like the passage or turn of phrase, save it and use it in later books.
Know your ending
My journey as a writer started on holiday in 1994, when I decided that sunbathing wasn’t my thing, and that my time would be better spent scribbling in a notebook. I wrote four pages during that holiday. I thought it was great. When I got home, I bought a typewriter and set off on the journey. It was the start of something big.
   It was important to keep going, I thought, and that the story should evolve naturally, an organic experience. So I did that. Four hundred pages followed, where the plot just unfolded in front of me.
   Well, I say unfolded. It just sort of tumbled out. It was rubbish. From start to finish a jumbled and confused mess, with no narrative thread. It took me three years to arrive at that realisation.
   I started again, a new plot, a new idea, except that this time I planned it. I wrote a summary, which expanded into four parts, and then each part expanded into smaller segments, so I ended up with chapters, which I broke down into scenes. Most importantly, I knew what the story was about.
   If you know the ending, and a few key points in between, it helps you to write the story because you know what will become important later on. You may not follow your plan, I meandered my way through mine, but you can take a detour if you know where it has to end up again. The book I planned became my third book,
Last Rites
.
Finish it
One of the hardest disciplines is accepting that your work is as good as it is ever going to be.
   Writing your first book is filled with dreams and aspirations. Publishing deals, book tours, awards: they all lie ahead. You’ve told your friends that you are writing a book, and it sounds great for a while, except that your friends start to ask, ‘So where’s this book then?’
   You can get away with delays for a while, blame it on reshapes and rewrites, but eventually it becomes clear that the great work isn’t finished because you are stuck in the rewriting loop, convinced that it needs just one more edit, some final tweaks.
   I am no different. I rewrite and edit continually but I have deadlines, and so they get me out of the rewriting loop, because there comes a time when I have to attach the book to an email and send it off.
   Stop avoiding the end. Give yourself a deadline. Two years. Live your life at the same time, but finish it. Believe that it will be good enough and do something with it. Editors are proud of the work they do, and so there isn’t an editor in the land who will say, ‘You know what, there is no way I can improve on that.’ And improve on them they do. Every book I have submitted has been a much rougher version of what eventually hits the shelves. Don’t expect perfection first time, and you can over-edit something so that your work loses its voice and becomes sterile, stripped of its soul.
   You will get rejections, lots of them, but you have to finish it to get any chance of an acceptance. You could even publish it yourself, but you can’t do that until you have put down that final full stop and raised a glass to your finished work. Until then your great first novel will stay as a pile of paper next to your chair that always needs just one more rewrite.

About the Author

Born above a shoe shop in the mid-1960s, Neil spent most of his childhood in Wakefield in West Yorkshire as his father pursued a career in the shoe trade. This took Neil to Bridlington in his teens, where he failed all his exams and discovered that doing nothing soon turns into long-term unemployment. Re-inventing himself, Neil returned to education in his 20s, qualified as a solicitor when he was 30, and now spends his days in the courtroom and his evenings writing crime fiction.

To find out more about Neil go to www.neilwhite.net

By the same author:

Fallen Idols

Lost Souls

Last Rites

Dead Silent

Cold Kill

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

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The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Source ISBN: 9781847561305

Ebook Edition © June 2012 ISBN: 9780007478378

Version 1

FIRST EDITION

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