Andrew Ferguson
Children's/YA Author
Writing Category
Like It or Lump It, Your Intended Audience Matters
Posted on July 24, 2016 4 Comments
Every now and again I hear authors, publishers and other would-be writing gurus all saying the same thing: it is very important to know exactly who your audience is before you write. I don’t mind telling you that every time I hear that, I groan. I don’t like to be restricted by boring things like that; I just wanted to write my story. Let the publisher worry about how they’re going to market my story: I am creating a work of art, darling!
Believe me, if you ever feel that way, you’re not alone. But lately I’ve learned that knowing who your audience is is just as important to the artistic side of writing (the most important part, surely?) as it is to the boring business side of things.
How to Kill Someone (in Fiction) and Get Away With It
Posted on July 17, 2016 1 Comment
The death of a main character can easily be one of the main turning points in your story. A skillful author can use it to provoke any number of responses from all of the other characters, as well as further taking the reader’s sympathies in almost direction you like. Don’t spoil it or cheapen it by killing characters unnecessarily. If you’re going to kill a character then I implore you… don’t remove the fear of death from your story. Make sure dead characters stay dead, no matter how difficult it makes things for your other characters and be sure to do the proper ground work to get the correct response from your audience.
A Personal Tale of Directing The Reader’s Support
Posted on July 10, 2016 1 Comment
So I decided that my nation had lost a war and was forced to make hefty reparations to their enemies (among other things), resulting in the new government (instituted by the winners in the war) enforcing outrageous tax hikes on the working classes while the wealthy aristocracy continued to live in comfort. The people now had a reason to be angry and rebellion had begun. Unfortunately, I suddenly found myself sympathising with my own bad guys. Vive la revolution was all I could think; and if I was rooting for the bad guys, I was quite sure any future readers I might have would be too…. Somehow, I had to sway the reader’s support to the favour of the protagonist.
Adversity: A Leaf Out Of Peter Newman’s Book
Posted on July 3, 2016 4 Comments
Make sure your fictional world does not revolve around your protagonist. Take a leaf out of Newman’s book and force your character to adapt. That’s what will turn your character made of words into a person with substance – dare I say, a soul. Albert Einstein said “adversity introduces a man to himself”; but in fiction, adversity is what introduces the reader to the man.
The Overwhelming Art of World-Building
Posted on June 19, 2016 5 Comments
Research is, undeniably, one of the most important stages of writing a story. Understanding the time and place your story is set in will enable you to make that story more true to life, and therefore, more compelling. But what if you are writing a fantasy, set in an imaginary world? Make no mistake: research is just as important in fantasy as it is in non-fantasy, perhaps even more so since you are creating a world from scratch. If you’re writing a historical fiction set during the Spanish Civil War, you probably won’t need to research whether or not gravity existed in Spain or what colour the grass was. We can take these things for granted in non-fantasy, but in fantasy you need to become an expert on your entire world… and still make time to actually write the story!
Writing with a Wandering Mind
Posted on June 12, 2016 8 Comments
I decided, therefore, to stop complaining about how much more painstaking it would be and start trying to plan my large projects properly (I still pants the shorter things – like this blog!); beginning with research, then planning out the particulars of my story and finally, when all that was done, writing up the story as I planned it.
I immediately hit an obstacle; my own easily distracted, wandering mind. Sometimes, as I was researching my story, I got bored and ended up daydreaming about the writing (or even publishing – ha!) stage. Other times I would go too far the other way; I would find the research so interesting that I would forget what it was I was actually researching for and would begin perusing the internet for increasingly irrelevant things … Try as I might, I could not resist the pull of distraction …. However, not willing to be deterred from my recent conversion to planner, I decided to try a new approach. Instead of trying to force myself to focus on the task, I decided to try and reach a compromise with myself which I am pleased to say, appears to be paying off. It’s quite simple really.
Creating Characters of the Opposite Gender
Posted on June 5, 2016 7 Comments
In reality, there is no reason why writing across genders should be any more difficult than writing about a character from a different time, a different country or a different planet (besides, it is an essential skill for any serious story writer). Pragmatism, dear reader, is all that is needed; that and a little bit of patient and careful effort. Your opposite gender (whatever it may be) is nothing alien; and even if it were alien, that shouldn’t be able to stop you writing it will. Fiction is full of believable and compelling aliens with whom the reader can relate to and sympathise with; surely a human being of the opposite gender ought to be far easier to create.
The (Im)Perfect Protagonist
Posted on May 15, 2016 8 Comments
Since we talked about creating the perfect bad guy last week, I thought it seemed only meet that we should have a think about the character who (some might say) is the most important in any story: the protagonist.
Traditionally, the protagonist is the ‘hero’ and the ‘good guy’. Indiana Jones, Miss Marple, Romeo, Luke Skywalker, Sherlock Holmes, Matilda, Harry Potter, Jane Eyre, Frodo Baggins, The Doctor and James Bond are just some examples of famous protagonists who defeat the bad guy, save the day, get the girl (or boy!) and generally overcome whatever obstacles the author feels like putting between them and their ultimate goal.
The Perfect Antagonist
Posted on May 8, 2016 9 Comments
For me, the antagonist – what we might loosely call ‘the bad guy’ – can make or break an otherwise good story. He is the living and breathing incarnation of the obstacle your protagonist (or ‘hero’, if you insist) needs to overcome. It’s also a good opportunity for the author to create a character who ticks differently […]
Take a First Draft and Make it Better
Posted on April 24, 2016 4 Comments
It was still the worst story I had ever written. But that didn’t matter. It was a completed draft; a full blown story with a beginning, a middle and an end which more or less made sense. The difficult bit was now at hand: writing a redraft.
After the initial excitement of finishing the first draft wore off, I quickly found myself less than enthusiastic about the second draft. It can feel a little bit like you’re starting from scratch with something you’ve already spent weeks on. However, you’ll find it a whole lot more rewarding and enjoyable to do if you remember that the point of a redraft is to make your story better. In other words, it’s about taking a little time to identify and fix the problems with the first draft, rather than starting all over again.
Andrew Ferguson 