‘Questions from a Young Writer’ came from a writer just out of school who recently contacted me for some feedback on his fantasy fiction manuscript. His questions are around helping him find the best ways to polish his manuscript and then seek publication.

Many of these questions from a young writer may also be helpful to other writers.

How do you get your novel or idea to publishing standard?

Attend writing workshops to hone your technique.

Read quality books extensively.

Read books on writing craft by well-known writers. Below are some recommended writers’ resources:

The Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell audiobook

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

C.S. Lewis and the Art of Writing: What the Essayist, Poet, Novelist, Literary Critic, Apologist, Memoirist, Theologian Teaches Us about the Life and Craft of Writing by Corey Latta

Have your manuscript professionally edited once it’s finished, i.e. once you have written more than one draft and got it as close to perfect as possible.

What does publishing entail 

I have covered this question in various blogs. Please refer to the following links: Everything You Need to Know About How to Self-Publish Your Book Download, Options for Publishing Your Book, How to Get Your Book Published.

What is the process of getting a cover or illustrations

Through a graphic designer. You can either choose a local designer or commission a cover through an online services provider like Fiverr. Often, book designers don’t do illustrations so you could look for a local illustrator, or find someone through Fiverr. Make sure you are very specific when you advertise on Fiverr. Think carefully about your ad. Word your instructions carefully and clearly. This is because you’ll likely be working with people whose first language isn’t English.

How can you tell if your ideas appeal to readers 

By using beta readers. You can search for online writing groups, such as Writers Helping Writers or Fiction Writers, and find people who read your genre. They generally provide free feedback.

By joining writers’ groups.

By asking other writers how they have gained feedback.

How to sell to the audience, gather a following 

Today, writers need to be prepared to self-promote. Through Amazon, clubs like Goodreads, through a landing page on your website, by having a book launch at stores (in Queensland, e.g. Avid Reader in Brisbane or BookFace on the Gold Coast), talks at public libraries, talks in front of people who read your genre.

Are there any cost-effective tips or financial assistance to young authors 

First, improve your own writing skills through ideas such as those given in the first question above. Make your manuscript as good as it can possibly be. This will reduce editing costs.

Work with a mentor who will help polish your manuscript. Writers’ centres often provide mentoring services at lower than commercial rates.

Use crowd-funding to pay for professional editing.

Contact your local writers’ centre and ask if they have any programs available to fund or assist young authors.

Can you advise of any groups or book clubs that I may benefit from

The best way to find writers’ groups and book clubs is to Google them in your area. The Queensland Writers Centre (QWC) holds many courses for writers, many of them now online and more affordable (from as little as $49). See my recent newsletter for some of these events.

On a youth membership under 25 years of age, you can join QWC as a member for $55 a year.

Also, keep in touch with events on your local writers’ centre website.

I hope you’ve found this post ‘Questions from a Young Writer’ helpful. Please feel free to email any questions you may have about your work in progress.

Gail Tagarro is a Book Writing Coach and Accredited Editor who works with writers in any genre, fiction and nonfiction.

Her book coaching program Get Your Book to the Finish Line is designed to help writers get their book to first draft stage within 12 weeks. Please phone or enquire here.

‘Famous Authors Series – Isabel Allende’ is our third post profiling famous authors.

Isabel Allende, the Chilean-American writer born in 1942, wrote her first novel The House of the Spirits (1982) when she was almost 40.

As towering a literary figure as she is, physically she is tiny, just 5ft. She is a multi-award-winning author, and through the Isabel Allende Foundation, a powerful voice for the empowerment of women and girls.

‘Secret chambers of my heart’

Despite having written 24 books which have been translated into more than 42 languages, she says, ‘… the most important things about my life happened in the secret chambers of my heart and have no place in a biography. My most significant achievements are not my books, but the love I share with a few people—especially my family—and the ways in which I have tried to help others’ (isabelallende.com).

Background

Isabel was born in Perú to Chilean parents, and became a U.S. citizen in the early 1990s, where she now lives with her third husband. She has spent 13 years in Venezuela, for her own safety after the General Augusto Pinochet military coup, and has lived in Bolivia and Lebanon.

Isabel’s father was a first cousin of Salvador Allende, long-term socialist politician and president of Chile from 1970 to 1973. This was before the military coup led by Pinochet, followed by his infamous four-decade dictatorship.

She has lived through family and political upheaval, including her parents’ divorce when she was three – she never saw her father again – a military coup and dictatorship in Chile, and the death of Paula, her daughter, at just 29.

Lucky date

When Isabel begins a book, she always starts writing on 8 January. It is for her a lucky date, an important literary anniversary, as on that day in 1981, she wrote a letter to her dying grandfather. She was living in Venezuela in exile and could not go to him. This letter developed into her first novel—The House of the Spirits.

Her books are generally based on her own experiences, and are often classified as magical realism. She says that magical realism was ‘overwhelmingly present’ in The House of the Spirits. However, she finds the rest of her work being categorised that way strange, and considers her novels simply as realistic literature.

About Isabel Allende’s writing routine

She always writes fiction in her native Spanish.

She spends 10 to 12 hours a day alone in a room writing, not talking to anybody and not answering the phone.

When she develops a character, she generally bases it on someone. That way, it is easier for her to create believable characters.

She carries a notebook wherever she goes and is always taking notes. When she starts writing a book, she uses the notes as inspiration and begins to write on the computer. She uses no outline, but writes on instinct.

She feels that the stories she writes choose her, not that she chooses the stories.

The most painful novel she wrote was Paula (1995), about the daughter she lost, widely recognised as her masterpiece. After writing it, she experienced writer’s block for three years.

‘Bandido’ husband

She once hilariously described her second husband as ‘an Irish-looking North American lawyer with an aristocratic appearance and a silk tie who spoke Spanish like a Mexican bandido and had a tattoo on his left hand’.

Isabel Allende’s advice to aspiring writers

Writing is like training to be an athlete – there is a lot of training that nobody sees. The writer needs to write every day. Even if much of the writing will never be used, it is essential to do it.

Write at least one good page a day. At the end of the year, you will have at least 360 good pages. That is a book.

She doesn’t share the process of writing with anybody. Once her manuscript is finished, she shows it to very few people because she trusts her instincts and doesn’t want ‘too many hands’ in her writing.

‘The first lie of fiction is that the author gives some order to the chaos of life … Life is not that way … You are not the boss; life is the boss. So when you accept as a writer that fiction is lying, then you become free. You can do anything’ (isabelallende.com).

Isabel Allende

Acknowledgements

Australian Women’s Weekly NZ, January 2020, ‘Falling in Love Again’, https://www.magzter.com/article/Womens-Interest/Australian-Womens-Weekly-NZ/Falling-In-Love-Again Accessed 27 November 2020

Isabel Allende, http://www.isabelallende.com/en/bio Accessed 27 November 2020

Star Tribune, 28 April 2013, ‘Isabel Allende on her new book, grandchildren and loss’ by Kristin Tillotson, https://www.startribune.com/isabel-allende-on-her-new-book-grandchildren-and-loss/204852501/ Accessed 27 November 2020

The Guardian, ‘The Undefeated’, 28 April 2007, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/apr/28/isabelallende.fiction Accessed 27 November 2020

Image from Sounds and Colours https://soundsandcolours.com/articles/chile/chilean-writer-isabel-allende-a-personal-touch-a-beloved-author-25662/

Hope you’ve enjoyed this post Famous Authors Series – Isabel Allende.

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