Writing a book

ploy = plot

Good luck with that ployject.. sorry, project

Got about half of a book finished, schalke. It's taken years because I keep leaving it alone and then going back to it.

How these top authors write one a year beats me.

Wrote a play for radio a while back and sent it to the BBC (it was about gambling). They kept it for five months then I received a really nice letter saying they had finally decided against using it.

Have a look on the BBC Scriptwiters web page - you might find it helpful.

Good luck.

When I was young I started writing one but as I had no idea how to go about it I just started writing it. I’ve still got it somewhere.

I’ve no urge to write now, but have often wondered about the way to go about it.

Seems to me you just need a basic one-sentence description of the plot, like – man goes on a ship and is murdered. Then you fill that idea in with the hows, whys and whens. So you need to come up with a card or something with what each particular chapter will be about and then other cards breaking the chapters down into smaller parts to be covered. You can then shuffle the stuff around and write other cards as necessary.

Then you begin the writing.

Is that how you’d do it? Like I said, I’ve no intention writing one now, but if I were going to that’s what I’d do.

I read recently that Frederick Forsythe wrote the 140,000 word Day of the Jackal in 35 days. Obviously you have to have a bit of talent for this sort of thing

One Author who amazes me, James Patterson ... how many books has he written? Need to go check, seems like he brings out one a week lol

Bloody typical flowers stolen my man. Underfed on ship book.

Ffs back to drawing board.

Man murdered on ship

one page a day for one year and you have a 365 page book.
Start today."my story begins at the end of January 2015 when I noticed a plant in the corner of the garden,i thought to myself funny how they are always in the corner of the garden in books".Little did I know that day as I looked the withered old thing that it was about to make me a millionaire.

you could call the book" PABLO"

The sun had stopped for shelter behind the only cloud in the Mexican sky as I poured the dribbles of my last Iron brew can over the old thing.For a moment I thought it moved as if to say"please give me more".I wondered to myself "could this old thing be an alcoholic"as I walked away.
FIRST PAGE COMPLETE.

There are lots of courses you can go on, and "how to" books including from prolific authors like Stephen King (On Writing).

From what I can make out, some do detailed plotting up front, and others just write and see what happens. Did you see JK Rowling's? Search for "jk rowling's harry potter plot spreadsheet" or similar (spreadsheet being what we used to call a table).

I always thought that if you have a good story and jot it down on a note pad,an expert comes along when the story is complete and crosses the T'S and dots the I'S,and hey presto you have a best seller .

I hear the main problem is finding a publisher. That's if you are not a famous name.

Also it's a very competitive field so you've got to be good.

You need an agent as publishers just don't look at anything that is submitted at random.Trouble is hardly any agents bother to read submissions nowadays or take on unknowns-in the past the publishing community supported talent but now its just the money. Why read your book when they can publish a celebrity novel which is ten times more likely to be a good seller (I see even AP has "written" a Dick  Francis style thriller.) Get the Writers and Artists Years Book pick out a few agents who seem like they may be interested in the sort of thing you are writing and send a synopsis and a couple of pages. Expect to wait a year before you get an answer which will probably be no.

Joseph Heller was asked why he had never subsequently  written anything as good as Catch 22?
He replied by saying "No one else has either!"


But It can take only one book to make  you famous

Gone with the Wind ... Margaret Mitchell
To Kill a Mockingbird ... Harper Lee [maybe helped by Truman Capote]

Has anyone on here ever wrote a song? I'm tempted to have a bash.

Dr Crippen

I hear the main problem is finding a publisher. That's if you are not a famous name.
Also it's a very competitive field so you've got to be good.

I knew a guy in the bookies, he was the manager, who wanted to write.
Joe McNally was his name and he had no success until he teamed up with Richard pitman.
I think he's had 7 published to date, maybe more.

surely you can just publish your own book on the internet and charge people to download it

Amazon's self-publishing programme is supposed to be good. Some authors have even picked up proper publishing contracts from there.