Adam Evans I was having a quiet drink with an old friend the other day when he told me, very proudly, that he had just finished his first novel. This was completely out of character – he had never displayed any interest in writing before – and, with mounting amazement, I asked him what it was about.
“Oh, it was the first Harry Potter book; it really was excellent. I don’t know why I haven’t tried reading books before,” he said.
After insisting he buy the next round for cracking such an awful gag I looked back at the feelings that rushed through my head when I thought he really had completed his first novel. Topping the winner’s rostrum was undoubtedly amazement but there, in second and third place, were envy and depression. Envy because I have never managed to finish a novel and depression because I am worried I never will. This could well sound familiar to you – many people dream of writing a novel but few actually finish one and fewer still get it published, become millionaires and bask forever in the glow of literary appreciation. My biggest problems, the same as many thousands of people, are that I find it hard to get started and am overly critical of the words I do manage to write. In search of a solution to these, I turned to the Web. One of the first sites I came across was www.inkspot.com, an “award-winning resource and community for writers of all ages and levels of experience”. This actually is not too far off; there are plenty of helpful articles on different aspects of writing, a discussion forum and masses of links to other online resources. Reading the articles and joining in the discussions helped me to get a better perspective on my writing. Although I knew in theory that the first draft of a book does not have to be perfect, the truth of it was brought home to me only by chatting to people who had gone through the process. If you are unsure about what you are doing, getting on to the right discussion forum can really help. I found another discussion forum at jp.onelist.com/community/1writers.
There are a few people there who like to discuss novel writing but there are many more who are just interested in writing bad poetry, so be careful. A much more down to earth and practical site can be found at www. manistee.com/~lkraus/workshop/. The rather tortuous Web address leads to the Internet Writing Workshop, which aspires to create an environment where works in progress can be passed around and critiqued, and to provide a support group where writing can be discussed in depth. Unlike Inkspot, this is a seriously active community. Membership is restricted to people who regularly participate in criticising other members’ works, apart from the general discussion group where generic topics such as “how can I overcome writer’s block?” are discussed. I joined the novels list, which – surprisingly enough – is for the submission and critiques of novel-length fiction. Books are posted to the list in bite-sized chunks, so you can criticise them in manageable parts. The fact that you have to do a certain amount of criticism each month, or face expulsion from the group, means that you really do start to learn from the process. The chance to read and identify parts of other peoples’ writing that are poor, indifferent or excellent is incredibly useful when it comes to analysing my own work. I can look at a section and easily see where I’ve gone wrong because I’ve seen the same mistake in someone else’s prose. Critters is another online critiquing workshop, at www.critique.org/ users/critters. Confined to serious science fiction, fantasy and horror writers, it operates a similar system to the Internet Writing Workshop. It boasts more than 1E000 members, each providing a critique a week. If you have finished a novel, there is a special section for getting the entire thing criticised quickly, rather than piece by piece. Stepping back into the literary mainstream for a moment, www.pure fiction.co.uk is the only British site that is really worth visiting. Soon to be relaunched, the old site nonetheless has plenty of articles on the business of novel writing, from plotting a thriller to choosing a central character and jump-starting your creativity. This is all useful but the danger of reading about writing a novel, rather than actually writing it, is omnipresent.
The most valuable sites are those that link you to other writers, so you can share ideas and criticisms. For me this has meant increased determination and self- confidence. I am still nowhere near the end of my book, but my writing output has increased and I no longer fiddle with every word as I go along. Expect to be buying my quirky, modern novel, Dog on Roof, from your local bookshop in 2002.