Day Ten - A matter of writing what you know.

Read what you intend to write, of all the various things I ever learned when reading the hundred books on how to write, it was to read the competition and understand what sells before you start writing your own book.  This is all well and good if you can write like the person whose books you're reading, but if you can write like the person you're reading, then you don't have a chance, because they're already out there with a following (whom you are one of) and you're just following in their footsteps...

The trick is to find a style all your own and then have other people want to copy that.  Sadly, this is not as easy as it seems, after all, we're in a world where reading has been popular for hundreds of years and remains one of the things that (in my opinion anyway) no child should be without from as early as possible. After all, if you can read, you can learn anything, and there's nothing more valuable than that.

However, deviating from the original point slightly, I've tried writing young adult fiction and found that the range for which books are written is immense, from the unbelievably gory Darren Shan novels (how they get a kids rating is beyond me) to the far more psychological stories such as Unwind, but I have trouble getting past my own proclivities, such as swearing and graphic descriptions, which I understand is down to me and most kids (and indeed publishers of kids books) have no problem with, but still...

So, I made a conscious decision this year to not try and do things that I don't want to do or change the tone of a story to suit an audience that it wasn't intended for.

One particular issue I have is that of intimacy in writing, I'm by nature very private in what I get up to, and so lies the problem, attraction is very much like engineering in a number of ways (and no, I don't mean they've both got fluids and moving parts), in that if you read a technical manual on the subject, you'll know how to do it, but when you understand it, you don't need the manual... So it is here, it's possible to describe everything in detail and have people understand exactly which digit is doing what and in which position, but it doesn't convey any of the subtleties of mental or physical attraction, and I find that more interesting, so apologies in advance for anyone who suddenly has a moment of "Hang on that's a bit strong" for the next few chapters of The Shift, but I'm not writing to order, I'm just writing what I know.

This is John Dodd in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, and Goodnight England, wherever you are...