Alana Woods

Today I welcome the talented Alana Woods to share some of her tips for writing. Her first novel, Automaton, won the Australian Fast Books Prize for Best Fiction in 2003. It was also nominated by Sisters In Crime for the 2004 Davitt Award, which is for the best Australian female crime fiction for the year.

YOU HAVE WRITTEN A BOOK  25 ESSENTIAL WRITING TIPS: GUIDE TO WRITING GOOD FICTION. CAN YOU SHARE YOUR TOP 5?

Hi Melissa, thanks for inviting me to blog. Before launching into the guide I’ll give you a line or five about my background to show where I was coming from with it. I’m an editor, have been for years, working on both non-fiction and fiction. That’s the experience. Qualification-wise I have a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Writing and a Graduate Diploma in Communication.
25 ESSENTIAL TIPS grew out of a tips sheet I put together for aspiring authors years ago. After critiquing a few fiction works—short stories and novels—I noticed recurring weaknesses cropping up. Earlier this year I decided to flesh out the tips and publish them as a guide.

So, the top five, in no particular order:

1.    the hook (you’ve got a couple of seconds to persuade someone to buy the book so make the opening a good one)
2.    show don’t tell (mixing it up is fine but definitely more showing than telling)
3.    dialogue should keep the story moving and be real
4.    characterisation (build your characters over the course of the story so readers feel they’re getting to know them as they would a real person)
5.    descriptions (keep them brief. A couple of well-chosen words can say more than a paragraph or page of waffle).

 

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MOST COMMON MISTAKES BEGINNING WRITERS MAKE?

Not getting dispassionate feedback about your work BEFORE publishing is definitely one. I read and review indie books for my Sunday blog. I won’t publish a review for anything I can’t give at least a three star rating to and I’ve come across quite a few I can’t. I don’t include story ideas here because any story is worth reading if it’s told well. It’s the telling that can let a writer down and now with self publishing being such an easy option many are too impatient to publish. I’ve just stopped reading one that I forced myself to continue up to chapter 10 because the storyline was intriguing, but in the end I gave it the heave-ho because the quality of writing was just so bad.

Not getting your work professionally edited is another biggie. Spelling mistakes, wrong word usage, descriptions that are too long, dialogue that doesn’t ring true, one-dimensional characters, sloppy or inadvertent tense and point of view switches, awkwardly written sentences spring to mind. And don’t get me started on punctuation. Sometimes it looks like commas have been sprinkled from a salt shaker there are so many of them—which wouldn’t be the worst thing if they were all correctly placed, but many aren’t.

CAN YOU TELL US THE BEST WRITING ADVICE YOU EVER RECEIVED?

 Re-write, re-write and when you think it’s perfect examine it again.

 WHAT DO YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT BEING A WRITER?

 I’ve always liked the process of writing; I like words and fitting them together, making them read like poetry in prose so the cadence sweeps you away—love that. Another big buzz is getting into my characters’ worlds. I love how they and their lives become so real they become part of me—when I’m writing their stories they’re the last thing I think about before falling asleep and the first thing when I wake.

WHAT IS THE HARDEST THING ABOUT BEING A WRITER?

For me it’s sticking to a daily writing schedule when I first start a book. Once I’m underway it’s a different matter; then it’s forcing myself to get up and walk away from it to do all the other necessary things, such as spending a bit of quality time with my husband. He’s patient, but he does like to see me occasionally.

WRITERS ARE SOMETIMES INFLUENCED BY THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN THEIR OWN LIVES. ARE YOU?

My two published novels and the one I’m working on now all come from experience. By that I mean jobs that I’ve had have sparked the ideas. I spent five years in court reporting and sat through many Supreme Court trials. That led me to write AUTOMATON, a legal suspense drama. Some years at a weapons research facility kick-started IMBROGLIO, which is espionage suspense. And the one I’m working on now, DRAGLINE, corporate legal suspense, is a direct result of 17 years with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

And the stories in TAPESTRIES AND OTHER SHORT STORIES are mostly from some kind of personal experience. You’ll have to read them to figure out what.

For a change, after DRAGLINE, I’m writing something totally outside my field of knowledge and experience. I’ve already started the research.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR PUBLICATIONS/AWARDS IF ANY?

AUTOMATON, which was my debut novel although not the first I’ve written (there are three in the cupboard that will never see the light of day because they definitely aren’t up to scratch), won the Fast Books Prize for best Australian self-published fiction in 2003. In 2004 Sisters-in-Crime nominated it for the Davitt Awards which is given to female authors of crime fiction. It’s a legal drama set in Canberra. The title AUTOMATON is legal parlance for someone who can’t remember the crime they’re accused of committing, which makes it extremely difficult for the defence team to mount a defence. It went on to become an Australian best seller.

IMBROGLIO, my second published novel is the biggest seller at the moment. Like AUTOMATON it has two main leads, a female and male. The title IMBROGLIO is a reflection of the mess Noel Valentine gets herself into when she rescues someone from a burning car on the road between Cairns and Port Douglas. Among other high-risk situations she finds herself fending off sharks of the fin and two-legged varieties.

TAPESTRIES AND OTHER SHORT STORIES contains a mix of romance, humour, travel and crime. The travel story THE SCENIC ROUTE won a SE UK short story competition several years back.

Then there’s 25 ESSENTIAL TIPS: GUIDE TO WRITING GOOD FICTION which we’ve already discussed.

WHAT IS THE MOST SURPRISING THING ABOUT WRITING/PUBLISHING THAT YOU HAVE LEARNT?

How incredibly helpful people are when I’m researching. The minute I say I’m writing a book about so-and-so and wonder if they would be in a position to give me a few minutes and some advice people generally drop everything they’re doing to oblige. I’ve only ever had one knockback and that was from the Belconnen Remand Centre when I was writing AUTOMATON. I wanted to know a bit about what the centre looked like inside and generalities about routine. I was told that was confidential and ‘You’re a writer so use your imagination’. I was all set to do just that when lo and behold the local news station did an in-depth story on the centre. The cameras were allowed inside and shown pretty well every area. So much for security.

WHO IS YOUR FAVOURITE AUTHOR AND WHY?

There are quite a few I like and admire but the stand-out favourite is the Scottish author Dorothy Dunnett. Sadly she died several years ago so we’re never going to get anything else from her, including who JJ ends up with in the DOLLY series. She wrote superb historical fiction but also some remarkably clever contemporary stuff. If you haven’t heard of her but love to bury yourself in big books with storylines and storytelling that absolutely sing, check out her LYMOND and NICCOLO series—unequalled historical fiction. And for contemporary hijinks get hold of her DOLLY series.

OTHER THAN WRITING, WHAT ELSE DO YOU LOVE?

 

Reading has always been my first favourite leisure activity. I’ve had a book in my clutches from as early as I can remember. I dabble with others: tapestry and gardening for example. Travelling is something I also love to do, although for the last five years it’s consisted of trips to the UK to stay with our oldest daughter and her family. Can’t let the grandkids grow up not knowing who the old folks are!

IF YOU HAD A PREMONITION YOU WOULD BE STRANDED ON A DESERT ISLAND, WHAT 5 BOOKS WOULD YOU THROW IN YOUR BAG?

Ones that entertain first and foremost. I like Shakespeare, but not enough to be stranded on a desert island with unless I had a light romance to zone out with afterwards. I’d take the last books in Dorothy Dunnett’s two series, a Dick Francis omnibus (I know that’s more than one but his are all fairly short), Jane Austen’s PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (I know, I know, but I love it), Charlotte Bronte’s JANE EYRE (again, I can hear the groans), and something of Sharon Penman (she write really long stories and I love long stories).

Actually, maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Maybe they should all be on survival skills.

WHAT FIVE WORDS BEST SUM YOU UP

Persistent (if you don’t keep at it you’ll never achieve anything)
Optimistic (can’t see the point of being anything else)
Calm (at work—my boss used to say I was a calming influence in an emergency)
Volatile (at home—my kids say no way am I calm)
Cautious (I used to be SUCH a risk-taker as a kid I figure I’ve used up all my luck)

HOW CAN WE LEARN MORE?

Website
Amazon.com
Amazon.UK
Facebook
Goodreads
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