Gold12:

Golden Rule No 12

Read as well as write your book

Yes, read as well as write your book. This is another of my tips that may seem idiotic at first glance. Read each paragraph back to yourself (aloud if you feel like it). This way you will know whether you have got a rhythm and you will also be able to edit as you go along, tightening each sentence and picking up any errors.

You become something like an artist, standing back from the canvas to make sure the last brush strokes are right and then it's back to the easel. In the case of we writers, it is back to the keyboard or the notepad.

I know several old Fleet Street colleagues and TV scriptwriters who still work on typewriters because they hate the modern computers, and there are many writers who prefer to get their words down with a newly sharpened pencil. Do whatever makes you feel comfortable.

Everybody has a different writing style, but my advice would be: do not write sentences that are too long. Put yourself in the place of your reader. Are your words making sense, are they gripping and, most important of all, are they interesting? Weigh each word. Are there better alternatives? With today's in-built thesaurus checkers, writers have never had it so good. But don't be lazy. Select the right word in the right place.

Tired, hackneyed phrases can turn a publisher off within a couple of paragraphs of reading your synopsis. Remind yourself with a cliché such as, 'Avoid clichés like the plague' and you will hopefully remember to be fresh and inventive with your writing. If you are struggling for a phrase write any cliché that comes easily to mind for the time being, but then change it when it comes to your read-through and edit.

Is there any unnecessary waffle that is better edited out? When I am writing well I feel as if I could set my words to the beat of a drum. Ideally you want your words to flow, and by reading your work you will know whether you have the required rhythm.

Avoid being too wordy. Chop out all those words that add nothing to the meaning of a sentence. Do not get trapped by tautology (such expressions as "audible to the ear"). Express simple ideas in simple language.

Let me pass on this advice that was given to me by an old newspaper editor when I was first starting out in the writing trade. It is as good advice now as it was then in the mid-1950s, and it applies equally to books as newspapers. The wise old gentleman, Reg Willis by name and the then Editor of the London Evening News, told me as I set off to my first reporting job: "My advice to you, laddie, is that you should decide what you want to say and then simply write it down in the necessary number of words, no more and no less."

No more, no less.

It is a good idea to have a notebook alongside you as you write. Make notes about any changes or inserts you will want to make at the end of your session. Try not to break your writing flow, and put any additional research that may be needed to one side until you have finished your chapter.

Then flick through your notes to see which paragraphs you need to revise. If you are wandering away from your original outline, you may find this will require changes to your early chapters. Make a note and do it at the end of your session.

Whatever you do, try not to break the flow and rhythm of your writing. That is the hardest thing to recapture. You can always go back over what you have done provided you have made brief memo notes for yourself.

While I am on the notebook theme, it is an idea to have one sitting on the bedside cabinet. You might get a blinding thought just before nodding off. Note it down just in case it does not come back to you in the morning.

There have been many instances of writers and composers coming up with that perfect book idea or catchy tune as their head hits the pillow. They go to sleep with a smile on their faces because they know they have come up with a winner. But the next morning the smiles give way to a scowls because they cannot recall the words or the tune from the recesses of their mind.

Note down that idea the second it hits you.

I wonder if modern authors realise what a luxury cut-and-paste is on word processors? When I was 15 I bought myself an Olivetti portable typewriter for £10 (two weeks' wages), and any time I needed to rewrite or make an insert it meant retyping an entire page. They were tough times!

And what about poor old PG Wodehouse? He admitted that it was nothing unusual for him to rewrite a paragraph as many as twenty or thirty times. Cut and paste would have been a God send to him. His second Psmith novel was written in long hand. Even today there are many writers who feel more comfortable hand writing their books. If you prefer to work with pen or pencil make sure you get the final draft typed out before you submit it to a publisher.

As well as getting to know a publisher you must also get to know your characters, as I explain in Golden Rule No 13.

Golden Rule 12 is to read what you have written as you go along. Look for errors, edit and, most of all, seek a rhythm.