Gold6:

Golden Rule No. 6

Keep it simple

If education and brain power were the only mix in the cocktail that goes to make an author, every university graduate and professor would be walking into the best-seller lists.

Many of the finest books ever written have come from the creative minds of writers who were self educated, but rich in knowledge and experience of life in the big outside world.

My advice to anybody just starting out in the wonderful world of writing is keep it simple. The writer who uses multi-syllable words for the sake of it when there are much shorter alternatives will quickly lose his/her reader.

Never show off when writing. There are dozens of different writing styles. Flowing and flowery, short and staccato, romantic or raw, fast-paced or leisurely. If I were to suggest a topic for a book to twelve writers each would tackle it in a different way. This, you will find, comes across in the Postcard Challenge section.

It is impossible to teach anybody to write a book. You can give advice, you can point out pitfalls, you can suggest nuances. But when it comes to the actual writing you are on your own.

Accept right from the start that writing is a lonely business. Show me a prolific author and I will show you somebody accustomed to being on his own. It takes total concentration and the ability to lock yourself into a world of your own. It is between you and the keyboard (or the notepad and pen).

I was brought up in a newspaper school in which you were required to tell an entire news story in one brief paragraph. This would be called the intro, and could stand alone in case pressure of space meant that following paragraphs had to be cut. If you cannot give an outline of your book project in one or two sentences, it is probably too complicated.

If you look at any publicity material for a book the main thrust of it is captured in just a sentence. Let's take Treasure Island for example: "Cabin boy helps one-legged pirate find buried treasure in a sea-going adventure that will shiver your timbers!" Corny? Maybe, but it gives a summary of the story.

Test yourself by writing one line sentences that capture, for instance, Oliver Twist, Robinson Crusoe, A Farewell to Arms and Gone with the Wind.

And how would you summarise a factual account of the sinking of the Titanic?

There are as many types of books as there are dishes on a menu. You may fancy the snack (a lightweight, easy to read book, less than 80,000 words), the main course (100,000-plus words) or the banquet (150,000-plus words).

It could be fiction or non-fiction; a novel, a specialist-knowledge book, a reference book, a biography or an autobiography. But whatever you choose, the basic rules apply: make sure it is factually correct, always interesting and a book that makes your reader want to stay with you to the end.

Authors are not paid by the number of words (or lineage, as freelance newspapermen would describe it). A 50,000 word novelette could fetch as much as a 300,000 word pot-boiler, depending entirely on the content and the commercial value.

I was fortunate when first starting out as a writer to enter a world that included magazines and newspapers that welcomed short-story submissions. While sub-editing on the Daily Herald in the early 1960s I had short stories published in the magazines Weekend and Titbits, and also in the London Evening News. There can be no better or more self-satisfying way to serve your apprenticeship than with stories of 1,000 to 3,000 words in length. You have to be inventive, concise and disciplined. I recommend you try short story writing even if for your eyes only. It would be like flexing your muscles before starting with the major challenge of a book.

You would be following a path well trodden by a procession of major authors. Master humorist P.G. (Plum) Wodehouse, for example, had more than 300 short stories published, and his Jeeves and Bertie Wooster characters featured in 40 short stories before making an appearance in the first of the famous series of novels in 1934. His peak years as a short story writer coincided with what was the supreme period of the American weekly and monthly magazines when he was based in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. He received fees ranging from $5,000 to $40,000 for self-contained short-story serials that were later published as novels.

The great short story writers never waste a word, and they generally keep it simple. That is also good advice for book authors. Never waste a word. Keep it simple. It is all explained in my Synopsis Guidelines Portfolio. Oh yes, and as Golden Rule No 7 will propose: write about what you know.

Golden rule No 6 is to keep it simple and never be too clever by half. Don't show off to your reader but set out to hold and maintain his/her interest.