“Where do you get your ideas from, Thomas?”

I get asked that all the time. I guess most writers would say the same. So what’s the answer? Well, ideas come from all over the place.

My first novel Maneater is about a werewolf called Laura Greenacre who wants to avenge the death of her clan.

So there’s an idea: a revenge novel. About a werewolf.

Newspapers are a useful source of ideas. Local newspapers used to be great. They had all kinds of stories. Keep your eye on the shorts, those two-paragraph stories that run down the side of a page.

I read something once about a guy stealing a JCB; you know, one of those big yellow diggers. He went on the rampage with it along his street because his neighbors, apparently, had made complaints about him; called the cops or something. Now that’s a scene. Build a story from there. Why did he get that crazy? What caused his neighbors to complain in the first place? What’s going to be the consequence of his actions?

I once wrote a short story called The Librarian. It was about a lonely old man who stole library books to build his own library in a spare room in his house. This story came from two sources.

One was a two-paragraph court story I read in a local newspaper about a man fined for pinching books from his library.

The other idea came from one of my own obsessions — putting books back in their proper places in bookshops.

When I browse bookshelves it bothers me when I see a Michael Connolly novel mixed up with James Ellroy’s books. I will return the Connolly where it belongs, either with the rest of the author’s books or in the “Cs”.

In my story, the character tidied up the shelves in his library in this way, putting books back where they belonged — or so it seemed. He was also tucking them into his coat and walking out with them. He loved books. He was passionate about them. He hated how people disrespected them. He thought people didn’t deserve libraries. So he built his own with books he stole. Eventually he burns his library and himself because the philistines are coming to arrest him and take his books away. He does the worst thing you could do to books — he burns them. But only because he loves them. A twisted kind of love, maybe, but he did not know that.

Another source of ideas is combining genres. Throw in romance with vampires, see what you get. Oh, that’s right: Twilight. Toss some Vikings into a bowl and mix with aliens. That will get you Outlander, a 2008 production starring Jim Caviezel and John Hurt. How about space invaders in the Old West? That’s Cowboys & Aliens.

The new sub-genre of pastiche is becoming popular now, thanks mainly to its inventor the writer Seth Grahame-Smith, creator of Pride And Prejudice And Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Why not update a real, historical crime and transplant it to the modern day? I did that with Pariah, inventing a mythology for Jack the Ripper and transplanting him into 21st century London.

So just a few ideas there about… ideas! I’ll talk more about how to develop snippets and scenes into stories over the next few weeks. But the best advice I can give you is: Let your imagination soar.

A special piece of advice

Here’s one of the many awesome five-star reviews I’ve had for my book How To Write a Novel in 6 Months:

It intrigued me; I wondered what the special piece of advice that helped this writer was. I like to think my little guide contains lots of useful information. Those who’ve read it tell me it has certainly helped them get going with their novels. And the reviews suggest it’s got some handy tips, too.

Of course, I couldn’t guess what spoke to this writer, above.

But I know what my Eureka! moment was when I was struggling with my novels. I was trying to follow what I regard as the most impractical bit of advice hurled at would-be authors:

Write every day.

I found this to be demoralising. At the beginning of the week, I would be full of enthusiasm, determined to get to my desk every day and produce a certain number of words. Like I say in the book, Monday went brilliantly: I’d hit my target, whatever it was; 1,000 or 2,000, perhaps.

I was raring to go on Tuesday.

Then Tuesday came. Life got in the way. I got busy at work (yes, I, like the vast majority of would-be writers had a full-time job). Family matters needed attending to (don’t many of us have kids, pets, husbands, wives, mums, dads?). And Tuesday went: 0 words. I had already failed.

This appeared to be the cycle. I got writing, then I got busy. I soon realised that most “gurus”, many of those who give advice on “how to write a novel”, “how to be a writer”, often haven’t finished a novel themselves; they’ve not lived in the real world of writing.

I had to get real if I wanted to be a writer.

And that’s when the Eureka! moment struck me:

Don’t write every day.

That’s right: ignore that unrealistic piece of advice.

But I still needed a target, a goal. I think this is very important if you want to finish your novel. But daily word-targets just didn’t work in the real world. However, weekly ones just might…

And that was it. I set myself a weekly word target, for my first draft, especially. I aimed for around 8,000 words a week. I found that it didn’t matter if I missed a day due to LIFE; as long as I worked hard on the days i had available to write, I could hit my goal. And I did.

And this is how I wrote two novels a year.

So that was my “special piece of advice”, if you like; the revelation.

I still don’t know what bit of advice helped the writer above. I am only glad that they found something of value in my book. That’s the whole point, after all: to help others write their novels in the real world.

If you’ve read my book, I’d be delighted to hear if you found a “special piece of advice” in it, just one thing that made you think: A-ha!

If you’ve not read it, please let me know a piece of advice that really inspired you.

Get in touch with my on Twitter, @thomasemson and share your thoughts.

The Rules of Writing (there are two)

I have been teaching some creative writing sessions recently. The writers in the group are great; they have some wonderful ideas. Their WIPs (works-in-progress) are varied, from reality-based domestic dramas to high fantasy. It’s great to see.

The majority of what I’m teaching comes from my book, How To Write a Novel in 6 Months. But of course, I’ve learned some new things about writing since I published the book. I think about writing a lot, because that’s what I do.

One of the things I’ve become more convinced about is that there are no RULES to writing—but there are PRINCIPLES.

However, I have U-turned slightly…

I have come to the conclusion, now, that there are TWO rules. They are axioms, I think; fixed and never-changing. Everyone who sits down to write a novel or story, play or screenplay, must stick to them.

The 2 rules are:

1. Finish it: your book, your play; get to THE END.
2. Don’t bore the reader: make them WANT to turn the page or stay in their seats.

That’s it.  Your starting points when you begin writing: these 2 rules.

Do you agree? Anyone have other rules? Or maybe you don’t think these are important. Let me know. I look forward to hearing from you.

So with Christmas coming, and New Year goals looming, maybe some of you intend to write a novel. If that’s the plan, the above two rules are really the only things you need to be thinking about.

Have lots of festive fun, I hope 2022 is creative and bountiful for you all.

Read Chapter 1 of Judgment Day, the final part of The Prophet Wars

The fourth and final part of my Young Adult series “The Prophet Wars” will be published on KDP on September 22.

Called “Judgment Day”, it brings to a close the story of Billy Kingdom, the boy who ca see the future, and Tawny Lang, the girl who can part the waves.

I’ve been writing it over the last month, trying to hit 7,000 words a week, using the progress grid I write about in “How To Write a Novel in 6 Months” to keep track of my writing.

Here’s the grid:

It’s taken just under a month to write the first draft, and now I’m starting the revision process.

And Chapter One is ready. Click here, and you can read it. Hope you enjoy.

You can also pre-order Part 4, here.

The prophets are back…

Hello friends, readers, reviewers, writers, vampires, demons, ghosts…

First, I should say happy new year. We’re well into it now, but this is my first email of 2020. Hope it’s going well for you so far. And if it’s not, I hope it gets better.

Volume 3 of The Prophet Wars, my young adult dystopian thriller (it’s “gripping,” according to reviewiers) will be published on February 28. It’s titled “Battle In The Caves”. Does that suggest action to you? Well, if it does, you’d be right to think that. It’s “action-packed”. You know me. I try to make my stories as exciting as possible; page-turners, I hope.

Of course, I’m making some advanced reader copies (or ARCs, as they’re called) available.

If you’re a blogger, a reviewer, or a reader who’d like to let the world know what they think about the book, you can download a copy here at Bookfunnel.

Formats available include Epub, Mobi and PDF.

Remember, there are ARCs available on the same site for Volumes 1 & 2 as well, if you havne’t read them and would like to leave a review.

Volumes 1 & 2 are available on Amazon (here for UK; here U.S.; other territories too) and here (Smashwords) if you prefer epub or other formats. There’s also Barnes & Noble for epub versions.

Thanks again for your support, and we’ll speak soon,
Thomas

The wonderful world of werewolves

An anthology of werewolf stories is published in January — and I’m very proud to say that one of my stories is featured. Editor and author Graeme Reynolds (High Moor) contacted me last year and asked me to contribute a tale to the collection. The criteria was that it had to be based on an already-created werewolf universe.

My horror-thriller Maneater was published by Snowbooks in 2008, and introduced Laura Greenacre – the tagline was “Meet Laura. She’ll eat you alive.” She wasn’t the troubled, sweet-natured, “I-don’t-really-want-to-hurt-people” type of werewolf that had started to plague fiction and films at the time (and that kind of werewolf still does). She was animal. And she went down well with readers. You can read more about her here.

And here’s just one review, by Sheila Merritt of Hellnotes:

“Laura is gory and gorgeous, beauty and the beast, the stuff that dreams (and nightmares) are made of. Male readers will find her extremely attractive, and women readers will admire her for her attributes and attitude.

Couple of years later I wrote a sequel, also published by Snowbooks, called Prey. Went down well, too.

So when Graeme commissioned me, there was only one place to go — back to Laura.

My story’s called The Hunt and elaborates on an event mentioned in Maneater that took place when Laura was a teenager. The story also flashes back to Roman times, 60AD, telling the story of how the Maneater werewolves came to be, their history, their culture.

This week, I’ve just received the proof — and it looks great. That’s the cover, above. I’m really excited to be featured in this collection alongside some top horror names such as Paul Kane, Ray Garton, Jeff Strand and David Wellington.

You can pre-order Leaders Of The Pack: A Werewolf Anthology, here in the UK, here in the U.S.

My chimp brain is overloaded

If you’ve read The Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters, you’ll get this title… It’s a mind management program designed by the guy who helped British cyclists become the best in the world. Anyway, it just gives you tools to better understand, and maybe control, that “I’m-losing-my-shit” part of your brain. I’m actually losing my shit right now over another chimp, MailChimp. Trying to set up a “subscribe” button on my website, and it’s just so mind-boggling. I think there’s a disconnect between people who work in tech and normal human beings. They think they’re being simple, but still use words like “integrated”. I don’t know what that means. So I’ve sort of set up something on my front page, and I’m giving away a free story, but there problem is – and I’m testing it – I’m not getting follow up emails as I’d requested when designing the form in MailChimp. My brain hurts so bad. So if you happen to subscribe (or attempt to), and you don’t get confirmation emails, and the email with the link to the free stor, email me, please, and I’ll send it to you.

Coming soon…

I’ll be self-publishing the first volume of my dystopian/sci-fi/fantasy/YA-but-suitable-for-grown-ups novel The Prophet Wars in the next few weeks.

This book’s been through the mill. I wrote it back in 2015. We were very optimistic it would find a home. My agent liked it; lots of readers I asked to look over it liked it.

But the publishing industry is unpredictable. To quote William Goldman, the screenwriter, “Nobody knows anything.” I certainly didn’t. The Prophet Wars did not find a home. Yes, people liked it a lot, but… always a but.

Usually these days “buts” are related to uncertainty. Publishers aren’t as willing to take risks – although to be honest we didn’t think The Prophet Wars was that risky. However, here’s the pitch:

Britain 2026. Crime is rife. Unemployment soars. There is hunger, there is misery, there is devastation. Our world is on the brink of catastrophe. Earthquakes, storms, wars and plagues blight the planet.

And dark forces are gathering…

The future looks bleak. And 15-year-old Billy Kingdom can see it coming. He dreams about disasters – and days later, they happen.

Through social media, Billy learns that other kids are experiencing similar visions. Online, he grows close to a girl named Tawny Lang.

But one night Billy, Tawny, and other youngsters from across Britain with the same gifts, are kidnapped by armed men. They are taken to an underground compound called The Caves run by Ruby Bleak and her teenage nephew Robin, a child genius lacking any empathy.

Holed up in the subterranean complex, Billy and Tawny develop a bond. The Caves, however, hides a sinister secret. The kids quickly learn that they are only guinea pigs in a plot to control the future. But Billy isn’t having any of it and plots his escape.

But will his desire to see his family again tear apart the trust and friendship he has forged with Tawny and create, for himself and the world, a deadly enemy?

An action-packed story set in the near future and dealing with themes such as family, relationship, trust, and the environment, this is the first volume of Thomas Emson’s Young Adult thriller.

Volume One, which is titled Project 9:6, is available for pre-order here (UK) and here (U.S.).

If you’re a book reviewer or blogger, or just a fan of YA fiction who’d be willing to review the Prophet Wars when it’s published, you can download an ARC (advanced reader copy) on BookFunnel.

If you would like to read an extract, here are a few pages…

Writer, you are not alone: visiting FantasyCon

Last weekend I was in Scarborough at the British Fantasy Society’s FantasyCon. I travelled up from Kent with fellow writer Danny Rhodes, who’s had horror stories published in Black Static and Cemetery Dance, but is also an acclaimed contemporary novelist (his novel Fan about the Hillsborough disaster is wonderful).

It was quite a trek up north, but I was quite impressed by Scarborough. Very nice seaside town. And the convention itself,  held at the Grand Hotel, was brilliant.

Continue reading “Writer, you are not alone: visiting FantasyCon”

How I write a novel and how you can write one, too

I start writing when I start. There’s no specific time. But we are up early because of the dogs. And my wife is very disciplined and gets to her desk by 8 a.m.

The office is a summer house at the bottom of the garden. Books and papers are piled everywhere. There’s a chair each for the dogs, and it’s got heating, too. Very cosy in winter.

After drinking a second cup of coffee, I meander to my desk.

Deadlines are vital for me. This is stems from my days as a journalist. Like Duke Ellington said, “I don’t need time, I need a deadline.” That’s me. Just like Duke.

I write a novel in six months, from start to finish. For the first draft, which is quite messy, I have a weekly word target – 8,000-10,000 a week.

Continue reading “How I write a novel and how you can write one, too”