Write Anything Well

A writer of fiction is simply a person who makes up stories. He or she is just a perfectly normal human being who has found out that they can put stories down on paper that make other people really interested, excited and amused.

Who becomes a writer? In the 20th and 21st centuries, practically everybody who has finally become a successful writer of fiction has started out in a different job, for example as a schoolteacher, a doctor or whatever. The reason is clear. You cannot “get a job” as a writer.

Let’s think about my genre, young adult stories – or some might call them “children’s stories.” Actually there is no such thing as a “children’s story”. Alice in Wonderland, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist (by Charles Dickens), Treasure Island (by Robert Louis Stevenson), Kim (by Kipling) and many, many more are for people between 5 and 122 years old.

So what I am writing about is not about how to write a book for children, or young adults, or whatever, but just about the nature of writing, as far as I understand it. My own books are intended as entertainment for people of all ages, at least for all people who have not forgotten what it is to be a child and to live in a world of adventure and excitement.

There is no recipe for writing of course. But here are some of my ideas and suggestions: Continue reading Some Ideas About How To Write Fiction