Rossiter - How to Write Like a Bestselling Author: Secrets of Success From 50 of the Worlds Greatest Writers

HOW TO WRITE LIKE A BESTSELLING AUTHOR

Copyright Tony Rossiter, 2017

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INTRODUCTION

Who hasnt dreamt of writing a bestseller?

For most of us, it will remain just a dream. Yet it is possible even if you are an unknown author to write a bestseller. The odds may be against it, but it has been done in the past and someone will do it in the future. Why not you?

Theres no magic formula that guarantees success. No two authors work in exactly the same way or have the same views about writing. The learning points with which each chapter of this book concludes are different and occasionally contradictory. What works for one author does not necessarily work for another. Writing is a personal, individual thing and we all have to find our own way of doing it. That usually means trial and error and lots of rewriting.

J. K. Rowling may be the UKs most successful living author, with sales in excess of 238 million, but her first Harry Potter book was rejected by no fewer than 12 publishers. When it comes to spotting the next bestseller, publishers have an abysmal track record; persistence in the face of repeated rejections is vital. Self-publishing is an option if you have the time and the skills to edit and market your book effectively. Whichever route to publication you choose, this book will improve your chances of success.

There is no shortage of how-to writing books. Some even claim to tell you how to write a bestseller, with chapters devoted to plotting, characterisation, dialogue and so on. This book is different. It doesnt tell you how to do it; it shows you how others have done it. Imitating the methods rather than the content of a favourite writer is an excellent apprenticeship for anyone who wants to master the craft of writing. Its how many of the most successful authors began. Learning from an author you admire can help you to develop your own individual style.

For anyone who wants to write a bestseller, this book is the perfect starting point. But whatever your motivation for reading, enjoy the journey of discovery through 50 of the worlds bestselling authors and the techniques that made them famous.

JANE AUSTEN

(17751817)

What does Pride and Prejudice mean to you? Does it evoke one of the best-known opening sentences in English literature? Or Colin Firth in a wet shirt?

Jane Austen is known as much from film and television adaptations of her novels as from the books themselves. She wrote six famous novels ( Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion ) and is widely regarded as the originator of romantic comedy. Here Ill focus mainly on Pride and Prejudice , a book seen as the inspiration behind works as diverse as Eugene Onegin and Bridget Joness Diary .

Today Jane Austens novels are read all over the world. But soon after her death in 1817 they were out of print, and for the next 50 years she was largely ignored. Perhaps her restrained Regency romances (avoiding extravagant language, heightened emotions, dramatic situations and any but the sparest description) seemed old-fashioned compared with the novels of Dickens and Thackeray, then selling in their hundreds of thousands. Its a salutary reminder of how literary taste and fashion can change. They were reprinted in 1833, but for more than 30 years sales were negligible, with no more than 1,000 copies of each title being sold every eight years or so.

All that changed in 1870, when the first biography was published. This resulted in the first huge surge of interest in Austens novels; the second huge surge was to come over a hundred years later with the burst of film and television adaptations in the 1990s.

Continuous improvement

Today Jane Austen is a towering figure of English literature, but she achieved popular success only posthumously. Her six famous novels were the result not of instinctive brilliance, but of trial and error and constant rewriting over a long period of time. A common error of novice authors is to submit work too soon. So its worthwhile taking as much time as you need to review, revise and improve your manuscript before you expose it to the outside world. Be hard on yourself: make sure its as good as you can possibly make it. Once you have sent it out, thats it; you wont be able to retrieve it and revise it.

Plotting

All six of Austens famous novels revolve around what she described as three or four families in a country village, and the plots focus almost exclusively on courtship, marriage and money and how young women (from the country gentry class of society) deal with the choices involved. Austen was the first popular English novelist to show how young women really think and behave.

With Pride and Prejudice Austen hit upon the archetypal romantic plot, used today by countless writers of romantic fiction. An independent-minded young woman meets an arrogant man and conceives an instant loathing for him. He is attracted, but refuses to acknowledge this even to himself. However, he cant help thinking about her. Eventually he shows, usually by some act of unselfishness or tenderness, that for all his strength and self-sufficiency, he has succumbed. The plot is simple but potent. It works in Pride and Prejudice because the heroine and the hero are sufficiently complex and capable of change to engage our interest and to make the vacillations between them convincing. Austen makes the eventual coming together of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy seem as inevitable as it once seemed unthinkable.

Characterisation

At the heart of Pride and Prejudice is the convincing characterisation of Elizabeth and Mr Darcy. They are presented very differently. While we are often inside Elizabeths head, Mr Darcy remains on the periphery of our vision. He is aloof and difficult for anyone to know and this heightens his appeal and our interest in him. Elizabeth laughs at the follies she sees around her, but she has inner strength and submits neither to an unsuitable suitor like Mr Collins nor to a powerful figure like Darcys aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh. She is determined to live a good and moral life. Of all Austens heroines, Elizabeth is the one whose character is thought to be closest to that of the author.

Pride and Prejudice also has a raft of memorable comic characters, notably Mr Collins, Lady Catherine, and Elizabeths parents Mr and Mrs Bennet. Mr Collins and Lady Catherine complement one another in their folly and stupidity. With his mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility and his absurd eulogies of Lady Catherine, Mr Collins condemns himself out of his own mouth. His character is further exposed by the rapid switching of his attentions from Jane Bennet to Elizabeth, his farcical proposal to Elizabeth, and then his prompt shift from Elizabeth to her friend Charlotte Lucas.