The Maeve Binchy Writers' Club
Maeve Binchy
Language: English
Pages: 304
ISBN: 0307473856
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
“The most important thing to realize is that everyone is capable of telling a story.” –Maeve Binchy
If you scribble story ideas on the backs of receipts…
If you file away bits of overheard conversation from the coffee shop...
If you’ve already chosen the perfect pen name...
Well, then the journey has begun!
In this warm and inspiring guide, beloved author Maeve Binchy shares her unique insight to how a best selling author writes: from finding a subject and creating good writing habits to sustaining progress and seeking a publisher.
Whether you want to write stories or plays, humor or mysteries, Binchy prescribes advice for every step with her signature humor and generous spirit. She has called upon other writers, editors, and publishers to add their voices to this treasury of assistance for budding writers and a refreshing dose of encouragement for longtime scribes. And once you are ready, an appendix offers of writing awards and competitions and a selection of websites and literary journals.
risk on us every time. And because they see so many manuscripts and are in heavy competition with other publishing companies, they are sharper than we are about what will work and what won’t. If I write a novel about some topic, like a rags-to-riches story based on a wronged woman who swore revenge on the rich family that scorned her, I might not know that there are already ten or twelve books on this theme out there and the market won’t take another. But the publishers will know—that’s their
work than in your own. The man who drones on and on giving endless descriptions of the sunset might bring you back sharply to your own writing and make you examine it more carefully. Or the woman who has a cast of thousands of characters, confusing everybody … this could make you rethink a bit, too. Another danger I see in writers’ groups is that of overpoliteness. I know that I would be guilty of it, because if a fellow member were reading out the greatest load of rubbish with an eager,
his father said. “If we’re going to write ten pages a week, then by God we need something to get us started.” The next Tuesday they all turned up in good time and settled around the little table in the hall. They all had their ten pages ready. Nancy read her story-letter. It was about a good woman who was involved with a monstrously selfish man. She then made a great deal of money, and he was sorry that he had let her go and begged her to come back. But she wouldn’t. Then he fell on hard times
material; I shouldn’t even try to act. “I know someone must have told you,” he said. “I’m seeing Georgia.” “Of course, you see Georgia.” I pretended to be dumb, forcing him to admit what I already knew. “No, I mean seeing. In the sense of … going out with,” he said. “Oh,” I said. It wasn’t much of a response after all that manipulation. “I’m sorry,” James said foolishly. “Well, if you’re sorry you’re going out with her—seeing her—then why do you do it?” I asked. “No, I’m not sorry I’m
here for the winter, I thought… ‘Well, Dusty might need me for this hard winter, when everything’s so sad, but then she won’t want me anymore. She’ll want to put the memory of the sad winter behind her and go off and live her life.’” She was glad she had come home for the winter. Suppose Simon had still been with her and with his wife and with another woman … none of this would ever have happened. She would not have gotten to know her mother, understood her father. And best of all, find the boy