Rob Parnell's Writing Academy Blog

I've been reading a book on economic theory this week - and it's got me thinking. Now, apparently the subject of economics is famous in the publishing industry as the kiss of death to success - the equivalent of a huge yawn of indifference in the mind of the public. But with demonstrations on Wall Street, recessions and financial crashes in the air, it's clear that people are trying very hard to understand the impact of economic theory on our lives. I'd like to spend this week's article looking at the artist and writer in relation to the world economy. Economics is about seeing order amid the chaos of every day life - and from that order, being able to make predictions - albeit generalized ones that often don't seem to pan out... The trouble with economic generalizations is that they're not every flattering to people.  Current economic theory requires that the vast majority of the population are single minded drones who work for a living.  A...

Research is good - even for fiction.  These days it's often important to put your story in the real world, where real things happen in real locations. Readers can be fussy.  They'll go along with your story about a werewolf who falls in love with an advertising executive and whisks her off to a fairy castle in Patagonia - but if you screw up the bus timetable or mention plants that don't grow where you say they do, your dear readers will be all over you like a rash. Or like white on rice, as an old producer friend used to say! There's a fine line between veracity and invention. The thing is that if you get your real world facts right, you make your fiction more believable - this is something that modern thriller writers like James Patterson, Kathy Reichs and Lee Child know all too well. And not just facts about cities and roads - but also institutions and organizational structures like the CIA, FBI and police jurisdictions can become i...

I knew a girl once who had lots of dreams. Lots of things she wanted to do. Lots of ideas for businesses, projects and strategies for becoming successful... But despite all the planning and sometimes the work, nothing happened. Nothing ever worked for her. She'd get to a certain point in a project and always, and I mean always, something would happen that stopped her. Watching her go through this process a dozen or more times, I could easily see that it wasn't the projects that were at fault - though she would swear every time that's where the problems originated. No, it was something inside her head that made her stop. Fear? Anxiety? Lack of commitment? Insecurity? Any and all of the above. But it was more than that. I believe that in some odd way, she needed to be stopped - because failure fulfilled her worldview of what's possible and what isn't. Because - and it sounds obvious but is no less true - that you are only capable of what you think you're ca...

According to the latest figures, the sale of digital books is increasing by around 300% a year - while the sales of real books - hardbacks and paperbacks - is dropping by around 15% a year. You'll notice that I didn't call them e-books - mainly because I know many writers have a knee jerk reaction to the word and just close down - and say, that's not for me and dismiss the whole idea of being published in anything other than paper form. Fact is, the publishers you aspire to impress are beginning to feel the pinch because they too have had the same 'jerk' reaction to digital content.  Unless a movie star buys the rights to a book, like what happened with The Martian! But generally, trad pubs really don't know what to do about the e-book... Trouble is, the new players in publishing like Amazon and Apple - and the thousands of digital publishers already on line - know exactly what to do about it! Do you remember about ten years ago people were s...

Dear Fellow Writer, Watched Scream 4 the other day. I love the Scream movies for that deliberate self consciousness of the genre they use as part of the plot. It's a clever device - a kind of nudge nudge, wink wink at the audience. Instead of: "this is not a movie, it's real life" - Scream goes beyond to: "this really is a movie, about movie cliche, and we both know - and love - it!" Anyway, in between Ghost-face's customary chasing and slashing, the movie explores the role of the Net in our daily lives, pointing out that, in a sense, our generation lives in public. Social networking sites allow us to document the things we do - or want to be seen to be doing, anyway. Reality shows give us the impression everything we do is somehow interesting and noteworthy. But as the killer points out in the final scenes, when everybody is famous, what have you got to do to stand out? And what price do you pay for trying? ...

It seems grammar is an issue for many of us writers. (BTW, I think ' we writers' sounds dumb - and is probably incorrect these days. See below.) Grammar rules often seem to be some kind of closely guarded secret. They must be - because new writers often ignore them or act as though they're irrelevant! Many readers still like good grammar from writers. So, here's a round up of the most common writing mistakes I've noticed recently. Its/it’s Confusing I saw this in a newspaper just the other day. It's is short for 'it is' - and there's no apostrophe needed for its other possessive uses. Formatting Foibles Fiction still needs to be formatted like fiction - with indented paragraphs and definitely no line break between every paragraph. Manuscripts looking like non fiction e-books are roundly loathed by traditional publishers, editors and agents. Comma Clogging Some people use too many commas, some not enough. They...