Writing Tips from a Top Fantasy Novelist and President of the Society of Authors Tells Us About The Golden Idea - by SC Skillman

I was delighted to find that the Society of Authors are holding a series of webinars during this period of lockdown here in the Covid19 crisis.

Several authors have agreed to participate in this series, and I chose to join one advertised as "Afternoon Tea with Philip Pullman." Afternoon tea itself was, of course, optional. 500 people joined the webinar and judging by their comments many were indeed well supplied with their cups of tea and appropriate accompanying snacks.

Philip Pullman himself, in his Oxford study, had his mug of tea at the ready, and I was delighted to see what an untidy and jumbled working space he occupies, creating his alternative dimensions for Lyra, Lord Azriel, Mrs Coulter, Serafina Pekkala and their daemons to move in.

I found him unpretentious and engaging.  As the author of the immensely popular "His Dark Materials" trilogy, and President of the Society of Authors, all he had to say was supportive and encouraging for authors. When asked what the Society of Authors means for him, he said, "It simply means that I am part of a body of people who have experienced some of the disappointments and hopes and occasional successes that I have."

He shared several aspects of his own writing methods and craft which were very helpful and illuminating. I came away from the webinar feeling energised and uplifted.

He loves maps, and on the wall of his study is a huge map of the world. He was asked if he ever gets 'writer's block' and he said that if he does get stuck, he simply sits there and gazes out of the window or gazes at his world map.  I can well imagine how that would feed into the creation of his fictional alternative worlds. When writing "The Ruby and the Smoke" (one of his earlier novels, which I love) he said he sourced all the maps that would help him.  "You can get ordnance survey maps of streets in London in 1872."

When asked if he plans his novels, his answer was 'no'.

"I don't plan anything at all beyond, 'I think she ought to go north', or 'it would be quite nice if she went to Central Asia'."

I was particularly interested in his remark about how he first got started on "His Dark Materials" trilogy. He already had the concept of the daemons but no idea what to do with it. Daemons (one of my favourite things about the trilogy) may be defined as "the external physical manifestation of a person's inner self, that takes the form of an animal". One day he was wandering in the garden, and close to a rock, when he thought, 'Children's daemons change; adult's daemons don't.'  He told us: "That was the most exciting moment I've ever experienced as a storyteller."

It struck me that this moment exactly corresponded with JK Rowling's description of her first idea for Harry Potter.  She said she was sitting on a train, and she had no pen or paper with her, and suddenly she thought, 'Boy wizard, doesn't know that he's a wizard, gets invited to Wizard School.' And that was it: the thought that started it all.

Two great fantasy novelists, two ideas that came to them unbidden. We hear this story again and again when we try to pin down what we may call the golden idea, the spark that ignites a great piece of creative work.

Here are just three among the many observations Philip Pullman made about the writer's craft:

Q:   Where do your ideas come from?
A:    "I don't know where ideas come from, but I do know they come to my desk; and if I'm not here, they will go away again."

Q:  What advice do you have for a beginning author?
A:   "Write the best book you can, accept it won't be perfect - it's better that you're out there and being read than not at all - and go to your desk at the same time every day."

Q:    Did you have a specific age group in mind as your target audience before beginning your books?
A:    "No. Write what you want to write, as well as you can. Don't think of the readership. Do what you want to do, and ignore everyone else's advice. It's none of their business. When your book's out, it becomes democratic. Then everybody is totally entitled to think exactly what they want to about the book. The conversation between the reader and the book is where the meaning is born."


SC Skillman
psychological, paranormal, mystery fiction and non-fiction
My new book 'Paranormal Warwickshire' will be published by
 Amberley Publishing on 15th November 2020
 and may be pre-ordered here.





Comments

  1. I love that - the 'golden idea'. I suppose it's what people also call 'the hook'. I think I finally realised what this meant when a commissioning editor who was trying to help me told me she'd received a fiction proposal in which 'Three nuns win the Lottery.' She said to me, 'Who wouldn't read that?' I'm not a fan of Pullman's books, mainly because I like to read about real worlds, not fantasy ones, but he sounds as though he has a lot of advice relevant to us all.

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  2. Thank you Fran - I agree the idea of the nuns winning the lottery sounds great. What strikes me about Rowling's and Pullman's golden ideas is that they are quite innocuous in themselves. I don't see why an agent would immediately jump onto the wizard idea as a commercial goldmine. It's what those ideas unleashed in the minds of Pullman and Rowling that made all the difference. For each of us that idea is simply a key to unlock our unique, personal unconscious.

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  3. These are great online seminars.

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  4. Yes Wendy, they are a brilliant opportunity. I understand Roger McGough is next.

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  5. Wow. I especially like point number 3 with which I totally agree. When someone asks me who my readers would be, I just don't know. People who like reading? I found reading this extremely liberating! Thank you.

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    1. Yes I have heard this advice from other successful authors too. "Write what you want to write." Joanne Harris is fond of saying it, in her talks - and I've heard her speak now on several occasions. She too claims that she allows the ideas to spill out and just writes what she wants to write. I think the discipline come at the end.

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  6. Yes, I also found that liberating :'Do what you want to do, and ignore everyone else's advice.'

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    1. And yet, there seems to be a battalion of self-appointed advisers out there, like agents, who feel compelled to tell authors what they want, and what they're looking for, and the types of thing they will consider, which means that beginning authors, desperate to make their breakthrough, have their minds filled with what other people think they should be doing. I hate to think that Philip Pullman' advice is only a luxury for the already-established author.

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    2. It really shouldn't be. With sensible reservations, shouldn't we all write what's peopling our creative minds? What those 'self-appointed advisers' are saying will probably be out of date anyway by the time we bring our great works to a conclusion. And if we write to someone else's formula won't it sound stilted and artificial?

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    3. Yes, what you say makes sense and I have heard many successful authors say this. So it's up to us to have the courage of our own convictions and remain true to our own creative integrity.

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