GENRE.

I know many of you have not yet decided what you are writing, in terms of genre. Fine. But many of you have. I would like everyone to think at this point about a genre novel no matter whether it is something you ultimately want to write or not because the skill in writing within a genre is one well worth acquiring.  Of course in many senses any genre novel is no different from any other - you should write as well as you know how but avoid pretentious or 'fine writing', study the best practitioners within the genre, avoid cliche and too many adjectives at all costs. You need to learn how to sustain a narrative line and how to engage the reader from the beginning. But a genre novel well done is a fine thing and your TTD is as follows.

First choose your genre. CRIME. SPY NOVEL. HISTORICAL NOVEL - and within that you can have a sub-division of HISTORICAL CRIME (very popular at the moment) or HISTORICAL ROMANCE. CHILDREN`S NOVEL - for the 9 and overs. FANTASY and FAERY.

If you have another you are passionate about choose it but I am absolutely no judge of Science Fiction.

Now...write ONE PAGE or at the very most two, from your chosen genre. Not the opening page, not the last page.. something from somewhere in between. I want to read it and know what kind of book it is from what you have written, I want to feel involved straight away, I want to know you can write well and I want to want to read on - back to the beginning and on to the end.

This is quite a tall order. I am asking you to send me something from a work which may not even be 'ongoing.' But you have to make it so for the purpose of the TTD.

 Send in when you are ready if you wish to, to the usual e-mail. I stress 'if you wish' as no one following this course has to send me anything.  I will make some notes later about the genres and post them up too. But for now, what you should be doing for a long time is 1. Thinking and 2. Reading.  There`s plenty of time for the writing.