Multi-million selling novelist Tony Parsons explained his tips to writing a bestselling book ahead of his talk with SJ Parris at the Hay Festival on Friday.
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Tony Parsons made his start in journalism at NME in the Seventies, covering the evolution of punk music. A much-loved columnist for GQ and the Sun, he has since been making his name as a mainstream author, first with the bestselling and award-winning Man And Boy in 1999, followed by a series of novels covering the experiences of thirtysomething men.
Read more: Tony Parsons' The Slaughter Man is utterly terrifying
His latest novel Die Last, out now, is the fourth in his series of gripping crime novels which follows Detective Max Wolfe's investigations in the murky world of human trafficking.
Set in a contemporary London, scarred by the historical memory of Jack The Ripper, the Kray Twins and other nefarious characters, the DC Max Wolfe series explore half-forgotten areas of the UK's criminal past, such as Newgate Prison and the Black Museum in New Scotland Yard, where the Metropolitan Police keep relics of centuries of brutal crimes in the country's capital.
How do you write the first sentence of a novel?
“I write the first sentence of a novel on New Year’s Day. And that’s all I do, that’s my job for the day on New Year’s Day. Of course you can always change it, but I think it’s a nice way to start the year. It’s not much to come up with, it’s just a sentence. The first line in Die Last, “The first thing they took was her passport”, that sets everything up. You give it the seriousness and the importance that it deserves. A great first line is really important. And it gives you the confidence I think to go and write the first 1,000 words.”
How do you write a logline or a structure for a novel?
“I think you should have a clear map of where you are going. There is a theory that writers are either gardeners or architects. We either have this master plan to begin with (architect) or we’re making it up as we go along. And I think the best is to be both an architect and a gardener. You should work your book out in advance, even if it’s just in your book, but then because it takes a year to write, you have all the time in the world to improvise.”
When is the best time to write?
“What works best is the wee small hours, the silent part of the night. I start as early as I can. After breakfast. I work well early on. But I’ve got responsibilities, I’ve got a daughter and a dog, and I’ve either got to walk my dog or drive my daughter to school. I know I will get to a stage where Dan Brown is at, who gets up at 4.30AM and just writes. Before the world intrudes upon you.
“The world is always pulling you away from writing, and that’s why I like to shut everything off. Writers are very interested in how other writers do their business, and Georges Simenon, who wrote the Maigret books said he used to check with everyone that they were ok: his wife, his mistress, his sons, his daughter, he used to check that everything was alright and then he’d say ‘alright, now leave me alone.’ You need to do that.
“It’s a selfish act writing a book. You are cutting yourself off from the world with no guarantee. You just don’t know how a book is going to do. So it’s a supremely selfish act, but it’s enormously rewarding when you get it right. But there’s always voices telling you to jack it in.”
What should you do to get your first novel published?
“When I was 16 I wrote to 100 people saying ‘I’m from a working class background, and I don’t know anybody who is in publishing, or any authors, and I don’t know anyone in the media world, what do I do?’
“I wrote to novelists, I wrote to TV presenters - I don’t know why I wrote to TV presenters! - I wrote to everybody I could think of, and only one person wrote back to me and that was Keith Waterhouse, who was a fantastic novelist, columnist and playwright. He wrote back to me saying ‘Dear Tony, get an agent. Love Keith’.
“That was it. Such a fantastic piece of advice because it was telling me, ‘be a pro’. An agent is never going to take you on unless they think that money can be made, money for you, money for them, money for the publisher. It was such a fantastic piece of advice. That was the toughest thing that I ever did. It took two years going from zero to getting an agent. After that it’s much much easier to find a publisher.”
What is the best way to write a cover letter?
“It should be brief, because all these publishers have slush piles of manuscripts. You shouldn’t just write one, you should write a dozen. You should be going for an agent before you go to a publishing house, and you should write a dozen letters. They should be one page. Get it right. It should be personal, you should find out who it’s going to, it shouldn’t be any of this “Sir or Madam” stuff. A paragraph about you, a paragraph about your book, and a paragraph about why they should read it. Keep is personal, it takes a bit of research to find the right person but it’s worth it.”
Don’t give up
“Through the Writer’s and Artists Yearbook, I found out who represented writers that I know. My agent represents John Le Carre and other big writers, and his roster is probably full, but there are young agents starting all the time and coming up who are looking for tomorrows hits. And I just plugged away. Write to a dozen people, get rejected. Write to another dozen people, just not hear from them. The whole thing, the key to it all is that it’s an act of will. You have to keep going. When JK Rowling was sitting in that Starbucks in Edinburgh and she’d received rejection letters from every publishing house in London, bar one, the smart thing to do was give up. The smart thing was to stop banging your head against that wall. And it’s the people who don’t give up that succeed. Even now there are people who said I was rubbish 20 years ago. You have to take that on the chin, above all you have to keep going.”
Should you write a book in a month?
“You should find your own pace and you find out what works for you. A lot of writers as they get older, they slow down a bit. Stephen King doesn’t write as many words a day as he did a few years ago. I find it easier for me to speed up because I find it more of an immersive experience writing if I’m writing quickly, going back day after day after day. You have to give everything the time it deserves. There’s no correct time limit, but it all has to have the time it deserves. You have to re-read it, you have to re-read it again.”
Tony Parsons only shows his book to two people
“I only show the book to two people. My editor and my agent. They’re the only people. I don’t think you want lots of opinions. If you’re serious about it, if you’re serious about making a living as a writer, then you have to trust your own voice. You can’t be arrogant.
“There’s no place for hubris and you have to be honest with yourself, but you have to think ‘you’re on to something here.’ Sometimes a book sells millions, and it’s not your best book. I think everyone on the bestselling list deserves to be there, but I think there is an element when you get these big runaway successes, there’s an element that you got the six balls on the lottery.”
Don’t spend all your time on Twitter
“When people tell me, ‘wow what you said about, what you said’ on Twitter, if I’m trending on Twitter I won’t be curious to know why I’m trending on Twitter. I don’t spend longer than five minutes a day on it. If I’m spending more than five minutes a day on it, that’s a lot for me. Because I’m writing six books in six years. I just can’t afford the distractions.
“These distractions will come to seem very old fashioned to us. I think in 50 years people will look at putting their thoughts down for nothing on social media for hour after hour, I think that will come to seem as old fashioned as smoking or drunk driving. I’m trying to get there a bit ahead of the curve.”
Tony Parsons’ most challenging book to write
The most challenging book for me was The Murder Bag, because there was no contract, there was no guarantee that I was going to sell it. There was no guarantee that anybody was going to be interested. That’s one of the toughest things to take on board for new or older writers, the world is not necessarily waiting to read your book. You have to grab their attention. Especially in the age we live in.
I had a lot riding on that book, I wouldn’t have died, but our family would have had to sell our house if it wasn’t successful. I do find that when there’s a lot at stake, it concentrates your mind wonderfully. You don’t treat it like a hobby. It’s really life or death stuff.
