I hope the New Year has been kind to you all so far.
Today I’m welcoming writer Linda Lewis to the blog. Linda is a very successful womag (woman’s magazines) writer, and she’s now branching out to give the benefit of her experience to others.
Welcome to Carol’s Corner, Linda.
For any readers who are unfamiliar with your numerous successes with the women’s magazine (womag) market, please tell us a little about yourself and your writing?
I live in Exeter, sharing my house with a lodger and some fish.
I sold my first story to Take A Break in 1998. Since then I have sold about 600 stories to a variety of magazines. It’s been my main source of income since 2003.
I switched to fiction after the death of my husband in 1997. I found I was quite good at it so I stuck with it. Before then, I had various ‘proper’ jobs and wrote, mostly non-fiction, in my spare time.
You’ve recently co-launched a new website Vanda ‘N’ Linda’s Write Space, so how did this collaboration come about?
Vanda lives in Cornwall. We met when I won one of her short story competitions with the theme of a modern day fairy tale (my story was an updated version of Snow White, told in epistolary form). She called to say I’d won, we got chatting, and that was that.
Our partnership came to an end when I moved away, but now I am back in Devon, it made sense to start working together again. Vanda prefers the admin side to judging or giving feedback and critiques, while I love the judging process and find giving feedback, so we are a very good fit.
What will writers discover when they visit the Write Space?
As well as advertising our books and running prize competitions (some free to enter, others not) the website offers tips, advice, courses and feedback. We wanted to offer an affordable service, delivered by people who knew their trade.
I was a tutor for the Writers Bureau for a while and really enjoyed it. I have also run workshops and courses for organisations including Swanwick Writers Summer School and NAWG.
Now that I don’t go away so often, I wanted to continue teaching people. Vanda already offered courses so adding my own made sense.
The first course went live a few weeks ago and is about writing stories with twist endings which is one of my specialities.
If there are any areas people would like to see covered in courses, if they get in touch, I’ll see what we can do.
Among the writing services you offer there’s a quick crit of short stories that have been rejected by the womags*; what will the writer gain from using this?
The website offers a general feedback service for writers of fiction. Prices vary according to word count, but the quick crit idea was mine.
Whenever I judge competitions, I hate it when a story misses out on a prize due to simple or basic errors and I can’t tell the writer what was wrong or how to fix it.
Apart from The People’s Friend who go out of their way to help writers by offering feedback, it’s rare for short story writers to find out why their story wasn’t accepted. The £5 quick crit tries to fill that gap.
Sometimes the author DOES know what’s wrong. A fiction editor may have told them that the plot was thin, or the characterisation wasn’t strong enough. I have a knack of being able to read other people’s stories and see how they can be improved.
If I can, I will suggest different endings or extra plot strands, in short, anything that might help the writer improve their chances of making a sale.
Stories can also be rejected when there’s absolutely nothing wrong with them. For example, it might simply be that all the Christmas slots have been filled; that kind of thing. Again, it helps to know that it’s not the fault of the story - it’s just bad luck.
Too many writers get ONE rejection and give up with a story. Our attitude to rejection affects our success. Rejections, and I must have had thousands, still hurt me, but I get over it. I have another look at the story, Can I change it? Maybe I can lengthen or shorten it and send it elsewhere? And if I’m lucky enough to get feedback, I will almost always rewrite and re-sub.
When there were a lot more magazines taking fiction, I could send a story out five or six times before I gave up with it. Even then I might reuse the basic idea.
* I have been fortunate enough to have a one off trial of Linda's quick crit service and it's good value. Linda identified the main issues with my rejected short story- sent to Woman's Weekly a couple of years ago- and suggested possible routes I could consider when I rewrite. And I will rewrite it and submit it again.
Thank you for answering my questions Linda. I'm sure the website and quick crit service will be a success...
You can find Linda's books on the website, and via Amazon where you can discover them on
her author page.
If you're interested in any of the competitions, books or the new critique service then pop along to
www.vnlwritespace.com
If you're on Twitter you can follow Linda @writingiseasy