Ten Things About Writing: Build Your Story, One Word at a Time

An indispensable guide to the craft of writing and business of publishing from one of our bestselling and most versatile authors.

One-time teacher and bestselling novelist Joanne Harris has been advising and corresponding with aspirational writers for over six years. This collection of pithy and funny lists of advice provides both hard-won wisdom and insider industry help. All aspects of the writing process and story development are covered – as is the thorny issue of how and where to find readers. From Workspaces and Habits to Plot and Dialogue, these are motivating, problem-solving lists from an experienced and widely respected writer.

Uniquely, Ten Things About Writing also takes the reader beyond the stage of finished manuscripts and editorial changes – into the territories of rights, publicity and marketing. Whether you have the urge to write crime fiction or a fantasy novel, literary short stories or blockbuster thrillers Joanne’s lists will speak to you.

About the Author

Joanne Harris (MBE) was born in Barnsley in 1964, of a French mother and an English father. She studied Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge and was a teacher for fifteen years, during which time she published three novels, including Chocolat (1999), which was made into an Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche.

Since then, she has written 15 more novels, two novellas, two collections of short stories, a Dr Who novella, guest episodes for the game Zombies, Run, the libretti for two short operas, several screenplays, a musical and three cookbooks. Her books are now published in over 50 countries and have won a number of British and international awards. She is an honorary Fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, has honorary doctorates in literature from the universities of Sheffield and Huddersfield, and has been a judge for the Whitbread Prize, the Orange Prize, the Desmond Elliott Prize, the Betty Trask Award, the Prima Donna Prize and the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science, as well as for the Fragrance Foundation awards for perfume and perfume journalism (for which she also received an award in 2017) . She is a passionate advocate for authors’ rights, and is currently the Chair of the Society of Authors (SOA), and member of the Board of the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS).

Her hobbies are listed in Who’s Who as: “mooching, lounging, strutting, strumming, priest-baiting and quiet subversion of the system”, although she also enjoys obfuscation, sleaze, rebellion, witchcraft, armed robbery, tea and biscuits. She is not above bribery and would not necessarily refuse an offer involving perfume, diamonds or pink champagne. She works from a shed in her garden, plays bass in the band she first joined when she was 16, is currently co-writing a stage musical and lives with her husband in a little wood in Yorkshire.