Australian paramedic crime thriller fiction writer
Katherine Howell Biography
Katherine Howell was born and raised in Sydney. After leaving school she worked in various jobs, including as an animal handler and bookshop sales assistant, and went to university for a year to study science. Keen for something different she then joined the ambulance service, and spent the next fifteen years working on the road in various parts of NSW. During this time she also studied for her BA and MPhil degrees, both in writing.
‘Frantic’ is the fourth novel she's written; the rest are stashed under her bed, never to see the light of day again. She's also written some articles and short stories, but prefers now to concentrate on novels.
We asked her a few questions about writing.
Can writing be taught?
"It’s an oft-asked question. My feeling is that writing is a combination of art and craft. Art is born in you; craft can be taught. Stubbornness, determination, and stubbornness are also necessary. I wrote four novels in fifteen years before ‘Frantic’ was accepted, and during that time I didn’t know whether it would actually happen. I was determined however to keep working and improving my writing and maybe, one day, just maybe . . ."
What about courses?
"Well, you don’t need them, but I found my BA and MPhil degrees beneficial because they brought me into a community of people who valued writing and reading as much as I did, and gave me feedback and deadlines. For my thesis I studied suspense in fiction, and I learned a great deal that I was able to apply to my work. You can see a version here, or if you have access through a university library to the Australasian Digital Theses Program you can search for my name and see the entire work in all its glory.
"There are plenty of short courses about now - your state writers' centre has details about them, and about competitions and other opportunities too.
"It can be tough to know whether your own work is of publishable standard, and your assessment of it can depend on your mood. On a good day you might think it’s the best bunch of words ever put on paper. On a bad day, you start imagining what a lovely fire the pages will make."
Can you give us some advice/tips/general thoughts?
- on those bad days, don’t go near it. I learned not to try to write, and not to reread anything I’d written, after a busy nightshift. Being so tired I couldn’t see straight did not make for a good sense of quality.
- When you’ve finished a draft of anything -- and good on you, by the way, as most people who set out to write something, especially a novel, never reach ‘The End’ -- put it away in a drawer and DO NOT LOOK AT IT for at least a few weeks, even better a couple of months. It’s hard to wait, because you remember how wonderful it seemed and you’ll be tempted to get it out and revisit that lovely feeling, but when you go back to it after that period of time you’ll see its good and bad points much more clearly.
- Most people’s first works are not up to scratch, publication-wise. You’ll think it’s magnificent, but after you go off and work on other stories, other novels, you’ll come back to it and wonder what drugs you were on. Most novel writers weren’t published until the third, fourth, fifth books. Just as it takes a long time to become a concert pianist, or a pro tennis player, or a brain surgeon, it also takes a long time to learn and improve writing skills to the point of producing a publishable novel. Being able to string a few words together, and having a lively imagination, is not all it takes.
- If you’re aiming for eventual publication, it’s helpful to get the opinions of others. Be wary of asking your friends and family to read your work. Because of their love for you, they will probably all say it’s great.
- A writing group can be a good place to share your work. It’s
smart to find one with the same goals as you, writing the same kind
of work. Your state writers' centre may be able to direct
you to such groups.
The centres also have lists of manuscript assessment services, which charge to read your complete manuscript or a part thereof and give you a professional assessment. Check the qualifications and experience of assessors before handing over your money. - At the very least, read, read, and read some more. Find good books in your genre and pull them apart. I analysed crime novels, asking what made me want to keep reading? How did the author do that? How did she draw all the plot threads together? How did she keep the identity of the bad guy hidden while also laying all the clues out before me? By studying how other books work, you can learn a great deal about techniques and devices to use in your own.
- It’s vitally important to get the first draft down. I have a piece of paper stuck to my wall that says ‘You can’t improve what isn’t there’. Once the draft exists, you can go back over it, see what works and what doesn’t, look for ways to change and improve things. Until then, however, you have only a blank page and some ideas.
- It’s tough. There are days when you think your brain will rupture. A lot of people fancy writing, but really what attracts them is the idea of having written. If you are going to be a writer you need to love it for the joy of working stories out, and putting words down, and going back over and over your work, searching for ways to improve it. On my worst day writing, when I think of all the things I could do brilliantly well if I invested that time I was spending banging my head against the desk, I still know that it will be more than balanced out by the best days when the words just flow, and plot ideas come faster than I can write them down, and links between characters and events and causes in the story pop up everywhere.
- This is why stubbornness is so necessary. You have to be able to keep working. After all, you never know what you might achieve if you keep at it.
- For more advice there are some great blogs out there: I like J A Konrath's site a lot, and while Miss Snark no longer blogs, her archives contain an enormous amount of good and very funny advice. My friend Ian Irvine has written a great article called 'The Truth about Publishing', and another friend Louise Cusack also has some solid advice on her site, and is a highly respected mentor to boot.
- In the book department I like Stephen King's 'On Writing' (there's a great review here), and I also keep going back to Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird (read review). Another good one is Janet Burroway's Writing Fiction (read review) which is less about inspiration and more about the nuts and bolts of writing.
