With World Book Day just around the corner, we spoke to Adam Macqueen who shared his writing tips to help our pupils ahead of the school's writing competition for World Book Day. 

I started writing what I insisted were “books” at a ridiculously early age – my first, about a dragon who met a ghost, was dictated to my mum when I was four. But it probably wasn’t until I got to QEH, in 1986, and was taken under the wing of English teacher Mr Rowe that I started to think I might really have a talent for it. He gave me a full 25/25 (I don’t know why he marked that way, he was the only teacher who did) for a ghost story I wrote in the third year, and then sternly told me that “full marks doesn’t mean there aren’t things that could be improved” – which is excellent writing advice I’ve tried to keep in mind ever since. 

It must have been the same year that, on a lunch hour in the school library, I picked up the first copy of the satirical magazine Private Eye that I had ever seen, and was incredibly pleased with myself for understanding the joke about a politician that was on the cover. A decade or so later I arrived at the Private Eye offices for a two-week work experience placement, and I must have done something right because I’ve been there as a journalist ever since, working alongside editor Ian Hislop, who I’m pleased to say is exactly like he is on the telly. 

That’s just the day job though. I’ve also written five non-fiction books and two novels – actually, that’s not strictly accurate, those are just the ones I’ve had published: there are two complete other novels, dozens of short stories and countless bits of other projects stashed away in boxes and on hard drives around my house. I can’t stop writing. I don’t want to stop writing. It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do, and I get to do it as a job! 

The third in my series of Tommy Wildeblood thrillers, following Beneath The Streets and The Enemy Within, should be coming out next year (assuming I manage to finish it). They’re all probably too rude for the school library...

Adam’s three tips: 

1) WRITE.

Seems obvious, doesn’t it? But there’s no point thinking about writing, telling everyone you’d like to write, or rearranging endless post-it-notes on the wall until you feel you’ve got your plot perfected. The only way to do it is to actually sit down and get some words onto the page, or, more likely, screen. Get started with as many words as you can, and you’ll be amazed by the ones that follow. Even if you go back to them later and delete them – and you wouldn’t believe how much deleting you’ll end up doing – the words you put in their place will be even better ones.  

And don’t feel you necessarily need to start at the beginning. That’s one of the hardest parts. As long as everything’s in the right order when you’re finished – and you’ll know when that is – you can start wherever you like, and go forwards, backwards or sideways, whichever surprising ways your story and your characters take you. Start with the most exciting bit. And sometimes that turns out to be your beginning after all. 

2) READ.

Read everything. Read fiction, to see how other people do it. Read non-fiction and biographies, to see how people live their lives, and then steal bits of them shamelessly. Read newspapers, and magazines, and fairy stories and dictionaries and the backs of cereal packets, because you never know what’s going to spark your inspiration, and because even if it doesn’t, it’s all still words that have been put together in a certain order for a reason, and you can try to work out what that reason is. And watch TV in the same way, thinking about how that’s been put together and why someone chose that certain order for those certain words too. Never stop thinking about how stories are told, because that will make you so much better at telling your own. 

3) DO SOMETHING ELSE THAT EARNS YOU MONEY.

Very boring and unromantic, I know, but unless you become J.K. Rowling or Lee Child or Anthony Horowitz – and most of us never do – you’re not going to make your fortune writing books. You probably won’t even make a living out of it (although you can definitely make a life). So be prepared to do something else as well, something you enjoy and which challenges you, but which still leaves enough of your brain free for the important stuff, which is your writing. And one day, you might get to hold a book you’ve written in your own hands, with your name on the front of it. And, seven books in, I can tell you that however many times that happens, it never stops being the best thing in the world.  

A huge thank you to Adam for getting involved and sharing his tips. If you want to hear more from Adam, make sure to follow him on his website https://adammacq.wordpress.com/  

We also spoke to writers Ashley Pharoah, Martin Bright, and James Bailey. We will be sharing their tips soon -- watch this space!