Writing your Manifesto

What does a novel have in common with a General Election?

In case it’s escaped your notice, we have a General Election coming soon (for those of you outside the UK this is a quaint biannual British tradition that gives us something to talk about other than the weather for a few weeks). It set me wondering whether General Elections have anything to do with novels. I came up with a few things: each political party publishes its manifesto in the weeks leading up to an election. This is a set of promises to the electorate that the party undertakes to implement if they get to govern the country. People become angry if those promises are reneged on and want to hold the party to account. So where is our manifesto as writers? Partly it is the classification of the book – readers would be understandably confused if they bought a book from the Historical Fiction shelf which turned out to be a Psychological Suspense novel (although it’s a post-modern trope to write books which defy genre classification, most publishers still prefer to signpost a book’s category clearly to readers). Other ‘manifesto’ aspects are the title, cover and blurb. Often these decisions are made at editorial level, with the writer having minimal control. Where we do have control however is the first few pages. These set out our stall – our manifesto if you like – where we make promises to the reader as to what kind of book they can expect. A good writer will present a cast of memorable, relatable characters, will write in a style that is clear, fluent and powerful and create settings that can be clearly imagined. If we make those promises at the beginning we must keep to them throughout or our readers will feel cheated.

Like potential governments we are subject to budget constraints, only with us it isn’t money but words. Different genres tend to attract different word counts: Historical fiction might be 100,000-150,000 words whereas YA might be 40-60,000 words. When I signed a contract with my publishers, I was required to match the length of my first book (100,000 words) with my second. Writers have to be disciplined and keep to ‘budgets’ ensuring the events unfold evenly and there is no unnecessary padding.

Political parties, especially those forming governments are also required to be accountable – and so are writers: accountable for the accuracy of their research, the continuity of events, the consistency of character and dialogue. All these aspects require ‘fact checking’ in order to maintain our integrity and reader confidence.

I could go on… but then again, I’m not a politician so hopefully I know when to stop! Whatever the outcome on Thursday, I hope we end up with a government that places a high value on reading and the need for fair priced books. That certainly gets my vote!