Most writers come to Hay to plug their own books, but just occasionally one arrives with a more altruistic motive. In the first of two masterclasses to launch the Guardian young critics' prize, Eleanor Updale showed a rare generosity towards her young audience. "I'm going to give you some tips and one trick might may even make homework easer," she said."Yeah!" shouted a small boy in the front row.
Her subject was how to write fiction and the first tip was about getting started. "One of the questions that is always asked and a lot of us suspect it's planted by the teacher is 'where do you get your ideas from?' It's an impossible question because who knows where you get your ideas from. You can get them from anywhere."
To illustrate her point she had picked a 36-word newspaper story about a couple who had just celebrated their 79th wedding anniversary. "They tied the knot in 1928, the same year that Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin." ended the story. "We're going to turn that 36 word story into a 100,000-word novel," said Updale. "Now how are you going to begin?"
"When they first meet?" suggested one child.
"I think it works well to have the middle at the beginning and then go back," said another.
Not necessarily, said Updale. "You're all talking about where to start in terms of the story but you can start with the people. Who's telling the story and what are they like? As they've been married 79 years they might have children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren telling the story."
The fact that a real historical figure had been mentioned appealed to Updale, whose own best-selling Montmorency novels weave historical fact in with her characters' lives.
"Perhaps the husband could have discovered penicillin and Alexander Fleming stole the idea," suggested a girl.
"I like that," enthused Updale. And because he's been dead such a long time you won't get into legal trouble for it."
"I think it would be more unusual if it was the wife who had the idea," said a boy.
By the end of the masterclass, the 36 words of the original news story had developed into a 100-year epic involving medical fraud, a terrible disease, two world wars and a chance meeting that confronts the fraudulent Fleming with the victim of his deceit - not to mention the advent of lightbulbs, recorded music, cars and the first man on the moon.
"But," said Updale, "don't think it will always be that easy. If you get stuck just keep writing. It's much easier to change something that's not right than to start from scratch."
She added that a friend of hers dealt with a plotting problem by writing to letters to himself explaining where he felt he had gone wrong, while her own trick was to change the colour of the print on her computer, "so that I can see where I think I'm writing rubbish".
Eleanor Updale's top tips for writing fiction:
Always look after minor characters: it's almost more important with little characters than with big ones to make them very recognisable. It can be a distinctive name or a peculiar mannerism or a piece of clothing. Avoid the temptation to give them all broken arms or legs.
Think carefully about names: they need to be right for the period and the location and the class of your characters. If in doubt, go to the local graveyard, but remember to look at the year of birth, not the year of death, because that's when their name will have been in fashion.
Think about your reader: sometimes it's more exciting if the reader knows more than the characters, so they know your hero's going off in completely the wrong direction. A good trick is to think of the reader almost like another character in the book.
Don't worry too much about spelling. You can always correct it later.
Only write fiction if you enjoy doing it.
