Yup, it’s official—my new novel, I, is now available in all Singapore bookstores!

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Where to Buy: http://www.goodybooks.com/wheretobuy.htm

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E-book (SG & MY): http://www.ilovebooks.com/ebooks/searchresults/All/All/?q=low%20kay%20hwa#idx=1&sort=

Amazon (Both Print & E-book): http://www.amazon.com/Low-Kay-Hwa/e/B008BMR61U/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

So, you’ve been stalking the cute boy in your class for a few months now. Every day, you log in to your Facebook and view his profile, checking out the new pictures he posts online. No one knows you have a crush on him, for you believe you have not left any trace. However, one day, you forget to log out of your Facebook account. Your friend sees your profile, and strangely, she knows who you’ve been stalking within seconds.

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When I was a boy, my brother and I had a game console, the Sega Mega Drive. It cost a lot for my parents, as we had to rent our three-room HDB flat to eight people, my father worked from 6.00 a.m. to 10.00 p.m. daily and my mother babysat two of my cousins.

You either learn from my mistakes or you learn from your mistakes.

Since consigning my last two titles (For That Day and A Singapore Love Story) in bookstores, the results have been amazing. They got into several bestsellers lists (even national newspaper) and I have gained more readers.

The title might sound arrogant, but I believe I do have the credibility to write an article on how to write a best-selling novel. I’ve been writing since I was seven, published my first novel when I was eighteen and have written ten novels. In addition, my books have got into most bestsellers lists in Singapore, my proudest achievement being The Sunday Times (national newspaper) bestsellers list, along with international novelists like Jodi Picoult and Nicolas Sparks. Since I’ve been receiving more emails from readers on how to be a writer, what’s better than to write a post about the craft of writing? =)

Firstly, we have to put things into context: I am a novelist. That being said, I practise creative writing, and that is very different from what you write in school (except for narrative writing in secondary school). Creative writing is about writing a story—that’s my only interest. I’ve been approached to write non-fiction and rejected all requests.

Now that you know what I write, let’s start: How do you write a great novel?

Writing Process

Firstly, you need an idea for the plot. Don’t settle for a plot that can be summarize in one sentence. If that is so, then it’s a weak plot. Have a plot so unique that people will go, “Wow!” I’ve read many bestsellers, and none of them has an uninteresting plot. Without a strong plot, your story will fail even if you have the best style and language.

Next, with a plot that even impresses you, PLAN. I can’t emphasize this more. Writing without planning is like getting into a taxi without telling the taxi driver where you want to go. Your plan might change as you write (e.g. characters influencing the plot), but even before you write, you’ve got to know what happens next. The difference between a good story and a bad one is usually the lack of planning.

Next, you can write the first draft. You will be surprised to know that writing the first draft usually takes less than 20% – 30% of the entire process. Writing is, after all, merely changing imagined scenes into words. How time-consuming is that? If you can write 500 words in an hour, you just need 100 hours to complete 50,000 words. If we work 44 hours a week, 100 hours is just slightly more than two weeks!

Revision

Next will be the crazy period: revising. If you think your first draft is perfect, then you’re not ready to be a writer. I’ve written ten novels, and my first draft is only comprehensible by myself. After all, writing the first draft means writing anything that comes to me; I won’t be compromised by style, language or grammar. As a dyslexic, my entire .doc is coloured with red dotted lines (wrong spellings). The first draft is usually so raw that in the novel that I’m writing now, I’ve got two scenes with the same objective. So, as you reach this stage, revise again and again. I’ll usually revise it more than ten times, in which I read through again and make notes, before I officially call it the first draft. My friends often say that I should name my very first draft the “raw” draft…which I agree.

How many times should you revise a draft? It depends on how well you want it to be, but remember to set a deadline. As a reference, for my books, I revise at least fifty times; a 100,000-word novel can be cut to 50,000 words. I went through many stages during my revision: getting people to read them and providing me with feedback, doing research, changing the structure and sometimes even changing the entire style. There were times when we had projected a launch date, only to delay it as I realized that I could change a style to improve the story.

For me, I do a lot of research. I am quite a perfectionist (which I think is a little unhealthy), so I make sure I know everything about my characters and the settings before approving them. My latest novel is about human nature, and I practically go through the modules of NUS Sociology course, then learn the modules that are applicable in my novel. In other words, while a person takes three to four years to take a degree and become an expert in that subject, I spent days understanding everything (minus the exams, yippee!). And mind you, it’s not just sociology that I researched. I researched on psychology and criminology too! I read a lot about terrorism, DNA, brain functions…sometimes just for one single sentence that I might delete in the next draft.

Proofreading

As someone doing a degree in English and literature, I’ve learnt things that many might not know. They include the birth of English, the different components of the language (e.g. why must we use the base form of a verb after “to”) and even advanced analysis of Singapore English. However, proofreading is done not just by me, but a team of people who are either Singapore English teachers, foreign English majors / PhD holders and a group of Singaporeans I’ve shortlisted. This term comprises about thirty people. Then, it will be proofread by volunteer readers to spot for any typographical error. All in all, it will be read more than fifty times—and for each time, I’ll have to re-read it.

If you’ve done the maths correctly, I read the entire manuscript another fifty times. This is done because different people will have different views: English teachers disagree with English majors. There is no right or wrong, but a matter of consistency. If you’ve once heard someone say certain English usage is “wrong”, he or she is a teacher and not someone who studies English. Like what one of my lecturers (English PhD, I think) said, “Saying that using certain words are wrong is like pointing to a person’s nose and saying that the nose is wrong.” If I’ve got enough request, I’ll write a post about this =D

As you would see, the process is long. I often get surprised looks from people when I said I took nine months to complete a story. They thought it’ll take just nine days. Come on, that’s children’s book, in which the entire book has got only less than 100 words!

If you’re a Singaporean and have yet to see this video about this argument between a lady and a middle-aged woman in an MRT train, then you should stop working eighty hours a week and start wasting some time on the Internet. Here’s the video for your reference:

Source: YouTube

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A few bloggers, some who have read my books before, were kind enough teach me how to write a blog well. Therefore, from this entry onwards, I’m going to follow their advice!

Recently, I was in a cruise ship’s casino. I saw one woman sitting in front of a jackpot machine for hours. Someone told me that some people believe that they can strike a fortune there; in other words, an overnight success. In reality, we’ve seen stories about people achieving “overnight success”. Is there really one?

Okay, I admit I was focusing on other things, so I just took this picture in my handphone during the trip. And this picture is here because bloggers told me to insert more pictures -_-

I believe there is no overnight success. The founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg seems to achieve that: creating Facebook, garnering massive popularity and becoming a billionaire. However, if you’ve watched The Social Network, a movie about Facebook, you’ll know he spent a lot of effort in Facebook. Not only that, when he was younger, he had immersed himself totally in programming. We only see how Facebook grows rapidly, but not the countless hours he spent learning how to programme before creating Facebook. Is it overnight success? Could he have achieved this if he had not been crazily passionate about programming, and learning it?

Picture from www.time.com

When my book reached bestsellers lists, several of my friends told me that if they were to write a book, their book would be a bestseller too. Initially, I was defensive, telling them how much effort I had put into my book. Soon, I get used to it. After all, before I was published, I had the same thinking!

Why is believing in overnight success so tempting? When we are faced with a problem, we believe in overnight success as it provides an easiest solution in the shortest time—sometimes, literally overnight. And so, we don’t do anything to solve the problem, choosing to believe in that. This belief is so destructive that anyone who has really achieved overnight success failed overnight as well. Stories of lottery winners going bankrupt are everywhere!

I’ve got several bloggers to review my latest book, and some of them agree on this: their readerships do not come overnight. They spent years building a base of readers, and now, they’re still working hard to provide good content. Are they overnight successes? No! Anyway, here’re some of the reviews:

http://www.lukeyishandsome.com/2012/01/singapore-love-story-low-kay-hwa-review.html
http://pxdkitty.blogspot.com/2012/01/singapore-love-story.html
http://www.rynaque.com/2012/01/qreviews-singapore-love-story-by-low.html
http://mintleong.blogspot.com/2012/01/blog-giveaway-autographed-singapore.html
http://itsthylife.blogspot.com/2012/01/sponsored-review-singapore-love-story.html
http://araphoenix.com/2012-01/a-singapore-love-story

One of the bloggers, Rachell, with her boyfriend. She relates the story with her relationship—it works well, as people are touched by their relationship in that post about A Singapore Love Story!

To conclude, I solely believe that if success is achieved without any long and hard work, then failure will also be short and easy. After all, we tend not to cherish something that can be obtained so easily.

I realize, too, that in order to garner more publicity for my books, I need to work with various non-profit organizations that have been VERY supportive. It is going to be a long journey—from long meetings and planning, but if it occurs overnight, then I won’t cherish it!

My first collaboration is with Singapore Book Council and The Arts House. We are going to have a book launch for A Singapore Love Story (yes, despite it being out since October 2011) in The Arts House on 7 February 2012. To make the event more interesting, we have contests for my readers! Just send us a picture and you may win eight books. Go to http://www.goodybooks.com/booklaunch.htm for more info.

Till then, enjoy the last few days of Chinese New Year!

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This must have happened to you: You decide to recommend a book to your friend who is from a top school. When he sees the book, he says, “Sorry, I only read those ‘chim’ and thick book.” Or maybe one day, you realize that many students from top secondary school read those “chim” and thick books. So what exactly are these books?

The length of a book (thickness) is obvious; after all, it’s tangible, so it is a correct description. However, from both a writer’s and an English student’s points of view, I don’t see books as “chim”. In general, I prefer to use the word “style”. A book that is “chim” merely has a different style. Many factors determine this style! For simplicity’s sake, I will focus on two main factors that you can—from now on—see the word “chim” from a different angle!

Firstly, every single book has a readability index. A readability index is a number to show how difficult it is for someone to understand the prose, based on his or her education. For example, a primary five maths assessment book must have a different readability index from a secondary four maths assessment book. Therefore, a “chim” book, in this example, shows that it merely has a higher readability index. Assessment books usually go through this test to ensure that it caters to the correct student. But how do we determine readability index? There are, once again, many factors (I told you there were many factors, eh!), but these two are the ones that we are most familiar with: Sentences and words.

Sentence is interesting. Do you know one way to determine is that the longer the sentence, the more “chim” it is? For example, in this sentence that I am using that starts with an introductory element, it uses many adverbials to modify many clauses, and in addition, there are many independent clauses, yet with several dependent clauses as well, causing it to appear “chim” yet without using difficult words; this illustrates how our mind subconsciously deems that long sentences are difficult (“chim”), though that is another factor altogether; in case you’re not aware, I am connecting independent clauses together as one long sentence using semi-commas too, so this sentence has yet to end…but ends now! Now, as I complete the previous sentence in Microsoft Word, a green dotted line prompts this: “Long Sentence (consider revising)”. Yup, you’re right: Long sentence equals to “chim”, but it is not recommended!

Next will be word choice. Usually, when one’s writing is deemed to be “chim”, it means the writing consist of many words that a typical reader would not have come across. To some extent, that’s true. But to be more exact, a “chim” writing with “chim” words means the writer uses more precise verbs and nouns! For example, “walk” and “stroll”. “Walk” is a very general word; “stroll” is more precise, telling us how a person walks. You can see that the main difference is how much more precise the verb “stroll” is. Many aspiring writers make a mistake of using very precise verb (or in Singaporean lingo, “chim”). Because these aspiring writers come across the words often, they believe the words are understandable by many. It’s not! My advice is to always use general word first; if it’s too repetitive, then use a slighter more precise one. Don’t let your ego take over readability. The misconception of “using precise verbs is better” is due to how a person learns language (learning the general words before the precise words), and a person is tempted to use precise words to show his or her proficiency in the language. For those who know about this: We’re not talking about concise writing here!

Now that you know what some of the key factors that define “chim” are, next time, should someone tell you that they read “chim” books, just turn to them and ask, “‘Chim’? You meant the readability index is very high, uses long sentences and precise words? I see!”

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