Leave a little piece of yourself on the page, by Howard Robinson

 I love the movies and, I’ll share a secret, I have always been a little bit fascinated by Alfred Hitchcock; not just for the palpable sense of suspense he managed to create but more for his trademark of always having a background walk on part in each of his films. No matter what the story, you knew as a viewer that there was literally a little piece of Hitchcock in the movie somewhere.

It's not dissimilar with writing. The best piece of advice I was given was to put together the story that I would want to read. Don't try and copy the trademarks of one genre or another, write for myself and tell the story that I want to tell. Not everyone will love it, but more will than won't because it will carry with it an authenticity that is hard to fake.

Authenticity is crucial in good writing. It creates a distinctive voice as opposed to delivering just another me-too novel. And writing should be about the individual, the quirky and the distinctive. All of us at Brit Writers should be looking to give our particular take on the world.

But it requires more than that. It requires the author to leave a little bit of themselves on the page. Sometimes that's tough. It requires us to explore our own emotions, to ask ourselves how we would react to the situations in which we place our characters and in some cases to delve back into our own past and experiences which may be uncomfortable and even painful. But it's worth it. In the book I am currently writing, I am working through an event that happened to me nearly 40 years ago when, aged nearly 8, I was present when one of my friends drowned whilst we were out swimming together.

The event had been pushed to farthest corners of my mind, many of the details suppressed by the subconscious of my eight year old self but I have brought it back to the front. I wouldn’t say it is cathartic necessarily but it is taking me on a journey. The story will ultimately help me make sense of what happened that day, is my small way of acknowledging that friend and keeping his memory alive but, just as importantly, it should provide authenticity in the story telling that would otherwise be difficult to achieve.

I have said many times that I enjoy taking ordinary characters, placing them in extraordinary situations and exploring how they and others would react. To achieve that - if I have achieved that - I have to first do the same to myself. Only then can my voice and the voices of my characters be authentic and can I genuinely say I have left a little piece of myself on every page.

www.howard-robinson.com