This is the text of a guest post I wrote for Bubblecow as part of the mini-tour for Blame My Brain. I’ve reproduced it here, for all the writers who read my blog.

Voice – what a book “sounds and feels like” – is, essentially, glue. It holds the words together so that the book feels whole and strong; and it holds the reader to the page. If your voice slips, you break the spell that keeps the reader listening. That’s the same for fiction and non-fiction, but there are also differences.

1. Voice gives authority. In fiction, it makes the reader suspend disbelief, summons the authority to say, “You know I made this up but you will believe it as if it were true.” In non-fiction, the authority says, “This is true and you will trust me that it is so.” It is not enough for aspiring non-fiction writers to be expert in their subject-matter. They must also create an engaging voice which feels authoritative not just because of the information but also because of communicative quality of that voice. Because it is, for non-fiction especially, about effective communication.

2. In non-fiction, the writer is allowed to let his or her own voice be explicit. People usually say they hear my voice in my non-fiction but very rarely in my fiction. We are now – though not in previous generations – even allowed to say “I”. In fiction we are supposed to keep our views hidden or at least shroud them subtly within a character’s voice and not show whether we personally speak through that character or not, though the reader may like to guess. In non-fiction, we are allowed to intrude ourselves into the book, not just opinion but also timbre of voice. (This does depend to some extent what type of non-fiction we’re talking about.)

3. Non-fiction is just like talking, but with the leisure to edit our words to be more crystalline than they could be if we were actually talking. My aim is that the audience or readers know what I mean and enjoy listening to or reading it. I know they don’t want me rabbiting on self-indulgently so I search for a form of words that gets the message over and keeps them listening or reading. And I edit ruthlessly, killing my darlings if they get in the way of communication.

4. Moreover, the same elements work in a non-fiction voice as work for public-speaking: humour (when appropriate), clarity, organisation of material, occasional surprise, and eye contact. Yes, I try to feel I have eye contact; I try to imagine that I’m looking and smiling – or frowning, if appropriate…

5. With non-fiction, we must think specifically of the reader. Actually, I do that in fiction, too, but I do it even more in non-fiction. With non-fiction it’s all about getting the message to the reader, and you can’t do it if you don’t have a strong sense of that reader, tune in to their tuning in, know what they want to know and what they already know. Interestingly, for Blame My Brain, the intended readers are teenagers but adults seem to love it, too. But, then, teenagers are not a whole different species from adults and very often enjoy the same books. If I were talking to them face-to-face I wouldn’t do it much differently.

I think the key is being passionate about the subject but being equally passionate about getting the words right so that communication works. You know how people who are passionate about their subjects can often be appallingly boring to listen to, because they are so wrapped up in their subject that they’ve failed to tune in to the audience? And they don’t know when to stop? Well, that! Don’t do it!

And with that, I’ll stop.

I did a radio interview that morning and afterwards was walking along the wooden pathway, minding my own business and soaking up the atmosphere, when I heard fast footsteps clattering behind me. I stepped aside to let the person past and saw that it was a woman and, presumably, her son, aged about 12.

Turned out she was looking for me. “Where’s your book?” she cried, with crazy-eyed desperation. Despite the fact that I’d had a lot of books published by that time, somehow I knew she meant Blame My Brain. I’ve no idea how she knew who I was, but anyway.

By chance, at that moment, I could see the display of Blame My Brain on the other side of the square, occupying a stretch of shelving in the children’s tent. (The original cover was this gorgeously in-your-face-one, which I always liked.) I pointed her towards it.

The woman ran in that direction, shouting to her son, “Hurry! Or we might be too late!”

Now, I assume she meant late for an event, or late for a train, or late for tea with a grumpy aunt, but I had a mental image of her son’s brain, just on the cusp of becoming teenage, and her desperately needing the book before it exploded into adolescence!

Since then, I’ve had so much feedback – probably more emails than for any other book. One woman told me it rescued her relationship with her daughter. The teenage years can be so hard, but understanding what is happening, and why, takes so much of the stress away.

That woman’s son must be an adult now. I wonder if he remembers his mother’s desperation!

So, keen readers among you, can you help me? Can we help these young people become and remain keen and confident readers? This is about reading for pleasure, nothing else. And nothing is more important, reading-wise, tbh.

All these readers are 12 and you can assume that they’d like something fun and quick to get into. But let’s give them quality, eh?

Here’s what they want:

C likes the sound of: spy stories, space travel, books about animals and WEIRD things..

L is looking for: humour, murder mystery, teenage issues, and WEIRD things.

Ch is looking for: teenage issues, vampires, wolves, REALLY scary stuff and friendship. She enjoyed my novel, Deathwatch And she doesn’t mind whether it’s aimed at boys or girls or both. Hooray!

Z wants books with any of these things: ghosts, war, teenage issues, story from the past, gory things, monsters, fantasy, friendship, spy story, horror, dragons and wizards, witchcraft, space, sinister/dark, vampires/werewolves, nasty villains and WEIRD things. He would like a book aimed at boys. And he says he would especially like a book on vampires, werewolves and hybrid vampires and werewolves. Eeeeeeeeek!

So, people, what do you recommend?! (Edited to add: I should have said this before –  writers, please don’t recommend your own books. Also, books must be available in public libraries and/or bookshops, so not ebook only.)

At around 9.30am I’m being interviewed by Kaye Adams on Call Kaye, as a promotional thing for a programme later in the day – Medical Matters. On Call Kaye we will be talking about whether adolescence is more stressful for teenagers or for parents – interesting question! I know what I think. I think. I’ll blog about it afterwards.

People might call in. You might call in… Oh gosh, you so might. Please behave. Seriously. *frowns*

Then, at 13.30, there is Medical Matters, a whole programme on the teenage brain, which I was interviewed for a while ago. No idea what bits they’ll use and I can’t remember what I said anyway.

It’s not often the teenage brain gets a whole programme to itself so I’m looking forward to helping parents and teachers feel more reassured about the whole topic. Who knows, people might even decide they’d like to know even more and they might then buy Blame My Brain, in its lovely new edition, available now…

By the way, I’m also now a blogger for the Huffington Post UK, and have two posts going out this week, one on teenage stress and one on cyber-bullying. I’ll put links up once I have them. It’s very scary doing this, as once you post the article, that’s it. No going back and sometimes the comments can be, erm, trenchant.

Fingers crossed for everything!

By the way, a young friend of a friend, neither of whom I have met but you both know who you are, gave me a fab idea for another brain-related book the other day. I’ve suggested it to my agent and I will let you know what happens!

Edited to add: Just listened. The problem you will find is that you won’t know which bits were me and which were Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, because each time they introduced us in the wrong order, and we were saying the same – mostly because Sarah-Jayne is my main scientific adviser! I’m the one with the lower voice.

Today I’ll answer Avril Luke’s question:

“What does practice makes perfect have to do with our brain and is it ever too late?”

“Practice makes perfect” is an old adage but we now know more of what the brain does that makes it true. We all have roughly 100 billion neurons (nerve cells) in our brains, about the same number as a newborn baby has. (We lose some from adulthood onwards, quite naturally and without harm, and there are also times when we grow some more, but this is not relevant to the practice makes perfect thing.) Now, obviously, a new born baby can’t do very much. But as a baby starts to try to do things (ie practise) the neurons grow branches (called dendrites) and make connections (synapses) with other neurons. (Actually these connections are not connections, but tiny gaps, but the gaps are small enough for the electrical messages to cross.) The more the baby practises, the more dendrites grow and the more complex and therefore reliable the neural pathways.

So, the baby learns to do things, by practising and thus growing connections between cells.

This process never stops. We can grow new connections at any age. It’s not just babies and children but all of us, forming connections between brain cells to make us better at things.

So, it’s never too late. The act of practising and trying (and failing) helps us become perfect by growing connections and strengthening them.

However, we do have periods of our life when learning new things is easier. (Actually, a few skills seem to require to be developed at certain young ages – sight and language, for example – but most skills can be learnt at any age, though with a bit more difficulty when we are older.) The years of childhood and adolescence offer the greatest opportunities for building strong neural networks and then pruning them to be efficient.

Childhood allows us to create the building blocks of certain aptitudes and skills. Adolescence gives us sudden growth in volume of grey matter (neurons and connections) which allows us to perfect those skills. If we try to learn a whole new skill as an adult – for example, a musical instrument – it will certainly not be impossible but it will be harder as we will have to create those building blocks from scratch.

But Dr Gary Small, author of iBrain, explains that it takes only 5 hours of intense practice of a new skill (in adults) to alter neural pathways, proving that no, it is never too late!

I am devising a series of short anonymous surveys aimed at young people aged 13-18. The first one is here. Please take a couple of minutes to fill it in, if you are 13-18. Parents can check the questions first if they wish. I am very careful about my questions and there will be nothing about sex or drugs.

Thanks!

So, why is it that, while writing the chapter in a book I’m writing on teenage stress, I’ve been flooded with messages and emails from parents saying that their school hasn’t helped when incidents of cyber-bullying have been reported?

Why is it that I’ve today been told the following, and more?

“When I contacted her Head of Year she didn’t bother to return my call. … The school has a dedicated Student Support team who are ‘supposed’ to deal with all major friendship issues that occur. … The school’s attitude is that it will all blow over. … Arguments, bullying and gossip is spread instantaneously  around the school and create a ganging up mentality.”

“If a teenager is having an argument via phone or text, they need to take time out to think about what they are saying, rather than reacting instantly to comments and that isn’t really advised by the school, but it should be.”

“Got no help from school so contacted police.”

“The school said it happened outside school hours so it wasn’t something they could deal with.”

“The school said best to ignore it.”

“They said it was just normal teenage behaviour and best ignored.”

So, I’ve created a questionnaire to find out whether this is a common experience. I’m glad to say that the first reply I got did show that the school had got it right and had a clear policy, but the next didn’t. Can you help by filling in the survey? It’s quick and totally anonymous.

I want to trust schools but if too many don’t treat this horrible problem seriously, that’s very worrying. I’d also love to hear from schools, as there may be aspects I haven’t considered here, such as concerns about legal liability. Let’s open a conversation about cyber-bullying.

What do you think and what has been your experience? And please do fill in the survey if possible.

This was a question asked as part of the Blame My Brain competition. I’ve been hectically answering ALL the vast numbers of questions on the blog and FB page and by email but there are a few that I think need a separate answer.

Here was Ali’s:

Hi Nicola,

Do you understand the brains of teenage boys? My 16 year old spends hours playing on the xbox, shouting and swearing at his online ‘friends’ (apparently they do the same to him). I don’t know why he chooses to do something that seems to make him so angry. I’d love to understand him better

This is really interesting in lots of ways and there are several things to think about. First, a word about gender differences. This is something that people get quite angsty about, if someone even suggests that there are inherent differences between boys and girls or men and women.

It is my view, based on an enormous amount of reading of the work of experts, that there are inherent differences. HOWEVER, this does NOT mean that all boys behave one way and all girls behave a different way. It does NOT mean that a girl who behaves in a way more associated with “boy behaviour” is any less female than another girl. And it certainly does NOT mean that we should treat boys and girls very differently or expect them to want or do different things. Humans are stronger than that, stronger sometimes even than the pull of evolutionary biology. I’m not even going to talk any more about this because it’s not relevant to what I’m about to say, for one reason: it makes not a blind bit of difference whether differences are inborn (nature) or created by environment (nurture) because I’m talking about teenagers, who are already the product of their nature or nurture (both, actually) and we can only deal with what we have, not what we wish existed.

So, boys. And anger. (Though girls get very angry, too.)

Testosterone, for a start. The “male” hormone. Gushing through the bodies of teenage boys, turning them into men. Testosterone is the chest-beating chemical, the one that makes them wish to be the best, the alpha male, or at least the best they can be, for not everyone can be top dog – and that’s angrifying itself. Testosterone allows muscle build up, ambition, struggle to win. All good things. In sport (or warfare or trying to dominate a herd) it allows bravery and risk-taking and daring. And with these things come aggression. Or, if not aggression, anger and frustration. It’s a raging bull hormone. And some boys respond more to it than others (for reasons we don’t know, or I don’t, at least).

I don’t think anyone chooses to be angry. Angry happens. Angry isn’t nice, not for the person feeling it or the person seeing it. But I think angry through computer games, or angry thumping a pillow or angry running as fast as you can, are all better ways to be angry than actually doing something bad and scary and aggressive.

Angry is sad but also angry is natural and needs an outlet. It can be shortlived or longer-term.

Allow angry people (whether boys or girls) a vent for their anger. Physical exercise, manic laughter, a crazy evening playing strange games with friends, wrestling, mock fighting, killing dragons and demons. Whatever it takes. Physical exercise is probably the best – running, football, the gym, whatever it takes.

Another vent is talking but sometimes the angry person doesn’t want to talk to the person who most wants to help him. Perhaps there is someone else he talks to? Let that happen and don’t be upset.

The angry person is not angry with the person who wants to help. The angry person is just angry inside. He doesn’t know why. He just is. He is not angry with the world; he is just angry.

And one day, when the hormones have settled, and he has grown into his muscles and his body and his ambitions and his hope and fears, he will be less angry and he will be a man and you will wonder why you worried. Except that you are his mother and worry is what mothers do.

Excessive anger, damaging anger, may need anger management help. If a boy or girl is violent and cannot control that, ask for help from the school guidance department or your doctor, or a psychologist.

Boys. Girls. They worry us, if we care. We can try to understand but sometimes the best we can do is simply to say and think and feel: this is how it is and I love you and am there for you, even if you are too angry to see that just now. And I’ll still be here when it passes.

You could be a brilliant writer and yet be rejected over and over again. A much less skilled and talented writer than you could become published.

You may have noticed that some rubbish gets published. Does it make you bitter? Get over it. I’m a children’s writer and I have to get over the fact that people like Katie Price and Peter André “pen” children’s books. If I can get over that, you can.

It’s not our job to decide whether something is rubbish. It’s up to readers to decide what they want to read and, IF we want to be published, it’s up to us understand the necessarily commercial decisions that publishers make, to understand the full range of what is published and why, to write something that publishers and our desired readers might want and to write it as brilliantly as we can and as brilliantly as those readers want – and readers vary. (Thanks goodness, because writing drivel is far too difficult for me.)

For literary fiction, that will mean one set of things. For deliberately highly commercial books, that will mean another. For something with a celebrity name on the front but ghosted by someone else, that will be something else entirely.

Know the business; know yourself; know your writing. And write the right book – the book you want to write for the readers you believe want it – in the best damn way you can.

So, your thought for the week is this: published writers are not necessarily better writers than unpublished ones; they just managed to do what they set out to do. And some targets are harder than others.