To all writers and readers.

Here is my second tranche of writing tips from famous authors for you. Again, they come from some of my favourite fiction writers who create superb stories. Always remember that good stories with an emotional hook also make great copywriting and marketing.

One point about these quotes is that some are contradictory, and they don’t necessarily adhere to my tips. Ernest Hemingway, admired by a couple of these authors, once said: “There is no rule on how to write.”

Here are your quotes, with a bonus tip 6 from J K Rowling, and a PS added at the top of your Christmas stocking.

1. “My tip no 1 is: Get a notebook. You can get the idea of a novel in a short time but then you have to sit down and work at it. While you are working it out you may get more and different and new ideas. It can take a year or two years to work out an idea… We don’t know where ideas come from.” Margaret Atwood, on You Tube with the National Centre for Writing.

2. “I don’t change my mind [about a plot or a character]. I spend a lot of time with characters before I start. I do very detailed plans before I commit to writing… I think obsessively about these things.” J K Rowling on the Graham Norton podcast BBC Radio 2, 1918.

3. "Go where your story leads you.” Stephen King with 10 Tips on You Tube. [Disagreeing with J K Rowling]

4. “Learn from cinema. Be economic with descriptions. Sort out the telling detail from the lifeless one. Write dialogue that people would actually speak.” Rose Tremain, award-winning author of Restoration etc. Lily is her recently published book.

5. “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. I can't allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.” The late Elmore Leonard, aka ‘the Dickens of Detroit’.

6. Finally here’s a bonus quote from Sebastian Barry, the brilliant author of The Secret Scripture, and many others, when asked by the Irish Independent: Do you like starting a new year? he said: “Yes. The year is turning and something is stirring and the seasons are in you for the first time. That's important for a writer.”