Here’s a great piece about plot-building from editor supreme, Teresa Nielsen Hayden: The Evil Overlord Devises A Plot. The article was written twelve years ago but hasn’t dated at all. It’s specifically for writers of science fiction: some of us might have trouble translating the plot devices into our preferred genre, but it still gives…
Category Archives: writing
Do You Write Flash Fiction?
If so, you might want to sign up to this. Nik Perring’s flash fiction course. He knows what he’s doing, and is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met online.
How To Write Sex Scenes
Just as with anything you write, it’s important to make your sex scenes credible. I’ve blogged before about Stacia Kane’s great little book, Be A Sex-Writing Strumpet, which provides excellent, detailed advice for writing sex scenes which are not only credible but compelling; but if you want a quick primer you won’t find better than…
What Publishers Want
I read this on Twitter a couple of days ago and I really like it. It’s so simple, and yet it answers so many questions. Isn’t that fabulous? Now all we have to do is write those books.
How Dreams Come True
Catherine Ryan Howard has written an excellent post in which she discusses how our chances of getting a publishing deal are not equal: Right now, the self-publishing evangelists would have you believe that it’s easier to get struck by lightning in the jaws of a shark while holding a winning lottery ticket than it is…
Getting Published Is Not Enough: Part IV
This is the fourth and final part of an extended version of a talk I gave at the Festival Of Writing in York this year: you can find the earlier parts here, here and here. f 11) What happens if your book gets nothing but rejections? a) Remember that most writers don’t get their first…
Getting Published Is Not Enough: Part I
On March 26 2011 I appeared at the Festival of Writing in York and talked about the importance of being published well. This is the first part of an extended version of my talk: the three remaining parts will appear here over the next few days. : 1) As new writers, we often focus only…
Real Writing Jobs? I Don’t Think So
Someone called Kaley Tuitele recently left a comment on another thread on my blog in which she sang the praises of this website, which apparently pays her to leave her poorly-punctuated spammy comments full of spelling errors on blogs like mine. She claims to write “content articles” too: I do hope none of them are…
Where To Start?
As regular readers will know, I often read things on the internet which leave me (almost) speechless. But this one is a doozy and I have the lovely Sally Zigmond to thank for it, as she put up a link to it on Twitter. It seems that someone is selling a story on eBay. And…
The Speech That All Writers Need To Hear
Oh, this is a lovely one. Every writer needs to read it. Especially if you’re not yet published despite all sorts of good feedback and positive comments. It brought a lump to my throat as I read it, just as Nicola Morgan’s heartsong post did when she first sent it to me. Read it, have…
Happy New Year! And How To Get Published
Well, here we all are feeling very mildly tired and perhaps just a little headachey, looking forward to all the joys that 2011 will bring us. But I always find it a little intimidating to have a whole new year stretching out before me, all clean and sparkly and bright, knowing that I am once…
Amazon Gives Authors Access To Nielsen BookScan
Yesterday it was announced that Amazon is going to provide access to Nielsen BookScan to all authors who have signed up to its Author Central service. By the magic of the internet, writers will now be able to see their sales mapped out in Amazon-blue and white. I suspect this will only work for US…
NaNoNoNo!
Now that November, and with it NaNoWriMo, is over, literary agents all over the world are bracing themselves for a surge in submissions which will almost all be just a little bit (trying to think of a tactful way to put this…) STINKY. The problem is that there are an awful lot of NaNoers who…
Talli Roland Takes On Amazon!
I first met Talli Rowland on Twitter, and then at a couple of the RNA parties I’ve been to since. She’s a gorgeous woman, a fabulous writer and a lovely friend to have. Today, Talli is taking on Amazon, hoping to push her debut novel The Hating Game up the best seller lists, and here’s…
The Writers’ Workshop Festival Of Writing
How could I have not mentioned this before? The Writers’ Workshop Festival Of Writing, which takes place in York next March, is now open for bookings. I plan on attending Saturday’s keynote address from literary agent Carole Blake and publisher Patrick-Janson Smith; Emma Darwin’s sessions are bound to be brilliant because I don’t think she’s…
Writers’ Rights: Right?
As we’ve learned lately some people wrongly assume that work which is available to the public, particularly on the internet, is “in the public domain” and therefore available to be reproduced any way anyone likes. This is not true: there are very particular laws regarding copyright, which we are all meant to follow; and it’s…
How I Got Published: Nik Perring
We all know Nik Perring. He’s a good friend and an even better writer, and I’m thrilled to be able to hand my blog over to him for today. First off, I’ll apologise in advance if this is either boring or unhelpful or both. But my route to publication was, compared with the routes of…
How I Got Published: Tom Vowler
Tom Vowler is a writer of extraordinary talent and perception. His first book, The Method: and Other Stories is published by Salt today. I was a late developer. Middle set of English at school. No love of children’s classics, no shelves in the family home bursting with literary delights. Until my mid-twenties books, like mortgages…
Dealing With Your Inner Editor
I love it when my writing is going well: but when that little nagging voice starts up, telling me all the things I’ve missed out and tripped over, I lose my sense of flow. The words tangle up and slow down, and very soon that lovely feeling of writing effortlessly is lost–sometimes for days. Here’s…