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…
Tag Archive: 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…
Brit Writers’ Awards
Earlier this year I began to see questions about the Brit Writers’ Award competitions cropping up on writers’ message boards. Writers were being notified left, right and centre that they had made it through to the various shortlists; very few writers who entered ended up being told that their work hadn’t made it that far;…
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…
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…
The Forest For The Trees
Here’s a charming blog post with lots of talk about cake (I’d much prefer the lemon to the chocolate) which along the way reports about a workshop with Betsy Lerner, an agent of very high repute who wrote one of my favourite books on writing and publishing, The Forest For The Trees. A revised and…
What Are Writers Worth? Part II
Yesterday I discussed why I (and the Society of Authors) think that writers should be paid for taking part in events and not treated as a free resource. That blog post attracted all sorts of attention. Writers, editors and agents linked to it on Twitter; I received a good number of emails about it, both…
What Are Writers Worth?
When I was invited to speak at the Edinburgh International Book Fair (and yes, I’m still boasting about that) I was very pleased to accept the invitation. The EIBF has an excellent reputation; it’s creative and wide-ranging and fun. It paid me a reasonable fee (£150 just in case you’re wondering) and my expenses for…
The Downside Ghosts, by Stacia Kane
I’ve known Stacia Kane online since she was a sweet little newbie unpublished writer, printing her manuscripts on pink sparkly paper and putting a cupcake in with each new submission just to give all those hard-working agents out there a better day.* My, how she’s grown. When I read Unholy Ghosts, the first book in…
The Write Lines: Listen Tonight!
Don’t forget to listen to The Write Lines tonight, between 9 and 10pm, when Sue Cook’s studio guests will be Jacq Burns of the London Writers’ Club, and writers Richard Beard, Lynn Shepherd and the irrepressible Jane Wenham-Jones (who makes a guest appearance here tomorrow—watch out for it). As tonight’s show has been pre-recorded and…
How I Got Published: Tania Hershman
Or, How Tania Hershman Achieved Her Dream and Got A Book Deal 1. The girl reads everything. She reads books through every meal. She finishes the entire section in the library for 8 year olds and moves on. One day, she thinks, she will hold a book with her name on it. 2. The girl…
Short Story Tutorial Continues
I blogged about Sally Zigmond’s brilliant short story course. It’s continuing, and is fabulous and if you’re interested in writing fiction of any kind, I strongly recommend you read it and take part. You can find the first installment, How Do I Get Started?, here; the second, More About Character, here; and the third, called…