This week on the blog, I thought I’d talk about trying new genres, or writing different genres. From posts I’ve seen in the #writingcommunity on Twitter, writing in different genres seems a bit controversial. Some writers say the more genres the merrier, whereas others say it is good for an author to have one focus and one way to build up your market audience. It seems to be a mixed bag, too, for whether publishers will accept an author’s work in
This week on the blog, I review the book ‘Of Shade and Shadow’ by best friends and sisters-in-law Niamh and Rebecca Schmid. It is their debut novel, published in December 2020. The Plot This fantasy novel starts with a bang a year after a great war has devastated the world. Astra, princess and sister to the king, struggles to recover from dark events and the gift she is not sure how to control. Soon Astra is forced to travel to the
This week on the blog I review this wonderful book. It is New York in 1899. Diva Ella Shane is an opera singer famous for playing ‘trouser roles’ – playing the male leads. When the Juliet to her Romeo drinks real poison at the end of a performance, at first everyone believes it’s an accident. However, after a dashing duke comes all the way from England with unanswered questions, Ella starts to suspect foul play. This book has been amazing from
Today’s blog will talk about the real history of Rheged, where my historical fiction series is based. I originally posted this back in 2018, but it didn’t transfer when I set up this new website. When I first wrote it my second novel was in the process of publication and I had just started work on the third. The week before Christmas I finished my second round of major edits on my 3rd historical fiction novel. As I’m now proofreading it
Way back at the start of 2020, I set my goals for the year in this blog post. This is probably my last blog post before 2021 so I thought it would be a good time to reflect on how many goals I met! Here were my goals: 1. Finish first round of edits of my historical fiction novel I actually met this goal all the way back in March, just in time to start prep for Camp NaNoWriMo in April
For this week on the blog, I thought it might be time for another post about the writing craft – this time talking about dialogue. What makes ‘good’ dialogue in writing? It can be a tricky balance of things to achieve. Aptly, the subject of dialogue sparks much debate. Should ‘said’ be used after most dialogue, or is mixing up better (eg muttered, murmured, replied, asked answered, etc)? How much should writers use ‘action beats’? These are lines describing an action
For this week’s blog post ‘Where in the World?’ I thought it would be fun to discuss worldbuilding. To put it simply, worldbuilding is the construction of the world that characters inhabit. Depending on the genre, this might be another realm or a different planet, or it could be a small village in the south of England. Wherever you put your characters, developing that world means building the space that they live and breathe and interact with one another. Here are
The discussion around plot-driven writing vs. character-driven writing is an important one, so I thought it could be a fun topic to think about. If you’re unfamiliar with the terms, here’s a quick overview: Character-driven writing is when the heart of the story is all about the character. Their story, how they relate to others and to the world and the decisions they make, to the point where if a character changed a decision or acted in a different way, then
The process of writing a novel can be almost as unique as the story itself. There are three broad categories a writer might fall into – a plotter, a ‘pantser’, or someone who is a bit of both. At the end I’ll let you know which one I am and how that has shaped my approach to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, an online event in November). Plotting is fairly self-explanatory – a plotter outlines everything until they are sure where
It was quite a few years ago when I first fell in love with the Lake District. I had just started at Lancaster University (incidentally this was where I met my husband) to study Linguistics. I was soon invited on a trip to the Lakes with some friends from church. I had never visited the Lake District before, but I was instantly bowled over by the huge stretch of Lake Windermere, with towering fells in the distance. I have gone to