This week on the blog, I thought I’d discuss planning a mystery novel. As often happens in my writing craft series, it’s no coincidence I’m basing it on something I’m working through at the moment! As you might have seen, I’m writing a historical mystery romance project this year for NaNoWriMo. (If you’re unfamiliar, check out this blog post about NaNoWriMo I did a couple of weeks ago). To give you a flavour, it’s set in the late Victorian era (I
It’s NaNoWriMo time again! Where writers from all over the world flex their typing fingers and prepare for frenzied word sprints and quite possibly a few late nights. If you’re unfamiliar, NaNoWriMo (Nano for short) stands for ‘National Novel Writing Month’ where participants from all over the world commit to writing everyday throughout the month of November. The goal is to have a 50k word novel by the end. It will be my fourth time participating in Nano so as you
This week on the blog, I thought I’d talk about editing – another in my writing craft series. Specifically, at what stage in the writing process to start editing or rewriting your WIP (work in progress). I’ve been controversial about this recently. In the last couple of weeks, I seem to be entering the editing mindset. I haven’t even finished the first draft yet! This might well go against the grain of lots of writing advice. There’s the common adage ‘write
This week on the blog, I thought I’d talk about inciting incidents, the latest in my writing craft series. It’s not a coincidence that I often end up blogging about things I’m trying to work out in my own writing as I look again at the beginning of my novel. What is an inciting incident? An inciting incident is the main event that kickstarts the narrative of your story. It might be your main character receives word that an unknown relative
This week on my blog I thought I’d talk about writing groups, the latest in my Writing Craft series. I recently joined one on Google Hangouts, most of whom I ‘knew’ virtually. It’s been great to connect with them and I’m sure my writing is improving already as a result. The other writers are based in the US so while it is mid morning their time, it’s mid- afternoon for me here in the UK. This has worked out really well
This week on the blog, I thought I’d talk a bit about tension. This topic isn’t entirely of a coincidence- it’s been a pretty dramatic twenty-four hours for me! Yesterday evening, I along with much of the rest of the world watched the football. England reached the final of a competition since 1966. Tension ran high as Italy and England battled it out neck-and-neck before Italy finally won on penalties. Then, my emotions ran much higher this morning when our dog
This week in my writing craft series, I thought I’d talk about handwriting. Writing technology has developed a lot in the last century – even now I’m writing this blog post on my laptop, directly onto my WordPress site. However, I’m not sure I’ll ever move on from the simple joys of handwriting. I love jotting down ideas in my notebook and also writing things in my planner to organise my goals and writing progress. Here are some reasons why I
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
Hi all! After asking for some feedback, it seems people would be interested in hearing about my journey as a writer and bits about the writing process. So today, I thought I’d share with you a common rule of thumb for writers – to ‘show not tell’. Simply put, ‘show not tell’ is about building up a scene in a reader’s imagination. You don’t simply tell someone something, but you allow the reader to experience it for themselves, putting them right