At the beginning of the year, I published my Year in Review and Goals for 2018. Last year I checked in every quarter, but this year I’m just doing a mid-year check-in due to the fact I’m publishing fewer blog [...]
What is it about the semicolon that is so alluring to writers? Is it because it feels like a sophisticated punctuation mark – more advanced than a full stop or a comma – and therefore the mark of a sophisticated [...]
Description is the seasoning that flavours a story. It’s the smattering of details that prevents your novel feeling bland. In the same way that just the right amount of carefully selected herbs and spices can bring a dish to life, [...]
I run my own editing business. So unlike when I used to work in a publishing house (and could slack off and still get paid the same wage every month), the more I work, the more I earn. And let’s [...]
Deciding what kind of writer you want to be is important, but it’s not something most fiction writers think too deeply about. I’m not talking about deciding whether you want to write novels over short stories, or if you want [...]
Metaphors are powerful weapons in your writing arsenal. (See what I did there? That was a metaphor.) A thoughtfully written metaphor used in just the right place will help you create vivid, original prose – the kind that makes readers sigh in [...]
We can’t know the future, but it can be thrilling to speculate about it. Expanding population, climate change, technological advancement, corrupt governments, divided social classes … Follow the trajectory of any one of these current issues and it’s not hard [...]
A synopsis is a one-page summary of your novel, used to demonstrate your story-crafting skills to a literary agent (or publisher). Most publishers don’t accept manuscript submissions directly from authors, so if you’d like to follow the traditional route to [...]
It’s still the first half of January, so hopefully I’m not too late in putting this post together. I mean, New Year’s isn’t the only time we can reflect and set intentions, but I do like the fresh-start feel a [...]
Every novel needs conflict, and every novel needs antagonistic forces. But this doesn't mean you need a villain (a person who actively sets out to thwart the hero). No; conflict, challenge and opposition can come from all kinds of places, [...]
