Amid the writing advice about weak verbs and passive voice, there is also a directive to eliminate the is-was verbs.
Is and was are states of being. Sure, they state facts about things that exist. But there’s no doing. There’s nothing active. Nothing happens. There’s no progress, no movement. Nothing dynamic. …
The Style and Voice Summit (13-14 March 2021) takes your writing to the next level and uncovers your true writing voice in this supportive, communal online event. Organised by Daniel David Wallace, this follows the successful 2020 Escape the Plot Forest summit. …
What goes onto our fictional empire-builders’ checklist? This is where essential world-building for culture and setting begins.
In the current fantasy-fiction challenge, our protagonist is in revolt against the Evil Empire de Jour. With inspiration from the Mythcreants blog, here’s a ten-step questionnaire for creating detailed and credible Imperial powers.
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According to Christine Frazier’s Better Novel Project you need twenty characters to start a book. Her post advocates this as an essential kick-starter for pop-fiction. It cites first chapters for Harry Potter and The Hunger Games (19 each) and Twilight (24). Even generalising for genre-fiction, twenty characters in Chapter One seems a bit much.
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Iconic author Kurt Vonnegut’s Eight Rules for Writing Fiction are practical, humourous and endearing; much like the man himself. …
Thanks to a seasonal re-run we’re currently listening to What is a Story? on BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in 2015. Starting with an examination of our early experiences of stories, Marina Warner looks at contemporary fiction in this ten-part documentary.
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Just when I thought I’d seen all sorts, Janet Davies thought as she approached her desk after her coffee break. …
Fiction: Janet Davies and the Asylum Seeker of Kla’ArgRead More »
How many times do you edit and revise, and still wonder how to fix a bad scene in your manuscript. Been there, struggled with that. You don’t always know why it doesn’t work, but that feeling won’t go away. …
Storyboard artist Emma Coats compiled a list on Twitter of Pixar’s twenty-two rules of storytelling. It’s not a new list (2012?) but it does contain some timeless wisdom. So here’s a shameless lift of that list:
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Way back in 2011, the Eventing Standard started a campaign to “get parents reading aloud.
Back then it claimed the reading skills of one in five London parents were so poor they cannot read a bedtime story to their children. …