The Magic in Magical Realism
Proving how certain genres defy definition, here’s my fourth attempt to define the magic in magical realism.
I struggled so much with this, I’m leaning into the Masterclass definition: …
Writing
Using Transition words
Using transition words in your text can help you enhance the readability. Used well, these words help your text flow. They show the relationship between phrases, sentences and paragraphs. They demonstrate how thoughts and ideas are connected. …
Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing
From a master of crime fiction, Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing carry a lot of weight.
Leonard began his career writing Westerns before turning to genre crime fiction. Popular and prolific, his bestsellers include Glitz, Get Shorty, Maximum Bob, and Rum Punch. More importantly, Leonard has standing with the literary crowd. …
Final-Third Frenzy
The notion of final-third frenzy comes from a Reedsy webinar The Top Suspense Novel Pitfalls. Taking the broad category of suspense novels as more complex forms of fiction, there’s a lot can go wrong in engineering the plot and structure. …
Seven Deadly Fears of Writing
What’s been stopping you from producing that magnum opus? From the opening of Jurgen Wolff’s 2007 Your Writing Coach, what follows is our take on his Seven Deadly Fears of Writing; those fears that stop would-be, and even some professional writers getting on with the job of writing.
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Outlining a book
Outlining a book? Why not? Sixty, seventy, eighty thousand words or more. That’s your typical novel. Somehow you have to get to there from a blank page. Unless you’re an accomplished free-writer, that’s where an outline can help.
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Planning a Series
I set out to write one book and found myself planning a series. I’m defining a series as a number of stories linked by shared characters or settings. Simple, enough? Wrong.
There are different types of series. Oh, goody. Planning a series just got more difficult. …
No Story without Conflict
It is a truth universally acknowledged, there is no story without conflict. Unlike the opening of Pride and Prejudice, this one happens to be true. Go ahead, argue with me.
Conflict is the crux of storytelling and plotting. Every novel thrives on conflict. Therefore writing conflict is pivotal to crafting a compelling story. Without conflict, there is no drama. Without drama, there is no story. …
Tips from a Screenwriter
Listen to tips from a screenwriter for TV and movies Jeremy Brock. The co-creator of BBC’s Casualty, writer of Last King of Scotland, Mrs Brown and Brideshead Revisited) appeared on BBC World Service Radio to talk about screen adaptations.
Brock discussed adapting novels and fact-based projects for film. …
Unreal Reality in Fiction
Ever considered the unreal reality in fiction? Fiction isn’t reality. Contemporary stories and fantasy stories exist in different planes of reality but there’s a lot of gray areas. Philosophers and scientists debate the very nature of reality all the time. What is ‘real?’ …