What To Do With A First Draft
Whether you’ve just smashed NaNoWriMo in record time, or have been slogging out this novel for a decade, reaching the end of a first draft is a huge great MASSIVE flapping achievement. So before you do anything else, if you’ve got to the end of a first draft the most important thing you need to […]
Swipe Right (Write?)
If you only do one bit of writing this week, make it this characterisation exercise from Writers’ HQ
The Story Genius of Moana
If you’ve got (or have ever had) small children in the house, it’s likely you’ve watched and re-watched your fair share of animated movies, possibly to the point where you find yourself singing Frozen songs alone in the car or randomly quoting Finding Nemo at confused retail workers. And while the sixty-gazillionth viewing of the same […]
Turn A Day Out Into A Story
This one goes out to all our parental homies wrangling ankle-biters and grouchy tweens and hyperactive screen-addicted little womb-fruits over the summer holidays (and, like every day). Chances are HIGH that you’re not getting a whole lot of writing time at the moment. Chances are you’re scarfing biscuits in the bathroom just to get two […]
What’s the point?
Another rejection came rolling into my inbox this morning. <le sigh, meh, arg, etc> It’s a short story I’ve sent out a lot, and it’s been rejected every single time. It’s a story I’m actually really happy with, but hey – so it goes – no time to mope. Time instead to give it the […]
Troubleshoot Your Writing: Why Are You Stuck?
Fear not the stickage. Everyone hits a sticking point in their writing at some point. Hitting a sticking point does not = failure. Going through a writing drought does not mean you should give up. Realising your writing is riddled with problems does not mean it’s not redeemable. But before you can move past all […]
Storycraft #6: Ramping Up The Action In Literary Fiction
AKA adventure time for lit ficAKA how conflict doesn’t have to be all FIGHTING AND EXPLOSIONS! Here’s a question we get a lot: “I’m writing literary fiction and nothing really happens – my characters are mostly just standing around talking to each other and thinking about the past – how do I inject a bit […]
Storycraft #3: The Magic Of Scene Summaries
Organise your shit, overcome the overwhelm, and finish your dang book.
Storycraft #4: Suplots Ahoy
How to build a glorious, complex web of subplots to enhance your story…
Storycraft #2: Narrative Voice
Nailing narrative voice is the key to telling a great story – but sometimes it takes time to find it…
