Tag: writing tips
How to Break Up with your Novel
To begin with, let me clarify: I don’t mean abandon your novel; I mean separate yourself from it. This has to happen eventually. For better or worse the novel you’ve written will come to term, and it will have to live (or not live) on its own, away from you. There may be any number […]
Six top tips for writing historical fiction
I love writing fiction set in the Twentieth Century. My first book, The Separation, published by Penguin, takes place during the 1950s, the second The Tea Planter’s Wife, Penguin 2015, explores the 1920s and 1930s and the third kicks off in 1940s Vietnam when it was part of Indochina. Here I share the tips I’ve […]
5 Writing Rules We Break!
Rules schmules! Call us rebellious, but when it comes to writing, we think some rules were made to be broken. Never start a sentence with a conjunction. So I have impeccable grammar, if I do say so myself. The basics, I like to proudly declare, I’ve pretty much got down. It’s versus its. There, their […]
Act, React and Interact
To avoid too much ‘telling’, characters should be allowed to act. This means they’ll react and interact, as well. Different characters react differently to the same incident, to external conflicts or stimuli, to internal conflicts and to each other Let’s look at the following passage: Joe squinted against the sunlight dancing on the lake, wiping […]
How do stories come to you?
We asked on Twitter, you answered! How do stories come to you? Do you visualise them or do you actually hear the words? — Women Writers (@WomenWriters) July 28, 2014 @WomenWriters like movies playing scene by scene, sometimes just a line or two, or a location, a name or a feeling in my gut #amwriting […]
Writing Tips: 10 Mistakes to avoid
Joanne Harris, @Joannechocolat, is one of our favorite authors on twitter. If you do not follow her yet, you should! We collected ten of her writing tips from last week: Today’s #TenTweets continue my series of tips for writers. Today, it’s Ten Mistakes To Avoid. And yes, I’ve made them all at one time… — […]
Recent Comments