Fair warning; if you have not seen the film or read the book, you may wish to leave now because I will spoilify you. The new adaptation of Stephen King’s classic 1986 novel IT is likely to be the highest grossing film adaptation of King’s work to date. Directed by Argentine film director Andy…
Category: Writing
Looking at Both Sides – Adventures in Co-writing and Historical Fiction
Around the end of September 2015, my friend, historical fiction and non-fiction author, Matthew Willis, said the immortal words ‘Hey, does anyone want to write a book about the battle of Hastings with me?’ (I’m paraphrasing but that really was the gist of it.) I hadn’t studied anything to do with the Norman Conquest…
Throwback Thursday: Tales of York, Volume One – How to write a Sentence
You might be looking at that deceptively simple title thinking, but everyone can write a sentence. Well, yes, illiteracy aside, everyone probably can. The point is to write a sentence that grips people and makes them want to read on. To write sentences that create sympathy between your audience and your characters. Used correctly…
Throwback Thursday: A Perfect Dystopia
(First published on my old blog, 24th October 2013) One of my favorite forms of genre fiction is dystopian fiction. The word Dystopia is of greek origin, coming from two words meaning ‘hard land’. It was used in answer to Thomas Moore’s coined term ‘Utopia’ from the book of the same name. While a Utopian…
Throwback Thursday: Tales of York, Volume one – Plot and Character
(First Published on my old blog, 28th October 2013) By now I wouldn’t blame you if you were thinking, ‘just how long can she go on about York FoW13? It was a month ago!’ And you’d be right in as far as no amount of blog posts can recapture the experience of going yourself. That…
Throwback Thursday: Tales of York, Volume one : The Sci-Fi Master Class
(First published on my old blog, 18th October 2013) High time I continued with my York FoW13 chronicles. Only a fairly short one tonight, as this was one seminar where I think you had to be there. Gary Gibson, well known science fiction author of Angel Stations and Stealing Light (amongst others), took the Sci-Fi…
Throwback Thursday:Tales of York, Volume One – Lovers, Buddies and the Tragedy Paper.
(First published on my old blog, 7th October 2013) The first seminar I attended at York FoW13, was ‘Lovers and Buddies; 7 steps to friendship and romance’, by Jeremy Sheldon. I’d never been to a writing seminar of any kind before. In fact any seminars I usually attend have horrifying medical slide shows attached, so…
Throwback Thursday: Harnessing Demons
(First published on my blog, 3rd October 2013) I’m bouncing this post off of a conversation I had at York. A man I met on the first night was telling me about his crime novel. Naturally I won’t divulge details – for one thing that would be unspeakably rude. For another who wants to be…
Throwback Thursday: Self-Editing and Humble Pie
(First published on my blog 14th August 2013) I can honestly say that I’ve never left a scathing, personal review for a book. (Occasionally I have left a harsher review if I feel the author has cheated the reader or propagated something harmful with their words.) That’s not to say I haven’t thought personal comments, I just…
Self-Publishing Success with Joanne Phillips
Last month I took part in The Writer’s Workshop Self-Publishing Success course. I have a lot of respect for Writer’s Workshop – they provide advice, resources, help and opportunities for writers from all walks of life. Being part of that community has smoothed my path no end. But even if I were not an active…