So often, as a writer we post about the art of writing. This is a refreshing slant on adding, as opposed to writing, that still bears relevance to the writer's life.
Mike Wells Official Website: 10 Tips to Enhance Your Fiction Reading Experience...: Here are some tips that may help make your fiction reading experience even more enjoyable. Some of them may be obvious and well-known, but ...
Monday 10 November 2014
Tuesday 17 June 2014
Poetry
I've been ultra-busy these last few weeks, what with the day job being full-on due to the rollout of a new project as well as myriad writing projects to juggle. Oh, and family life to be a part of as well! Where do we get the time? I've been working on numerous short stories, including one for an anthology of selected works by a group of indie authors (more on that very soon), as well as having two novels on the go. It's a fine line to balance it all, I can tell you.
Anyway, my bi-monthly writer's group is a great way of letting off steam and connecting with other writers for a couple of hours. During the last meeting, we were discussing Japanese poetry and its various forms. I'd heard of Haiku, even knew a little bit about it; Tanka, on the other hand, was completely new to me. It's a poem composed of 31 syllables, arranged in 5 lines: 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables, 7 syllables and 7 syllables. It sounds really easy until you try it.
We were set an exercise and given one word to use - as a theme, title, inspiration or within the poem - and asked to produce a Tanka. Oh, and the time limit was ten minutes!
So, off I went, cogitating. To my surprise, I produced 2 poems within the ten minutes - I don't claim that they're masterpieces, but they were well received. I found that having such a tight, proscriptive set of rules focussed my mind and allowed the words to flow. I was also writing I've always enjoyed and found to give me a more immediate sense of connection to the words.
So, here they are. The word I was given was 'Journeys':
and
Anyway, my bi-monthly writer's group is a great way of letting off steam and connecting with other writers for a couple of hours. During the last meeting, we were discussing Japanese poetry and its various forms. I'd heard of Haiku, even knew a little bit about it; Tanka, on the other hand, was completely new to me. It's a poem composed of 31 syllables, arranged in 5 lines: 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables, 7 syllables and 7 syllables. It sounds really easy until you try it.
We were set an exercise and given one word to use - as a theme, title, inspiration or within the poem - and asked to produce a Tanka. Oh, and the time limit was ten minutes!
So, off I went, cogitating. To my surprise, I produced 2 poems within the ten minutes - I don't claim that they're masterpieces, but they were well received. I found that having such a tight, proscriptive set of rules focussed my mind and allowed the words to flow. I was also writing I've always enjoyed and found to give me a more immediate sense of connection to the words.
So, here they are. The word I was given was 'Journeys':
Wave
Water leaks from shore
Cold and lonely deeps
Shoreline out of reach
Salted spray and white-tipped foam
Endlessly journey onward
and
Wind
Cold wind stirs the leaf
Without pause, a breath of life
Flutter in the trees
Light and soft, caressing breeze
Never still, a restless touch
Monday 7 April 2014
Point of view
I joined a writing group last week, after struggling with a bit of stagnation in my writing. I wouldn't call it writer's block, as I still managed to churn out a reasonable word count; the problem was when I re-read it, it sounded dull and wooden.
Part of the writing group involved the usual prompt to create something for the next meeting. It was a list of seven words and a brief to write either a piece of prose or a poem using five or six of them.
I tossed a few ideas around, and scrapped them all as dull and clichéd, before trying something new.
I set out to write a deliberately short (i.e 1,000 words or less) piece of flash fiction. The major difference was in my choice of point of view. For this work, I chose to write in the second person. Voila! My fingers flew, the ideas came and in just over an hour I had a coherent story of exactly 1,000 words.
After leaving it for a few hours, I had a re-read and tightened it up, managing to get it down to 950 words. I do plan a second re-write, as I think it would benefit from some more tweaking - I need to change a few details to better fit the story, I think - but it was remarkably clean for a first draft.
Using this point of view (and its not a commonly used one) was quite constrictive but this seemed to enhance the creative flow rather than hinder it. It forced me to re-evaluate the way I used the language, and enforcing a short word count also helped add to the story's punch. With no spare words for padding, I had to ensure that every word would count.
I would recommend everyone try using a different POV to improve their writing, and pick one that is not a mainstream choice. So, no first/third-person. You could try first-person present, second person (as I did), or any of the others. (Do a quick search online; you'll be surprised by just how many options there are!)
Or you could choose something other than a person for your POV. A murder seen from the point of view of a knife, perhaps? Difficult to pull off, I think - I'm not a fan of animals or non-sentient objects being major characters generally - but doable. And the point is to get yourself thinking about the language and how you use it.
If you really want a challenge, you could combine both and write for an unconventional protagonist from an unconventional point of view!
So there you have it. Give it a whirl, you might be surprised at the results.
Part of the writing group involved the usual prompt to create something for the next meeting. It was a list of seven words and a brief to write either a piece of prose or a poem using five or six of them.
I tossed a few ideas around, and scrapped them all as dull and clichéd, before trying something new.
I set out to write a deliberately short (i.e 1,000 words or less) piece of flash fiction. The major difference was in my choice of point of view. For this work, I chose to write in the second person. Voila! My fingers flew, the ideas came and in just over an hour I had a coherent story of exactly 1,000 words.
After leaving it for a few hours, I had a re-read and tightened it up, managing to get it down to 950 words. I do plan a second re-write, as I think it would benefit from some more tweaking - I need to change a few details to better fit the story, I think - but it was remarkably clean for a first draft.
Using this point of view (and its not a commonly used one) was quite constrictive but this seemed to enhance the creative flow rather than hinder it. It forced me to re-evaluate the way I used the language, and enforcing a short word count also helped add to the story's punch. With no spare words for padding, I had to ensure that every word would count.
I would recommend everyone try using a different POV to improve their writing, and pick one that is not a mainstream choice. So, no first/third-person. You could try first-person present, second person (as I did), or any of the others. (Do a quick search online; you'll be surprised by just how many options there are!)
Or you could choose something other than a person for your POV. A murder seen from the point of view of a knife, perhaps? Difficult to pull off, I think - I'm not a fan of animals or non-sentient objects being major characters generally - but doable. And the point is to get yourself thinking about the language and how you use it.
If you really want a challenge, you could combine both and write for an unconventional protagonist from an unconventional point of view!
So there you have it. Give it a whirl, you might be surprised at the results.
Friday 14 March 2014
The next book
I've spent the past few weeks working hard at the day job and researching various subjects for my new book.
My next book deals with witchcraft and ghost in a small village in the remote highlands of Scotland. The initial idea seemed fine to me; however, when I started to research the Scottish witch trials of the 1500s, I discovered that they had all taken place in the Lothian region of Scotland, I.e. the lowlands. Many frowns and head scratchings later, I had a brainwave - the lack of highland witch trials could be used to develop the plot.
All seemed to be going well until I realised that I was spending more time researching stuff and creating copious notes. I know from experience that this approach to writing doesn't work for me - research, yes; detailed plotting, no. As a result, I became bogged down in the
So, I put the notes away and took a few days off, worked on something different for a week. Over that week, it's become clear to me where I've gone wrong. I've thrown out a lot of plot lines, some of which I've no idea how to resolve. The last couple of days, I've been editing the first draft (at least, the 20,000 words or so that are written) and cutting ruthlessly. I've got it down to about 14,000 words now and it reads much better, the prose is tighter and doesn't wander. Moreover, I can now see how I want to progress the story. Is it how I originally envisaged it? No. But does it feel right? Most definitely.
I'm hoping to really plough on with it and have the first draft finished in the next couple of months or so. Once it's finished, I'll compare it to my notes to see just how far off the track I was. For now, I'm going back to my golden rule: write, write, write. Research as and when you have to, but for God's sake, keep writing!
My next book deals with witchcraft and ghost in a small village in the remote highlands of Scotland. The initial idea seemed fine to me; however, when I started to research the Scottish witch trials of the 1500s, I discovered that they had all taken place in the Lothian region of Scotland, I.e. the lowlands. Many frowns and head scratchings later, I had a brainwave - the lack of highland witch trials could be used to develop the plot.
All seemed to be going well until I realised that I was spending more time researching stuff and creating copious notes. I know from experience that this approach to writing doesn't work for me - research, yes; detailed plotting, no. As a result, I became bogged down in the
So, I put the notes away and took a few days off, worked on something different for a week. Over that week, it's become clear to me where I've gone wrong. I've thrown out a lot of plot lines, some of which I've no idea how to resolve. The last couple of days, I've been editing the first draft (at least, the 20,000 words or so that are written) and cutting ruthlessly. I've got it down to about 14,000 words now and it reads much better, the prose is tighter and doesn't wander. Moreover, I can now see how I want to progress the story. Is it how I originally envisaged it? No. But does it feel right? Most definitely.
I'm hoping to really plough on with it and have the first draft finished in the next couple of months or so. Once it's finished, I'll compare it to my notes to see just how far off the track I was. For now, I'm going back to my golden rule: write, write, write. Research as and when you have to, but for God's sake, keep writing!
Thursday 16 January 2014
Genre
I've been thinking quite a lot recently about genre. More specifically, about how difficult it is to define the boundaries of genre. When does one genre become another? Is it possible to write a book that fits into more than one genre and appeals to fans of both?
Take the films Alien and Star Wars. One of them is definitely horror (Alien) and the other is Sci-Fi (Star Wars). Yet Alien is more grounded in the realities of science than Star Wars, which I've always fondly seen as a kind of Cowboys and Indians film that happens to be set in outer space.
My own novel Nanobite is a horror story at its core, but it is underpinned by quite a lot of science, some of which is grounded in reality and some of which was extrapolated from the facts available now. Yes, I made a few things up, but they were educated guesses based on the current level of science.
So, does this make it a horror story with sci-fi underpinnings or a work of science fiction with elements of horror?
This is where things get difficult. So many books cross multiple genres, or mix them (with varying degrees of success). Twilight is a fantastic example - it successfully melds YA fiction with elements of horror. It was so successful they invented a whole new genre of paranormal romance to categorise it.
I could list lots of permutations. Crime/supernatural blends seem to be becoming very popular at the moment; whether this is just a passing fad remains to be seen.
The question is, will blending genre fiction alienate die-hard fans of one genre who wouldn't normally read other styles? On the whole I don't think it will (although there will be those who refuse to read outside their preferred genre); I think people will embrace this expansion, and along the way discover new and exciting authors that they'd never previously considered.
Take the films Alien and Star Wars. One of them is definitely horror (Alien) and the other is Sci-Fi (Star Wars). Yet Alien is more grounded in the realities of science than Star Wars, which I've always fondly seen as a kind of Cowboys and Indians film that happens to be set in outer space.
My own novel Nanobite is a horror story at its core, but it is underpinned by quite a lot of science, some of which is grounded in reality and some of which was extrapolated from the facts available now. Yes, I made a few things up, but they were educated guesses based on the current level of science.
So, does this make it a horror story with sci-fi underpinnings or a work of science fiction with elements of horror?
This is where things get difficult. So many books cross multiple genres, or mix them (with varying degrees of success). Twilight is a fantastic example - it successfully melds YA fiction with elements of horror. It was so successful they invented a whole new genre of paranormal romance to categorise it.
I could list lots of permutations. Crime/supernatural blends seem to be becoming very popular at the moment; whether this is just a passing fad remains to be seen.
The question is, will blending genre fiction alienate die-hard fans of one genre who wouldn't normally read other styles? On the whole I don't think it will (although there will be those who refuse to read outside their preferred genre); I think people will embrace this expansion, and along the way discover new and exciting authors that they'd never previously considered.
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