Love, Death and Magic

 

Three places where the prose slows down: love, death, and magic.

 

Editorial is often about paring things back. It might mean removing unnecessary words, sentences or even paragraphs which seem to slow a story down. It could mean reducing dialogue…

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Writing Sex in fiction: a Complete Guide

When a Jericho Writers blog on 'writing sex' arrived in my inbox this morning, I just knew I had to share. It's written by Jacqueline Silvester, and it answers all those questions aspiring debut authors might feel awkward about asking. 

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How long should a debut novel ideally be? 

The feedback I’ve had recently from literary agents is that they prefer debut novels to be no longer than 80-90,000 words in length. This is because agents know from experience that long debut novels often contain too many characters, too…

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Point of View 

Which POV?

 

Point of view (POV) refers to the angle from which a story is told. To follow are some useful tips and resources for choosing which POV would be best for your novel or short story. 

I - first…

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Film & TV: the influence of visual fiction on novel writing 

Visual fiction and written fiction share many things, including compelling characters, a developed plot with a clear quest and conclusion, and genre conventions (crime thriller, romance, historical or science fiction, for example). Anybody familiar with visual fiction might instinctively use…

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Show Don’t Tell - a Writer's Guide

 

'Show don’t tell' is an important rule for all writers of fiction. Showing rather than explaining things allows the reader to join the dots for themselves, which readers love to do. Showing is vivid for the reader - it unfolds…

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What is Dystopian Fiction? 

Dystopian fiction is a particular kind of science fiction. Whereas science fiction can be about intergalactic travel, off-world adventures, spaceships and futuristic technology, dystopian fiction is always situated on our Earth, ‘somewhen’ in the future. Dystopian fiction is therefore a…

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‘Clunky prose’, and how to avoid writing it 

The expression ‘clunky prose’ is often used by writing coaches and editors. It describes prose which is clumsily written. We’ve all been guilty of using clunky prose at some point, which is why the phrase is so commonly used. Aspiring…

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