Balancing Show and Tell Writers often hear the advice we should show, not tell, in our writing. I like to strike a healthy balance between the two. But how can we show our characters more effectively? Let’s take two examples: ‘Get out,’ he said angrily. The first example is a classic example of a tell. …
April heralds the first Camp NaNoWriMo for 2023, and I’m giving it a miss. Why? Because, personally, NaNoWriMo never works for me. The Deadline I’m not against deadlines. I enjoy the adrenaline buzz those short periods of stress can propel me to achieve. Except, it doesn’t work like that with my writing methods, and combined …
For me, writing is a lonely activity. It’s paradoxical to think I spend long periods in solitude, writing about made-up people and their social interactions with other made-up people. Am I missing out on experiencing interactions with real people? Or am I learning more about myself and the human condition through the writing process? Imagination …
Our ego is similar to a fictional story. It is our perception of ourselves in our reality. We write out the parts we feel do not matter to the overall story, and anything which doesn’t align with the narrative is skewed or ignored. This article is about taking a step back and viewing our lives …
Read more “Using your editing skills to check in on your mental health and rewrite your own story”
What is Polarity? Polarity is something with two poles with many degrees of separation between them. One pole cannot exist without the other. Duality holds a similar meaning, but instead of being seen as the poles of one thing, each is its own separate entity. Let’s take the example of good and evil. Duality sees …
Scrivener was a game changer for my writing process. Before, I confined my stories to word processing programs like Word or Pages, which became a struggle when I clocked over a hundred thousand words in a single document. Scrivener puts everything into one place. Moving a scene is a simple drag and drop. It contains …
Beta Readers are invaluable to writers. They put their trust in them to read and critique their work. So what have I learnt since becoming a beta reader? 1) Stick to guidelines and deadlines Writers should give you guidance on what they want from you. Ask first if they would like you to offer help …
Read more “Five things which have helped me become a better beta reader”
Twitter has a wonderful writing community. I think the best part is the hashtag prompts. Take #vssnature, which I host, as an example. The aim is to write a tweet-sized very short story (vss) on the prompt word. I limited this prompt to nature words, but there are other daily and weekly hashtag prompts to …
Read more “Exploring Your Writing Through Twitter Hashtag Prompts”
The easiest way to approach geography in world building is to cut it down into three sections: The physical structure of the world, The climate, How the population affects and is affected by 1 and 2. You don’t need a geography degree to design a plausible landscape. By focusing on how your characters affect and …
Religion is a significant part of world building in fantasy because every society has its own origin story. Even in places where the popularity of religion is fading, it still heavily imprints on society. It is the story of creation and how your characters perceive how they fit within it. Developing a framework Getting the …