If you’re anything like me, working on your novel or short story is always at the bottom of the to-do list. There are always more pressing work matters or other jobs to do first. But what if you could find more time to fit your writing in, guilt-free? With 24 hours in each day, most…
At its simplest level, ‘point of view’ refers to the narrative viewpoint/perspective you use to tell your story. Choosing a point of view should depend on who your narrator is and what their attitude to the story is. For example, if your novel is about a woman who murders her husband, you could tell the…
One of my favourite ways to explain the writing and redrafting process is the sculptor analogy. The iterative revision process between the two crafts is more similar than we might first think. Creating an outline Both the sculptor and the writer create an outline before they can really get down to work. A sculptor takes…
Lots of writers title their novels or short stories early in the writing process. But you’re much more likely to choose a compelling title that reflects your book if you think about this once you’ve finished your first draft (or even your first few drafts). So, make life easier for yourself and start with a…
A line editor and/or copyeditor will pay a huge level of attention to editorial style in your manuscript. And one of the first elements they’ll look at is consistency of style. They’ll draw up a style sheet to help you keep your stylistic choices as consistent as possible. Writers can make lots of grammar, spelling,…
Lots of people who don’t understand what copyeditors do think we’re human incarnations of Grammarly who can’t fix your manuscript any more than an AI tool can. (If I had a pound for every time someone told me I ‘just fix commas’, I’d be rich.) Safe to say, copyeditors achieve a whole lot more than…
We’ve all been there. A member of the Grammar Police has decided there’s a glaring mistake in our writing. They’ve followed a style rule ever since their schooldays and are 100% convinced that any alternatives to their way of doing things are absolutely 100% wrong. But grammar and punctuation rules evolve. There are times to…
Defamiliarisation is the technique of making something familiar unfamiliar. Of approaching a well-known event, subject, or item as though you’ve never experienced it before. When you do this in your writing, you can take something that your readers are familiar with but give them a whole new experience of that concept. This is a handy…
Some writers and editors advise other writers not to worry about their audience when writing. They argue that if you write something that feels true to you, your truth will shine through and others will connect with it. But the issue with this approach is that it forces your audience to remain passive. You never…
It’s now easier than ever to publish our own works. While this is great in many ways, it also unfortunately means that the self-publishing market is overflowing with poor-quality books. Anyone can write a book, but few can write a good one. Would you learn to play the violin without paying an instructor who’s had…