Simon Rose's Blog, page 23
October 6, 2024
The Sphere of Septimus
“Fast paced with vivid descriptions, creative creatures and a suspense filled plot, it’s impossible to put this book down. It is a great read for children who enjoy fantasy and science fiction books. I highly recommend it for both boys and girls. It’s a must read!”
Eric isn’t too happy when he has to spend the summer with his eccentric father, Septimus Trinket, in the backwater village of Middle Wogglehole, deep in the heart of rural Derbyshire.
In the isolated village, however, things are not quite what they seem. Eric meets Jessica, who tells him of the legends and mysterious stories that have surrounded Middle Wogglehole for centuries. When they discover Septimus’ shocking secret, Eric and Jessica are soon fighting for their lives against the forces of evil, in a world very different to their own.
The Sphere of Septimus is available as a paperback and ebook. Learn more here on my website.
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October 3, 2024
Shadowzone – “a great read … Highly recommend this series!”
“Time travel, alternate worlds, and societal sub-cultures are blended into a great plot, and a gripping and relevant read. The environmental stewardship aspect of this story echoes our current day challenges, as do the almost prescient references to a dangerous virus. Characters were well drawn and the reader is cheering for their success. The three books in the series flow smoothly together. A great read for middle school ages and up, to both engage interest and build vocabulary. Highly recommend this series!”
While watching intense flashes of lightning during a violent storm, Ben experiences mysterious and disturbing visions of another world, one very different from his own. In the chain of events that follow, Ben encounters Charlie, a girl from a dark version of Earth, a planet doomed by the effects of environmental catastrophe, where the leaders will stop at nothing to complete their deadly mission.
Shadowzone, along with the other novels in the series, Into The Web and Black Dawn, is available as a paperback and ebook. Learn more here on my website.
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September 30, 2024
Writing Workshops and Study Guides
Writing Workshops and Study Guides
My writing guide entitled Where Do Ideas Come From? examines how my novels The Alchemist’s Portrait, The Sorcerer’s Letterbox, The Clone Conspiracy, The Emerald Curse, The Heretic’s Tomb, The Doomsday Mask, The Time Camera, and The Sphere of Septimus can be used to create workshops and creative writing exercises for the classroom.
These include writing time travel stories, creating superheroes and comic books, inventing imaginary worlds and fantasy kingdoms, exploring fascinating historical eras, imagining future technological developments, and examining ancient mysteries and civilizations.
Where Do Ideas Come From? is available as a paperback and as an ebook and provides suggestions and recommendations for teachers developing classroom projects based on the books.
Please contact me directly if you have any questions or require further information.
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September 28, 2024
The Benefits of a Writing Coach
A professional writing coach is someone with whom you can consult, ask questions and receive constructive feedback. They act as a guide as you build your career as a professional writer. A coach can help you conquer a stumbling block, regain momentum or make a start on a new project.
My program helps you progress as a writer. You decide what you want to work on during a personalized, one on one relationship. I can be your coach and mentor for just one month or we can establish a month-to-month arrangement, depending on your schedule and expectations.
I’m very flexible regarding your own unique requirements in areas where you feel that you need the most help, but examples of topics that can be covered include character development, dialogue and format, editing and revision, story structure and plot, pacing your story, realistic settings, dramatic beginnings, and cliffhanger endings. We can also examine submitting work, the publishing world, and marketing and promotion.
You can also learn more about the writing and publishing process, including where ideas come from and how writers turn them into stories, choosing names for characters, the importance of historical research if your novel is set in a different era, the role of editing and revision, marketing and promotion, and more, in The Children’s Writer’s Guide, The Working Writer’s Guide, The Children’s Writer’s Guide 2, and School & Library Visits for Authors & Illustrators.
The writing of time travel stories and historical fiction is covered in The Time Traveler’s Guide, and fantasy and magic in Exploring the Fantasy Realm. The study guides for my novels are featured in Where do Ideas Come From?
The post The Benefits of a Writing Coach appeared first on Simon Rose.
September 26, 2024
Learn how to write effective and compelling historical fiction
Historical fiction combines the events of the past with characters and stories from the writer’s imagination.
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September 23, 2024
“This book has everything children and this adult love to read about. I could not put the book down.”
Future Imperfect
Andrew Mitchell was one of the leading experts in highly advanced technology in Silicon Valley, until he vanished following a car accident, which also injured his son, Alex.
When a mysterious app later appears on Alex’s phone, he and his friend Stephanie embark on a terrifying journey involving secret technology, corporate espionage, kidnapping, and murder in a desperate bid to save the future from the sinister Veronica Castlewood.
“Often stories that involve cross overs from the future are confusing and lacking in believability. Future Imperfect has none of that. It is well written and will keep the reader engaged.”
“This book has everything children and this adult love to read about. I could not put the book down until I had finished it, as the story kept me engaged until the end. Another great story written by Simon Rose, I look forward to reading his next book.”
Learn more about Future Imperfect here on my website.
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September 19, 2024
How to Write Great Stories for Children and Young Adults
The Writing for Children and Young Adults course focuses on writing for children aged 8 to 14 years. However some of the material also covers older and younger age groups.
Learn how to write effective, authentic, and appealing fiction for children and young adults and how to turn your ideas into compelling stories.
The course explores the writing process from initial concept to finished work including story structure, developing plausible characters and dialogue, the creation of outlines and the importance of research, editing and revision.
Further details, course content, and registration information can be found here.
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September 5, 2024
Call for Story Makers – Author Development Program
Apply to be a Story Maker and work one on one with one of our fabulous Story Coaches. The Author Development Program is now taking applications for Story Makers.
Deadline to apply is September 27, 2024.
#mentoring #awcs #novels #memoir #manuscriptdevelopment #writing #writingcommunity
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September 3, 2024
What’s it all about? An excerpt from The Time Traveler’s Guide
Chapter One: What is time travel?
Time travel is defined as taking place when there is movement between specific points in time. This is achieved in the same way that objects and living things move through space. In fiction, this kind of travel is made possible by the use of a time machine, device, or method. While nothing is carved in stone, I tend to think that time travel involving machinery or some kind of technology should be defined as science fiction while time travel that makes use of magic or similar methods is probably best classified as fantasy. However, these genres frequently overlap, particularly with time travel stories.
Over the years, novels, movies, and TV shows featuring time travel have included methods involving highly sophisticated machinery, scientific laboratories, various items of jewelry, wearable technology, vehicles, ancient artifacts, books, portals and doorways, dreaming, food and drink, and so many more. Time travel stories have featured journeys to the past, the future, and to alternative timelines created when previous events were changed so that they occurred differently, thus affecting what happened next in various different ways. Time travel has long been a theme in books, short stories, TV shows, and movies and shows no signs of declining in popularity anytime soon, although of course only time will tell.
A common theme in time travel tales involves someone being sent into the past by accident. When they arrive at an earlier point in history, the device or machine is somehow broken, fails to operate properly, runs out of power, is misplaced, or is stolen by the story’s villain. The reader is thus left in suspense, wondering if the heroes will be able to return safely to their own time. Of course, the reader most likely believes that the heroes will eventually escape from danger. However, the plot still has to imply that the lead characters might be marooned in the past permanently or that their lives are in jeopardy. In my time travel novels, the main characters always face serious challenges from the moment that they appear to be trapped in a dangerous historical era.
Some time travel stories simply feature an adventure in a different period in order for the characters to experience what life was like. Perhaps the character discovers an old piece of jewelry that sends them back in time when they wear it or adjust it some way. The characters then witness historical events or meet famous people. Many time travel stories concern the consequences of traveling either backward or forward through time. The idea of changing the past, either intentionally or by accident, is a common theme in science fiction and fantasy. When events that have already taken place are altered in some way, what the time traveler knew as the present day has changed when they return home. This might lead to a further adventure to restore things to what’s perceived as normal, depending on the nature of the alterations to the timeline. As you’re probably thinking already, time travel can sometimes be very complicated but the creators of these kinds of stories are aware of the potential issues at the outset and work hard to make their story entertaining, plausible, and realistic. Some stories in the genre concentrate on the paradoxes involved in time travel, such as the well-known grandfather paradox. This is when the time traveler is responsible for the death of his or her own grandfather, meaning that the traveler was never born. If this is the case then how could they have gone back in time to cause their grandfather’s death in the first place? Time travel has lots of issues like this, some of which I examine in Chapter Nine.
Time travel stories involving journeys into the past overlap with the genre of historical fiction. This kind of fiction involves stories that are set in the past. There are no firm rules, but the setting is usually at least fifty years earlier than when the story is written. The setting is a particular period in history and often includes real historical personalities. The story’s main characters are usually fictional, although the social and other conditions of the time are presented accurately. Historical fiction stories usually take place during a significant period in history. In some stories the characters are part of the events taking place but in others the events merely serve as the background to the story. In The Sorcerer’s Letterbox, the story takes place in 1483 and features the aftermath of the Wars of the Roses and the mystery of Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, known as the Princes in the Tower. The princes appear in the story, as does their uncle, King Richard III, along with some other historical characters. In The Heretic’s Tomb, the story takes place during the period of the Black Death in England in the mid fourteenth century. The novel features imaginary characters but also refers to the effects of the Black Death on society, medieval medicine, and living conditions, and to some of the personalities and events of the era. In The Alchemist’s Portrait, Matthew’s time travel adventures take him to Amsterdam in 1666, the French Revolution in 1792, the American Civil War in 1865, and the Russian Revolution in 1917, all of which needed to be portrayed accurately. The Doomsday Mask has scenes that take place in Berlin in May 1945 and the characters needed to fit into that world. In Flashback, Max finds himself in the mid 1990s, not too long ago perhaps, but he still needed to inhabit an environment that’s correctly portrayed. Next, we’ll look at some of the many time travel stories that have appeared in printed form and on screen over the years.
The Time Traveler’s Guide is available as an ebook and as a paperback on Amazon, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, iBooks, Smashwords and many other locations.
The post What’s it all about? An excerpt from The Time Traveler’s Guide appeared first on Simon Rose.
August 31, 2024
The Benefits of a Writing Coach
A professional writing coach is someone with whom you can consult, ask questions and receive constructive feedback. They act as a guide as you build your career as a professional writer. A coach can help you conquer a stumbling block, regain momentum or make a start on a new project.
My program helps you progress as a writer. You decide what you want to work on during a personalized, one on one relationship. I can be your coach and mentor for just one month or we can establish a month-to-month arrangement, depending on your schedule and expectations.
I’m very flexible regarding your own unique requirements in areas where you feel that you need the most help, but examples of topics that can be covered include character development, dialogue and format, editing and revision, story structure and plot, pacing your story, realistic settings, dramatic beginnings, and cliffhanger endings. We can also examine submitting work, the publishing world, and marketing and promotion.
You can also learn more about the writing and publishing process, including where ideas come from and how writers turn them into stories, choosing names for characters, the importance of historical research if your novel is set in a different era, the role of editing and revision, marketing and promotion, and more, in The Children’s Writer’s Guide, The Working Writer’s Guide, The Children’s Writer’s Guide 2, and School & Library Visits for Authors & Illustrators.
The writing of time travel stories and historical fiction is covered in The Time Traveler’s Guide, and fantasy and magic in Exploring the Fantasy Realm. The study guides for my novels are featured in Where do Ideas Come From?
The post The Benefits of a Writing Coach appeared first on Simon Rose.
