Cheryl Burman's Blog: Blog posts for readers and writers, page 43

Writing prompt: picture prompt

Join in my daily writing prompt! I don’t promise to respond to them all myself, but will try my best! Mine are posted the following day.

The house was well behind him. Only the crunch of his boots pressing into the swept ice of the track distracted from the silence which embraced him. His breath misted before his staring eyes – hazy plumes of white, wet, cold smoke.

Not the hot, grey smoke of the fire which billowed above red gold flames. He had stood on the white lawn, watching, listening....

Writing prompt: ‘Head high, she swept out of the room …’

Join in my daily writing prompt! I don’t promise to respond to them all myself, but will try my best! Mine are posted the following day.

Head high, she swept out of the room. A second later, head even higher, she swept back in, snatched up the money and was gone again.

Jenny glanced at Peter, a smirk on her postbox-red lips. ‘I knew she’d take the money.’ She saluted him with her champagne flute. ‘So much for the holier-than-thou attitude.’

Peter returned the smirk. ‘We’ve got her now. Boun...

Writing Prompt: ‘Half the names on the list ….’

Join in my daily writing prompt! I don’t promise to respond to every one myself, but will try my best!

‘Half the names on the list had already been crossed off.’

The stranger’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. Hannah had noticed the grimness of the man’s smile when he passed her as she returned from the dairy. He had been riding slowly through the mud of the rutted track, accompanied by another who carried a leather satchel.

Not many moments had passed before Abigail scurried through Hannah’s ...

Multiple POVs – good idea or not?

What are POVs?

Point of view (POV) characters are those through whose eyes the story of our novel is told. We are in their heads, seeing what they see, hearing what they hear and so on.  (And to find out about Deep POV, have a read here.)The question is: how many such characters should we have, and how should we ‘share’ their points of view across the book?

My own POVs

I’d never given a great deal of thought to how many POV characters I should have in my books, until River Witch. ...

And then she fell by Dreena Collins

My monthly newsletter book reviews can be found on my Reviews of what I’m reading page. But as I read more than one book a month, I leave other reviews here on my blog. They also get posted to Amazon and Goodreads.

Dreena Collins is a master at contemporary short stories where she picks at the veneer of outward behaviour, layer by layer, until the raw pink skin of truth is revealed. Now she has taken this talent and successfully turned it into a psychological thriller in And then she fell.

Cat...

The House of Many Lives by L K Wilde

My monthly newsletter book reviews can be found on my Reviews of what I’m reading page. But as I read more than one book a month, I leave other reviews here on my blog. They also get posted to Amazon and Goodreads.

A thoroughly enjoyable read to take you through a rainy day. It starts with the all too common but much-loved trope of a young woman, Kate, being left a house in her grandmother’s will and finding this the perfect chance to drag her mind away from pining after the self-centred bast...

Blood and Dust by JC Paulson

My monthly newsletter book reviews can be found on my Reviews of what I’m Reading page. But as I read more than one book a month, I leave other reviews here on my blog. They also get posted to Amazon and Goodreads.

Blood and Dust is a western fiction novel, which isn’t my thing, although I was an avid watcher of cowboy shows as a kid. But as a reader and an author, I make sure I stretch myself occasionally and pick up a book which ‘isn’t my thing’. And (this is not always the case) I was very...

Roots of Rookeri by Crispina Kemp

My monthly newsletter book reviews can be found on my Reviews of what I’m reading page. But as I read more than one book a month, I leave other reviews here on my blog. They also get posted to Amazon and Goodreads.

Boody, the orphaned nephew of the Elect of Raselstadt, is happy being a playwright and producing his plays in Rookeri Gardens to entertain the people. Eshe is content when her father, the judge, decides she will become judge in his place and not need to marry, and he has just the r...

Six plot devices explained

I admit I only had a hazy knowledge of what a plot device is when I decided to write this post. But that’s why I write them – to learn myself and in the process help other writers.

As I do more and more these days, I reached out to Twitter’s #writingcommunity and asked them what they thought these creatures of the writing craft are, and to give some examples. At the end of the post there’s a link to an hilarious YouTube video making huge fun of one particular type of plot device. Thank you to @Ut...

My review of A Father’s Gift by Paula Peckham

My monthly newsletter book reviews can be found on my Reviews of what I’m Reading page. But as I read more than one book a month, I leave other reviews here on my blog. They also get posted to Amazon and Goodreads.

Having read and very much enjoyed Protected, Paula Peckham’s first book in the San Antonio series, I was delighted to follow Abby and Manny into this new period of their lives and to bring you my review of A Father’s Gift.

They are married, and about to become parents. It’s a joyful...