Cheryl Burman's Blog: Blog posts for readers and writers, page 50

September newsletter has gone

September’s By the Letter newsletter went out Friday 10 September.

Among the news and views was my review of A Gentleman in Moscow.

And an interview with author Dreena Collins and her alter ego Jane Harvey, whose debut novel The Landlord of Hummingbird House I recently reviewed (with five stars)

Lots more too, including the ever popular Writers’ Corner.

Browse past newsletters here and sign up below to get exclusive stories and occasional giveaways. (Next month is my birthday, and thinking...

Four stages of novel editing to make your book shine

The draft is done. Yay! Now it’s time for editing.

When I read that someone’s manuscript is with their editor, or they’ve finished their draft and now they ‘only’ have to edit, or they edit as they go, I wonder which of the various types of editing they mean. Often, I get the impression it’s mostly about correcting spelling and grammar.

At the beginning of my own novel writing I thought the same. Now, a few years later, I’ve learned there’s much much more to editing than that. But understa...

Beta readers – what are they and why do you need them?

I’d never heard of beta readers when I (poorly) published my first books, a fantasy trilogy. If I had, I might have held off for a while and gathered a few opinions. For that’s what betas are – people who read your book before you publish it and tell you what works and doesn’t work.

As it was, I essentially re-wrote the trilogy at the end of 2019, taking advantage of a few years of learning the craft and with feedback from my step-granddaughter, an avid reader. (She loves them, but is re-writing ...

The joy of reading to children

Over the last two weeks I was privileged to take part in two local library events linked with the UK’s Summer Reading Challenge. This annual event encourages children aged 4 to 11 to read as many books as possible over the summer holidays. There’s a different theme each time to give them a steer. So far, over 1.5 mio books have been read through the Challenge.

Wild World Heroes

This year’s theme was Wild World Heroes. This made me prick up my ears in a very greedy manner! Our young heroes...

Work in progress and Keepers Amazon+

It’s proving challenging to pick up a manuscript from three years ago and get back into the story and the characters’ heads. But with the help of my two outstanding critique partners, I’m getting there. A little more time would also be good! Subscribers had a peek preview of the first chapter in my August newsletter, out today. Let’s see what they have to say about it. (And so you don’t miss other such previews, and giveaways too, go here to check out past newsletters and perhaps even sign up!)...

Using Deep Point of View to immerse your reader

Point of View (POV) – a general explanation

As writers, we constantly come across explanations of the different kinds of point of view available to us.
There’s omniscient – where the god-like narrator knows everything and tells the reader what’s going on as an independent witness rather than through the eyes of their characters. Essentially, classic story telling and perhaps a post on its own for another day.
There’s first person, very common these days and great for bringing the reader al...

Dragon Gift: ten short stories released 16 July 21

Dragon Gift is a collection of stories with fairytale, myth or fairytale-like themes of varying length and gravity.

‘Lille herself avoided mirrors. They startled her with their frankness: her white froth skin, her too green eyes, sea thrift lips, and hair which shifted and tumbled like the yellow dunes.’ Runner up in Graffiti Magazine 25th anniversary short story competition 2020

Quietly being released into the wild, Dragon Gift e-book is available from 16 July from Amazon.

It’s been fun pu...

Guardians of the Forest free on Kindle 9-12 July

The happy news of the weekend!

What people are saying about Guardians of the Forest:

This book trilogy comes under children’s books but as a grown up I am thoroughly enjoying getting caught up in Cheryl Burman’s fantasy story.

We follow the adventures of Sir Tristan, Callie and her brother and sisters as they face down greed and ecological disaster with the help of a rag-tag forest army and a grand mythological creature. 

This story is perfect for all ages and could be read aloud to younger chil...

Summer Reading Challenge 2021 and free books

Guardians of the Forest free on Kindle 9-12 July

Summer Reading Challenge 2021

The Summer Reading Challenge is all about getting children aged 4 to 11 to enjoy reading. A worthy aim. Libraries across the UK take part, visiting schools ahead of time to talk about the Challenge and inviting children to sign up. A theme is set each year and relevant books uploaded to the site and to library shelves. So far, readers taking part in the Challenge have read more than 1.4 mio books.

...

Four steps to using dialogue to drive your story

Dialogue is important.

When I read a piece of prose, whether it’s a short story or a novel, and the dialogue is done well, my heart gives a little skip of excitement. (I know, an exciting life!) Here is a writer who has taken the time to learn their craft.

And it generally extends to other aspects of the writing as well, and very much encourages me to keep reading. In fact, if I open a book preview and the dialogue punctuation is incorrect, it’s an automatic pass for me. This is a shame, because...