Roz Morris's Blog, page 46

Two cool ways to use misdirection as a storyteller

I’ve had an interesting question from Jonathan McKenna Moore (who was one of this blog’s earliest readers – quick fanfare

I wish I’d written… three books that challenge me to raise my game

Continuing my occasional series. These are novels that, although I finished them several months ago, still make my green eyes … greener. The Vegetarian by Han Kang, translated by Deborah Smith I mentioned this in my post last week. A woman decides to turn vegetarian, a very unusual and subversive act in South Korea, where […]

‘Teenage life is freak-out and wonder’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Josh Malerman

My guest this week is the perfect writer to see us into Halloween. He’s been a guest of the series before and he’s always had a liking for the unusual thrill. The title of his new release will probably tell you that: A House At The Bottom Of A Lake – an imaginative tale with […]

How do you discover the books you want to buy? Some thoughts about book marketing

Where do you find the books you want to read? There are theories galore about how authors and publishers should advertise, use categories, keywords etc. But I often find myself a bit bemused by them. Because I don’t buy books that way. These theories seem to describe a behaviour that I simply don’t recognise. But […]

‘A song that makes sense of my story’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Annalisa Crawford

To introduce this week’s guest I’ll quote the opening line of her post: she says she envies songwriters because they are masters of the concise. She writes short stories and quite often doesn’t know where an idea will go, but finds her way by listening to a song, letting the words flow, trusting the music. […]

Got a personal story to tell… should you make it into a novel?

This week I’ve been advising a writer who wants to gather his professional experiences into a daring expose of … well, I’m not allowed to reveal that. But there is malpractice, corruption and a lot of harm being done to innocent people. Publishers have told him they’re wary because he doesn’t have a platform as […]

Pace and story structure: a blueprint for keeping the reader gripped

I’ve had an interesting question from Josephine of the blog Muscat Tales: Can you talk about pace? How to speed up/slow down the action/plot – and when? Is there a general blueprint for this or does the story type dictate the peaks and troughs of emotion, action and change? There’s much to chew on here. […]

‘Hope, chaos and a fighting spirit’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Deborah Andrews

I settled down to read this week’s Undercover Soundtrack contribution and what did I find? The writer seemed to have plundered some of my own favourite tracks. Massive Attack’s Unfinished Sympathy. The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony. Kate Bush’s Cloudbusting (though if you’re as much of a Kate Bush nut as I am you could be forgiven […]

How to write emotions and feelings

I’ve had a request from EJ Runyon (who you might recognise as an Undercover Soundtrack contributor). She’s asked me, quite simply, to talk about writing emotions and feelings. Emotions and feelings are the nucleus of a story. The whizziest plot events will have nil impact unless they matter to a character – and to us. […]

Doing NaNoWriMo? Nail it with this resource kit

I can’t believe it’s already October. And that means it’s just a month until NaNoWriMo. For the uninitiated, it’s a worldwide writing lockdown where scribblers of all levels undertake to write a 50,000-word draft in just 30 days. So here’s a list of NaNoWriMo resources I’ve written on this blog and further afield. 1 NaNoWriMo […]