Roz Morris's Blog, page 47

An exercise in character and story development – guest spot at Triskele Books

If you’re exploring characters for your story, this exercise might help. Triskele Books is holding a creative writing summer school and I’ve contributed this snippet to uncover  interesting tensions that make a scene sizzle. And once you’re there, you’ll find several other storybending assignments from seasoned fictioneers. Step this way.

5 essential habits I learned while ghost-writing – guest post at Jo Malby

Some of you know that I began my writing career incognito, as a ghost-writer. It gave me certain habits and approaches that I still use to this day, and I’m sure they were a head start for productive writing processes. Today I’m talking about those habits at Jo Malby’s blog. (And as I’ve had two […]

‘Music brought me closer to that amalgum of confusion, self-pity and nostalgia’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Anne Goodwin

My guest this week has a novel about a woman who has kept her past identity hidden. The novel is its reckoning, of course, and its author had a challenge in evoking the many colours of her protagonist’s progress from child to woman. So she built herself a soundtrack. It’s a mix of radio theme […]

How to find your author voice – interview with Joanna Penn

Hello! I’m slightly late posting this week because I knew I had this waiting. Joanna Penn invited me back to her podcast to thrash out a thorny topic – how to find your author voice. We discuss what voice is, how to develop it, how character dialogue differs from narrative voice, how authors might adapt […]

You know what your book means… but does the reader? Tackle it with two mindsets

Have you ever had this type of comment in feedback? ‘You’re grasping for a strong thematic purpose. The characters’ actions and the plot are full of significance. Somewhere there’s a strong message. But it’s too abstract or muddied to come through.’ If so, this concept might help. It’s borrowed from writing instructor Lynn Steger Strong, […]

Three steps to a smoother writing style

This week Joanna Penn invited me to her podcast to talk about writing style and voice, which you can see in a few weeks’ time. We got so involved in the subject that we didn’t finish her question list and this point didn’t make the cut. So I thought it would make a useful post. […]

Conflict in every scene? Disasters in every act? Yes and no

I’ve had an interesting question from Ben Collins. I have read that each part of a novel should contain a ‘disaster’ and that every scene should either contain conflict or be deleted. Is this too rigid a formula, or do you think it is correct? That’s a good question with a lot of answers. So […]

Should you – could you – crowdfund your next book? Unbound uncovered

We’re in an age of new publishing models. And two of the emerging trends – crowdfunding and hybrid publishing – seem to meet in the organisation Unbound. The principle of Unbound is simple. Raise enough money to publish the first print run. After that, the profits of any sales are split equally between the author […]

Checklist for redesigning your book cover – and maximising the marketing opportunities

I recently changed the covers of my Nail Your Novels … and got myself a nice long to-do list as a result. But as well as refreshing the look of the books, a redesign is also a chance to smarten up the covers’ marketing potential. Here’s how. Don’t miss the opportunity to tweak your sales […]

‘Writing this novel has left me less guarded’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Isabel Costello

Who changes in the course of a novel? We hope the characters do. Sometimes the author does too. My guest this week feels that writing her novel became an act of emotional honesty that left her in a new place. Music was a constant companion – a mix of Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd and Parisian-themed […]