Roz Morris's Blog, page 48

Reading vs watching and The Night Manager – why I prefer the book

I recently watched the BBC’s adaptation of John le Carré’s The Night Manager, and of course went straight to the novel afterwards. I thoroughly enjoyed the TV adaptation, but I’m loving the novel more. You might think that’s an obvious thing for a writer to say. But I’d like to think about why. Let’s put aside […]

Peter Shaffer, my earliest muse – how we create the infinite

I’m not good at nominating favourites. I find the question too complicated to answer so absolutely. For instance, a favourite book? Favourite in what subset of a subset? It’s like comparing apples to aardvarks. But I do have a few authors I’m wholeheartedly absolute about, and one of them is Peter Shaffer, whose death was […]

Are your email marketing tactics putting readers off? A plea for ethical email etiquette

I know email newsletters are the holy grail of marketing and building an audience. I fully accept that we need to nudge people to sign up. I know we need to use calls to action, and not be afraid to say ‘here’s my book and here’s where to buy it’ or ‘this offer will end […]

‘Music to fill my mind but not fight the words’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, GD Harper

My guest this week says he is much concerned with reinvention. He’s spent his life setting himself challenges to embrace new careers, lifestyles, places to live – and the latest of those reinventions is being a novelist. His debut title is a story of 1970s Glasgow and required some daring imaginative reinventions – not least, […]

The first book on writing I ever read – what was yours?

Most of us here probably have a shoal of books about writing craft. Here’s just one of my shelves. But which was the first writing book you ever read? For me, it was The Craft of Novel-Writing by Dianne Doubtfire. It was a gift from Husband Dave when we first met in 1992. It’s a […]

‘Freedom, broken ties and love outside of marriage’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Diana Stevan

My guest this week delved into personal experiences to write her latest novel. In the 1970s she was working on a psychiatric ward where electric shock treatment was taking place. Years later, troubled by what she had seen, she wrote a novel. She turned to music to reawaken her own memories of the time and […]

Avoid this plotting pitfall when writing drafts at speed

Husband Dave and I have recently been watching the Showtime series Ray Donovan. And sometimes, we’re finding the storytelling is rather uneven. Interesting developments pop up that seem to promise a new and unexpected direction for the plot. Instead, though, they’re defused and then the main story trots along again, pretty much unaffected. Here’s an […]

Avoid dumb plotting errors – post at Alliance of Independent Authors

It seems there are certain pitfalls we all encounter when we’re plotting a novel. Creaky story metaphors; genre muddle; clumsy handling of ‘non-real’ material; tunnel vision; ignoring common-sense solutions to the characters’ troubles. This week I had the hot seat at the Alliance of Independent Authors blog, listing dumb things we all might do when […]

‘When I feel like a storm is raging’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Stephanie Carroll

My guest this week grew up in the Mojave desert where rain was a rarity. So a key for her creative space is the sound of wild, wet weather. Sometimes it’s tracks that include storm noises, but she’ll just as easily tune into a rain station at the same time as a piece of music. […]

How to become a ghost-writer – post at Jane Friedman

So here’s the final part of the ghost-writing blogfest – and perhaps the most important. If you’re interested in becoming a ghost-writer, what’s involved? In this post at Jane Friedman’s blog, I outline the mindset and skills needed, some of the challenges you might encounter …. and most of all, why ghost-writing is an attractive […]