Roz Morris's Blog, page 56

Self-editing masterclass snapshots – ‘My drafts are too brief’

I’m running a series of the smartest questions from my recent Guardian self-editing masterclass for novelists. Last time I discussed how much extra material we might write that never makes the final wordcount link . Today I’m looking at the opposite problem. ‘My drafts are too brief’ One writer in the class confessed that he […]

‘The atmosphere to express the inexpressible’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Rebecca Mascull

If you’re friends with me on Facebook you’ve probably seen the post where I remarked how every guest on this series seems to end up writing the following phrase in their emails to me: ‘reliving the heady drafting times’. That’s what this series is all about; the joy of discovery, the celebration that we can […]

Writing unforgettable characters – guest post at Vine Leaves Literary Journal

How do you create a fictional character who not only leaps off the page, but lives on in the reader’s mind after the story is finished? Today I’m puzzling these questions at Vine Leaves Literary Journal, with examples from Emily Bronte, Robert Goolrick, Patricia Highsmith and Nevil Shute. Do pull up a chair.

Self-editing masterclass snapshots – how much will you write to create your book?

Last week I was back at The Guardian, teaching my course on advanced self-editing for fiction writers. My students kept me on my toes and I thought I’d explore their most interesting questions here. There are quite a few of them, and the weather is too darn hot, so instead of giving you a giant […]

‘Tenderness, fragility, an understanding beyond her years’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Myfanwy Collins

My guest this week has just one musician in her book-s arsenal – a singer who  perfectly, wholly, uncannily embodied the character she was searching for. The story is a young adult novel – a new departure for the writer, who has had other works published in the adult market and in literary magazines. Anyway, […]

Naming your characters and settings

The three chambers of fluid, lacrimal caruncle, fornix conjunctiva, canal of Schlemm, choroid, ora serrata. Where are these places? Somewhere under the sea? No, they’re right where you are, indeed where these words are travelling. They are parts of the human eye. I sense an artistic sensibility in the world of ophthalmic nomenclature, as though […]

‘Music that seeps beneath your skin, then grows’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Andrew Lowe

My guest this week is a sometime musician – and as a result he’s another writer who finds that music is not a background but his master. His novel is a hard-edged story about a childhood event whose consequences are poisoning the characters many years later, and the soundtrack is a double-barrelled mix for the […]

Three signs that your novel has too many main characters – and what to do

This is another interesting question from my postbag: I’m writing an adventure story that takes place over a journey, and we meet many characters. I’ve been told my novel has too many, but when I look at comparison titles, big casts are de rigeur. Kidnapped has 15 named characters, though some are very minor. Treasure […]

‘Music and love transform your internal landscape’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Louisa Treger

My guest this week used to be a classical violinist. She says music informs every word she writes, expressing states of feeling that she then strives to render in words. Her novel is a biographical story about the little-known author Dorothy Richardson, who pioneered the stream of consciousness technique, although she is overshadowed today by […]

How to write dialogue that’s convincing and full of life

I’ve had this interesting email: ‘A literary agent told me my dialogue sounded lifeless and unconvincing and that my characters talked only about plot information. What might be missing? What could I do to improve?’ What’s good dialogue? First of all, although dialogue is one of the ways we can unfold the story, it’s more […]