Roz Morris's Blog, page 61
February 17, 2015
‘Music for looking into the past’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Audrina Lane
My guest this week brings a real blast of the 1980s, with a bright red emphasis on romance (I guess it���s that time of year). She drew on the soundtrack of her adolescent years to create the love-torn characters in her novel, and the heart of the story beats to George Michael, Berlin and Patrick […]
February 15, 2015
Are you underusing your best plot ideas? Guest post at KM Weiland
Does your plot have enough going on? I see a lot of manuscripts where the story seems to lack momentum, or the characters are spinning their wheels doing not very much of anything. But the funny thing is, the writer isn’t short of ideas. They’ve simply not realised where they are hiding. Today I’m at […]
February 12, 2015
Self-publishing and staying true to yourself – interview at Jane Davis’s blog
At school, I wrote science fiction stories because it made my teachers supremely annoyed. That probably set me up well for my attempts to get an agent or a publisher, when I annoyed with stories that bent and mixed genres. And why not, when it was good enough for Atwood, Banks and Ballard? And the […]
February 10, 2015
‘Music for tragedy, coming of age, romance’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Karen Wojcik Berner
My guest this week says she was a singer long before she was a writer, and when she started writing, music was a natural place to find story inspiration. She writes a series of novels based around the members of a book club, and many of the titles and characters come from tracks that have […]
February 8, 2015
4 reasons why your novel���s dialogue sounds awkward or stilted
In a recent episode of So You Want To Be A Writer, my co-host, bookseller Peter Snell, asked a great question. What makes dialogue sound awkward, unnatural or ���wrong���? In the manuscripts I see, there are four main reasons. 1 Trying to say everything in dialogue Sometimes we get so focused on making characters talk […]
February 3, 2015
‘Music is the undertow to what I am writing’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Davina Blake
My guest this week is one of those many writers who values silence ��� but is keenly aware that music is influencing what comes out on the page. She describes how music acts as a portal, letting her access moods and mental states in order to recreate them faithfully in her fiction. She describes trying […]
February 2, 2015
Is back story sabotaging your novel? Guest spot at Jane Friedman
I’m at Jane Friedman’s blog today, where she’s showcasing a section of the plot book that deals with back story. Misusing back story is one of the most common problems I see as an editor. Writers bury their best events in the back story, and then struggle to think up enough spectacular ideas for the […]
February 1, 2015
I rewrote my novel through a critique group but I’ve lost my way
A conversation on Twitter about online writing groups made me remember I had this post, written nearly 4 years ago. I tweeted it and got so many messages about it I thought it might be worth an official rerun. So ��� if you���ve been with this blog since 2011 you might have a sense of […]
January 27, 2015
‘A sequence of notes to transport you to a time and place’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Debbie Bennett
My guest this week says she was always secretly a rock chick, and has provided pictorial evidence to prove it. When she turned her creative impulses to writing, music helped create the mood and tone. She writes gritty crime with a heavy dose of psychological thriller, and drew on a aural landscape of Alice Cooper, […]
January 25, 2015
Free book giveaways – when do they work? When don���t they?
Once upon a time, authors could get a great start if they made their book available free. Back in 2008 and 2009, I got huge traction for the original Nail Your Novel when I offered it free as a pdf. There wasn���t much free material out there, so it got attention. Indeed, as far back […]
