Kate Walker's Blog, page 91

New Voices and Pink Hearts

I'm back - but as awlays when I've been away I'm rushing about catching up with things. 'Exciting' things like washing and accounts . . .

So my blog today is one I prepared earlier over on the Pink Heart Society blog where I'm talking about inspiration in the shape of the lovely David Morrissey.

And as it's September 6th - the M&B New Voices contest opens today and the new site is up here.

So while I catch up here, why don;t you go and catch up there?

Finally . . .

I'm sorry about the delay - the demands on my time just don't get any less - but I finally - finally! - have a winner for the suggestion of a name for my monthly column next year. I know I posted the contest back on August 15th but I needed to chat with the editors of the site to see what they thought of a name for the column and they agreed with me so -
The winner is - Laney with A Date With Kate Laney came up with so many suggestions that I'm going to file them away for future reference!

Back and Backlist

Back home from a wonderful weekend in York. The roads were clear - in spite of it being Bank Holiday weekend. The sun shone. The company was wonderful - so very special to meet up with dear friends from Caerleon Writers' Holiday when we usually have to wait until July or February (For Fishguard) to get together.


York is always beautiful and we wandered round the city just enjoying the place and being together. Past the Minster, down the Shambles, then headed for Bettys Tea Rooms where we all...

Doncaster and New Voices

Yesterday I was in Doncaster for the workshop on writing for Mills & Boon at the library there.


The weather was cold and wet so that was perhaps why half the people who had signed up for the event didn't turn up. A pity, but that was their loss. The group who were there may only have been small but there were lovely - lively, interested and enthusiastic so I had a great time. Thanks to everyone who made the morning so enjoyable including the young man who had just had his GCSE results and...

I have another question to answer - or rather two questi...

I have another question to answer - or rather two questions, both from Johanna. But as they're really both parts of the same question and the answers tangle together, I'm going to deal with them together -


Johanna says:




We're told to 'raise the stakes' and create really strong conflicts for our characters, but do you ever worry that they might not be able to overcome their problems in order to find a HEA? (I ask this from the stance of someone who's dug herself into several holes that she...

New Voices - Workshop reminder

I have a couple more questions on conflict to answer so as to round off the whole series but today I want to remind those of you who are anywhere near Doncaster that I will be doing my workshop on Writing For Mills & Boon in the main library there on Thursday. This is in conection with the New Voices contest that M&B are running which starts on September 6th.





Places at the workshop are lmited and the last I heard they were well on their way to being booked up, so if you'd like to attend make ...

Conflict - Questions and Answers

Another question - this time from Janet:

I've read romance novels where the hero is opposed to the idea of a lasting relationship because he's been badly hurt in the past, or he's lost his fiancée, or been abandoned by his mother.

You said somewhere that as an internal conflict this doesn't go far enough, that writers must ask themselves not why this man would be wary of any romantic relationship but why would he be wary of a relationship with this particular woman?

This is why I get stuck so I...

CONFLICT - Questions and Answers

Jackie wrote to me with a question about conflict:

I do have a question about conflict and mine is how NOT to complicate the conflict, I sometimes have too many layers in my onion! What's the best way to keep it simple?

Now I think I'd better make it clear that I use the simile of the onion precisely because I think a conflict needs lots of layers. A conflict that can simply be cleared up with one decent conversation is too simple to sustain through the book.

But by layers of that onion I don't ...

CONFLICT - Sarah Duncan

Another great quote about conflict that I had in my RNA Workshop handout. This time it's from Sarah Duncan - you can find more about Sarah and her writing on her web site.



Thank you to Sarah for letting me use this here.


In real life most of us avoid conflict, but our characters should embrace it. Without conflict there is no drama, and without drama the writing is dull. But because we get brought up to smooth over disagreements there's a tendency to smooth over them in our writing too, even th...

New Voices Workshop - just to clarify!

In case anyone is hoping to come to the workshop I'm giving in Doncaster in connection with the Mills & Boon New Voices contest I may need to clear up some confusion that has been causing a bit of hassle and a flurry of phone calls this afternoon.

So - if anyone has rung the library and been told that this event is only open to readers' groups and members of Doncaster library - this isn't actually the case. The workshop is open to all and there are still places available as I write this.

But...