Paul Alkazraji's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"
A rich storehouse for writers
‘Creativity Matters’ is a collection of articles by thirteen writers on what makes them passionate about a chosen genre, including drama, humour, memoir, children’s books and more.
Collated and published by Wendy H Jones, President of The Scottish Association of Writers and member of the Association of Christian Writers, it is a book to fuel the creativity of everyone from the tentative toe-dipper to the hard-boiled hack. Some of my favourite points follow.
Wendy considers in her first chapter ‘Why write?’ the need for writers to be well-read readers, and challenges us to check the setting on our mobile devices to see how many hours we spend there before we excuse ourselves by talking of a lack of time to read.
In her chapter ‘Why write crime or mystery?’ (which I made directly for having written two thrillers), she lists all the sub-genres from ‘Police Procedural’ to ‘Supernatural’ and given the high sales of this genre says that ‘one of the top reasons why you should consider writing crime (is) you will have no shortage of readers and the genre will remain popular for many years to come’. She notes that it allows both authors and readers to ‘flirt on the edge of danger without being in danger themselves’. A key challenge is ‘to ensure that the plot is complex enough to fool the reader yet make it simple enough that by the final denouement the reader is saying, why didn’t I see that?’ How well put.
In Maressa Mortimer’s chapter ‘Why write faith books?’ she discusses in working out how a character would react in a given situation, you can examine them and allow God to work through them to change and shape you. An author can be so much more involved if you write their story, she notes, rather than remaining with just a list of their characteristics. ‘Forgiveness is no longer something good people simply do, but we can feel the struggle when a character is hurt’. By sharing your message in story form, it can be more relatable and accessible to people; writing faith stories can be such a help to us all she says. Amen sister.
Wendy has a positive, can-do, uplifting attitude here that is a wellspring to those stumbling along in dry places. There is a rich storehouse too of inspiring ideas and encouraging insights from a host of writers to help you find your creative spark, step out on the writing road, and even find fresh inspiration to branch out.
Links for Wendy H Jones
WEBSITE
https://www.wendyhjones.com
https://www.facebook.com/wendyhjonesa...
@WendyHJones
AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wendy-H.-Jon...
https://www.instagram.com/wendyhjones/
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