Terry Shames's Blog: 7 Criminal Minds, page 126

You Think What?

Post and discuss the worst/funniest/most ridiculous review you’ve ever received on Amazon or Goodreads. This is your chance to defend yourself and blow off some steam, since we know we can’t engage with reviewers.

What a provocative question this week! 

Brenda Chapman posting today.

As authors, we know to never engage with reviewers who slam our book. There's that infamous cautionary tale of the author who got into it with one reviewer and did not fare well. We're warned that those readers who woul...

What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been

Tell us about the first story/stories you ever wrote. First book, published or no.

by Paul D. Marks

I don’t really remember what the first story I wrote was. But when I started writing I was trying to write more mainstream or literary fiction. And just in the last few weeks I resurrected one of those ancient stories, rewrote it as crime fiction and sent it out into the world to hopefully be picked up somewhere. The theme is the same as the original story, as well as some of the elements, but I lik...

Wendy the Wise, by Catriona

Tell us about the first story you ever wrote.

It bore a heavy influence from Enid Blyton. (I mean anvil-heavy.) And she was often a crime-writer, right? The Famous Five, the Secret Seven, The Put-em-rights . . . Even her school stories tended to be pulsing with thievery and vandalism. There was always some grey-eyed head girl (head girls tended to have grey-eyes, long humorous faces, and be Scottish, for some reason (?)) finding distinctive purple ink on the sole of an upturned slipper, thereby p...

Short story, long story by Cathy Ace

Q:  Tell us about the first story/stories you ever wrote. First book, published or no.

Okey dokey, here comes a long story about a short story...

After all the usual school essays, and poems for our Eisteddfods etc., the first short story with a criminal bent I ever wrote was called “Dear George”. It was written in a car park in 1987, in about an hour and a half.

Why?

Well, I’d been waiting to collect my sister at the airport, and her flight was delayed. I bought a magazine to read to fill the ti...

Way Back Then...

Tell us about the first story/stories you ever wrote. First book, published or no.

From Frank

I've known I was a writer from a very young age. As a result, I honestly couldn't tell you the first story I ever wrote... although to be fair, they were more vignettes than stories, and all terribly derivative. 

Hopefully someone doesn't cut and paste that into a review for my latest book!

I can say that the first (paid) story that was ever published was called "Bill's Son." Wide Open Magazine published it...

"Author, author!" They Shouted (In My Dreams)

 Q: Tell us about the first story/stories you ever wrote. First book, published or no.

 

- from Susan

 

Only someone a lot younger than me would pose an open-ended question like that, since my “first” was back in the dark ages before fire was tamed. Let’s not go there except to say, yes, I have been writing stories, poems, and even a family newspaper (The Wolff Weekly) since I learned how to form letters and words. The Weekly was a cheerful carbon-paper, illustrated edition for 4 readers or almost r...

Breakin' the Law

 Do you find that proper grammar and structure sometimes interfere with style and tone? What liberties do you take with language for the sake of style?

 

By Abir Mukherjee

 

 

Morning. It’s Friday, and once again I find myself in the difficult position that my fellow bloggers have made all the salient points on the topic more eloquently, powerfully and humorously than I could hope to, including James’ point about Welsh and the pronunciation of Llanfairfechan!

 

If I have one request, it’s that on his n...

Jazz Is Better Than Muzak by James W. Ziskin

  Do you find that proper grammar and structure sometimes interfere with style and tone? What liberties do you take with language for the sake of style?

Oh, boy, do I love talking about language. So much so, in fact, that I’m going on a bit of a tangent before addressing this week’s question.

Here goes. First, let’s all realize that language changes. How could it not? Think of English. More than 1.5 billion people speak English. (One thousand five-hundred millions.) Of these speakers, somewhere be...

Jazz Is Better than Muzak by James W. Ziskin

 Do you find that proper grammar and structure sometimes interfere with style and tone? What liberties do you take with language for the sake of style?

Oh, boy, do I love talking about language. So much so, in fact, that I’m going on a bit of a tangent before addressing this week’s question.

Here goes. First, let’s all realize that language changes. How could it not? Think of English. More than 1.5 billion people speak English. (One thousand five-hundred millions.) Of these speakers, somewhere bet...

With all due respect

Do you find that proper grammar and structure sometimes interferes with style and tone? What liberties do you take with language for the sake of style?

by Dietrich

I don’t find that it interferes — because I won’t let it. Not because I’m a rebel or challenged by literacy, but for the sake of tone and style.  

An understanding of grammar is a wonderful thing and certainly leads to clarity and effective communication. The funny thing about grammar is I studied up on it when I took to writing short st...