Will Once's Blog, page 4

The trouble with posh nosh

We don’t get invited to many posh dinners … The invitation says “morning suit”, which for the gents means a suit and for the ladies slightly less cleavage than Ascot. We start downstairs with champagne in flutes and nibbles in little circles of salmon and pigeon. There is a lot of handshaking and cheek kissing…

Are you sure?

A strange thing happened the other day. The telephone rang. “Hello,” said a pleasant sounding young lady. “Can I please speak to Mr Hilary Once?” This, of course, is a contradiction in terms. There is a Mr Once and he is me. There is also a Hilary Once and she is my loving wife, also known…

How to write fiction 5: characters

Characters are the life and soul of fiction. We might have the most splendiferous plot or setting, but it’s an empty dance floor until the characters arrive. You might think that it’s easy to create characters. We are surrounded by people. How hard can it be to transfer some of them onto the page? As…

How to write fiction 4. More about the voice

  Last time we talked about voice and the fundamental decision about whether we are going to write in first person or third. Next we need to think about what our narrator’s voice sounds like. This might come as a surprise. Surely we’re ready to start writing now? Writing is writing, innit? The cat sat…

How to write fiction 3. Voice

Every good novel needs plot, character, voice, setting and theme(s). I’m sure some smart-Alec might come up with an exception – and maybe some smart-Alec author has deliberately written a novel without one or more of these themes. But on the whole these are the building blocks for any novel. It does not matter in…

How to write fiction 2

Sometimes the Universe throws you a surprising coincidence. The photons were barely dry on my blog about writing fiction, when I met someone who asked me exactly the same question. I met Steve at a Christmas Eve party. Over a glass of bubbles and little nibbly things on crackers, he told me that he had…

How to write fiction

  By a strange coincidence, two people asked the same question at more or less than same time. One asked me the question directly, the other posted it on an internet forum. Their question was: “I write non-fiction. How do I learn to write fiction?” It’s a great question. My immediate thought was “it’s obvious,…

Can I have your autograph?

Something really unusual has just happened. Mind altering. Astonishing. Gob-smacking. Someone has asked for my autograph. Let’s put that into context. I’ve been writing for my own pleasure for all of my adult life. I have been publishing books on Amazon since 2013. And no-one has ever … ever … asked me for an autograph…

Sizzling spam fritters

  It was an innocent question from one writer to a group of writers on the internet. In a draft of his novel he had written: “and a mess tin of spam fritters were sizzling on the stove.” And she had questioned the word “were”. Surely it should be “was”? The mess tin of spam…

One day they will write songs about you

This is a true story. There was a time in my life when 10.00 at night often meant being in a pub with friends. I’m not saying I was an alcoholic, but I will admit to the young man’s game of “going out”. These days I’ve climbed the summit of a half century of years…