Richard Stark’s Parker novels offer the perfect anti-hero and inspired my own protagonist.
Tag: novel writing
Stuck on your WIP? Skip to the end . . .
Stuck on your WIP? Things getting a little like wading through treacle? My advice? Skip to the end! That’s exactly what I’ve been doing after a long spell of procrastination and self-doubt. http://67.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltslooUuel1r5ceufo1_500.gif Last time I gave you any kind of update, I was still in the honeymoon period of writing my second novel. 25,000…
Writing a Novel – Are you a Pantser or a Plotter? I’m a PLANTSER!
Are you a ‘Pantser’ or a ‘Plotter’? It’s a question we writers seem to be obsessed with. It turns up on countless websites, forums and in many of our author interviews over at The Joined Up Writing Podcast. In case you somehow missed it, a ‘Pantser’ is someone who writes without any real plan –…
Why you should write a logline for your novel
Following on from my previous post where I came out (of the novel-writing closet), I thought I would tell you a little more about the novel and share a tip I picked up from reading Save The Cat – a brilliant book about Screenwriting. It’s author, Blake Snyder, believes the one killer question you need…
It’s a NOVEL – there, I said it!
Listeners to the Joined Up Writing Podcast may have heard me talking about my latest WIP – ‘a crime story’ is the way I have been describing it. And that’s exactly what it started out as – a short story. After a few thousand words I started occasionally using the word ‘Novella’ and today, in…
Finishing my First Draft – The End of The Beginning
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” – Winston Churchill, 1942. Let’s skip forward a few decades. Wednesday May 29th, 2015. The day I finally typed ‘The End’ on the manuscript of the first draft of…
The Novel Dilemma – When should you quit your WIP?
I have a dilemma and I need your advice. I have a 79,000 word WIP and I think I’m on the verge of abandoning it for the foreseeable future. Here’s why: In November 2012, as part of Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month), I wrote almost 56,000 words of my novel, Let Sleeping Gods Lie. In…
15k in May Challenge – Week 1 Update
This is the first weekly update for my progress in our 15k in May challenge, of which you can find out more in my previous post. The Sun has arrived, however briefly, in the UK and with it comes the end of the first week of the challenge. It has been an interesting 7 days,…