Archive for the ‘fiction writing rules’ Category
Inspiration: The Art of Fiction
Posted in Choosing the writing life, creativity, fiction writing rules, Inspiration, location free living, simply writing, writing life, tagged John Casey, the writer within, the writing habit, The writing life on December 6, 2015| Leave a Comment »
On planning, writing and publishing your middle grade novel…
Posted in creativity, fiction writing rules, How to write, middle grade fiction, tagged a writer's life, middle grade fiction, philip pullman, writing fiction on April 13, 2015| Leave a Comment »
In ‘Novel Writing, a Writers’ and Artists’ Companion’ Philip Pullman says, ‘Don’t make plans. A plan is not a map, it’s a straitjacket. Your imagination needs the freedom to roam wherever it wants to go, and if you constrain it the book will suffer.’
And I have to agree.
There is so much advice around now in the Indie Publishing world that says outline your novel, fill in the blanks, press ‘publish’, and you will make thousands. Alas, there is little written about the creative process itself in comparison, a process that takes time, lots of it, sweat, lots of that too, and tears…in order to to trust your imagination and give it the freedom to roam you have to step back at see where it takes you…and nobody can sell you anything to make the process any easier.
Remember, the best things in life are free. All they take is time, hard work and tears…there are no shortcuts.
Simply writing…because we can
Posted in fiction writing rules, Writing romantic fiction, tagged simple living, simply writing on March 10, 2015| Leave a Comment »
To Pseudonym Or Not To Pseudonym?
Posted in Book launch, Choosing the writing life, Fiction, fiction writing rules, pseudonyns, romance novels, romance writing, tagged a writer's life, writing romance on February 24, 2015| 1 Comment »
When to use a pseudonym:
1. When a famous romance writer has the same name as you.
2. When you are about to publish a romance novel and someone famous already has your name and fame.
3. When you’re trying to flog a literary fiction novel using your own name.
4. When you’re trying to flog a literary fiction novel and a famous romance writer already has your name and fame.
5. When you’re a middle-grade fiction writer who also writes romance.
6. When you are a teacher and all your students know you write middle grade fiction and you don’t want them to read the steamy parts.
7. When your co-author thinks you’re working on the rewrites of middle grade fiction book number three and you’re slacking off doing rewrites on a romance novel that will cause you total humiliation if your students read it at Writers Club tomorrow.
Lucky we writers have huge egos and don’t care what anyone thinks, except the famous author with the famous name the same as yours, and the co-author who is also older brother and is bossy, and a gaggle of students who are gunna snigger when I walk around the playground for the next two hundred years.
Publish and be damned…
Melinda Hammond
The dilemma of writing prologues
Posted in Books, creativity, Fiction, fiction writing rules, indie publishing, Reading, voice, Writing, writing prologues, tagged editing fiction, revision, writing, writing prologues on September 28, 2014| 3 Comments »
To prologue or not to prologue, that is the question…our middle grade novel, Dirt Busters, A Cracker & Gilly Mystery, was originally called, Old Bones, and was based on the bones of a WW1 aboriginal soldier and and an ancient burial site. The site was being turned into a housing development and Cracker and the gang were determined to stop this happening.
Despite rewriting the preface to our story a zillion times, I made an executive decision to cut it. That’s the advantage of being executive but my co-author is still mad…and that’s okay because our novels are based on sibling squabbles, and our co-aurthorship has more than its fair share – yep, exactly like Cracker and Gilly, and yep, Gilly always wins, sort of, because her creator is the one who makes the executive decisions in our co-authoring team. And Cracker always saves her because that’s what big brothers do.
And being an Indie author team, I figure we can always put the prologue back in one day, and change the name back to Old Bones…but here are the reasons I made the decision I did (yeh, I know, self-justification is no justification:))…
1. My beta readers – Yr 5 & 6 kids – wanted to get straight to the action
2. I’ve been following the prologue/no prologue debate for years and it seems the no prologue team always have good reasons not to prologue
3. I wasn’t confident of our material – I don’t know a lot about our aboriginal history
4. With the right research and help I can always include it in a future edition
5. It’s a great talking point in my writing workshops and my students always engage (maybe I’ll put it in our non-fiction writing book as a discussion point for writers)
6. I went with the old maxim, if in doubt leave it out…
7. Our publisher agreed with me
But I still like our prologue…as my co-author says, it has just the right amount of spookiness…what do you think?
PREFACE
THE night air was thick and pungent with wood smoke emanating from a fire built high above the tide line where a group gathered under the light of the full moon recently risen from the west.
It was a night like no other Tanjatjiri could remember and the thought made him uneasy. He sniffed at the air as he watched the men of the Wulbunga people dance the corroboree.
Namittitnan, middle-aged and spry, danced to the rhythm of the night, as did his son,Nappittitan, beside him. Karipcoycae and his son, too, danced and Tarijatjiri momentarily forgot his worries as his gaze rested on his own young son who swayed at the feet of his elders, ready to take his place amongst them although he was only seven.
These people looked up to Tarijatjiri, the men and boys of the Wulbunga, and as their leader, Tarijatjiri took his duties seriously, which was why on this night of dance he stood to one side and tried to understand what it was that made him uneasy.
Ochre outlines painted onto the skins of the dancers, with feathers attached by animal fat long horded, showed the care each man took to present himself to the “old ones”.
From his vantage Tarijatjiri could see the sea, the sky, and the land where the men danced and as he gazed around him there was nothing amiss. Yet still he was uneasy. The melodious ‘r’ rurr r’ rurr r’ rurr’ of the dozen didgeridoos played in time to the pounding of the surf as it crashed onto the beach added to his unease.
As the dancers clapped the flats of two nulla-nullahs together, the sharp ‘slap slap’ emphasizing the driving beat, Tanjatjiri turned back to the shadows where the sea met the sky and frowned.
And from deep within him came a guttural cry.
He began to run, his words of warning unable to compete with the ancient rhythms around him, of pounding feet and the fury of clapping wood sticks. It was the crescendo of the tribal dance and as Tanjatjiri ran his brain was filled with the sounds of the dancers, but still he heard it, above the sounds, louder than the sea and the earth combined, and he knew that his warning would come too late.
As the men of the Wulbunga tribe danced to a rhythm passed down from father to son for as long as Tanjatjiri could remember, the big wave struck.
growing up writing 