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Good article, Daeds. I might try to hunt down the Twitter thread to see what else was said.

I saw someone (Hellie Ogden I think) say that 60% of her submissions either fail to meet the submission criteria (format, genre, basic spell checks etc) or are clearly at way too early a draft to be sent out. I was so guilty of this last with my first…[Read more]

Thanks for the link.
The advice that really counts is to ensure you remove all typos, formatting errors etc. as it shows you are concerned with detail.

I’m not sure about ‘clean prose’, as everyone will have their own opinion about this, including agents. But if you interpret it as ‘no unnecessary words regardless of sentence length’, then fair…[Read more]

@StellaOlivetti – thank you for your feedback and please don’t feel back about nitpicking. I like nitpicking, I want nitpicking because that’s what’s going to help me improve on my story so all your comments are very helpful!

The main reason about the grandmother being Russian is a kind of nod at Neil Gaiman and American Gods and the idea that…[Read more]

Hi L,

I think you could trim most of the paragraphs in the first half of the story, really. The Physics thing (tight pants) early on could go, you use this analogy later on anyway. Watching a film at the cinema, that paragraph could be less wordy I think.
And towards the end – “zipped her hoodie and pulled the hood over her head” etc. I know…[Read more]

Dear Elle

I liked it. I did find myself thinking of that Angela Carter story/film when I was reading the first version so I think there must have been enough subliminal wolf references there. The bit where she ate his fear genuinely creeped me out a bit! A few tiny things – is this for a competition, or a magazine? which might be worth…[Read more]

Still missing three quarters of the story….

Ah, yes. Planning. It’s going…um…

@johnSAlty — thanks John for your feedback it’s all very useful. As a matter of interest any particular paragraphs you felt were overwritten?

That’s the most important bit done.

Thank you for a very interesting read Daedalus. You have made me want to go and watch the film. I am

I absolutely agree with you Raine about not every character progressing through their arc in synchrony and entirety but nevertheless needing some sort of arc. I have only recently realised that this gives the relationships between characters energy and life as they shift according to where they are in their ‘journey’. It is a powerful tool.

Thanks Raine. I’ve seen the film numerous times over the years (the first being as a very small child) and have got different things from it each time. One reading would definitely be a clash between rival alpha males. And it’s definitely in the ‘high adventure’ tradition, but I do think there’s more to it than that. Not least as ultimatel…[Read more]

I think “Spotting an opening…” needs a new para. The lipstick thing is a little over complicated, I think you could shorten it without losing anything.
The “pills like skittles” analogy doesn’t work for me.
“Small-to-medium-time” seems a cop-out, he’s a small-time crook, I think.
“Anticipated to sit..” should be “anticipated sitting”.

I’d take…[Read more]

Hows the planning going, NaNo Denizens?? I have a title. That’s good, right?

Sorry @daedalus – for some reason your latest didn’t appear till after I’d posted the above. Really interesting breakdown there, I’d seen the film, and it came across to me (many moons ago, I admit) as extremely captivating and clever but essentially typical alpha-male adventure type thing. But no! PErhaps I should watch it again to pick up on all…[Read more]

I think I do a bit of both tbh. I do plot out the character arcs at the start, but things change as I write (as they do, the wee buggers), so by the end I need to do it all again for my major edit. That’s when Julie Cohen’s post-it notes come into play! I’m basically a walking advert for Julie and Craig.

@daedalus re the tragic/heroic thing – it…[Read more]

I was watching the film The Flight of the Phoenix earlier today, and this ‘arc’ kept occuring to me, so for the sake of curiosity I decided to have a look to see if it fit this structure, and if so, how. It’s a bit of an interesting case as it’s an ensemble piece with multiple ‘main’ characters, each with their own arc. I’ll consider it for the…[Read more]