Newbie

Just come to this after reading the first chapter (sorry, I mean’t to read a few days ago and got sidetracked). So this is the guy we meet in the woods? Ace! And I’m assuming we’ve seen a fair bit of him between then and now, so would have already encountered his OCD and the hints of military/prison/crime dribbled into the thoughts. I love the…[Read more]

In a word, yes, would totally read on!! 🙂

Elle has suggested leading with Laura’s PoV, and I do think it might work well that way, partly because we get to know her much better in that short piece of text than we get to know unnamed him. Also because her section is full of suggestions and hooks that I think set up the reader better in terms of…[Read more]

Summer 1999

I told myself, at my age, I didn’t need to be nervous. But knew what I could do well was conscientious.
‘Bring portfolio’ the letter said, so I went out and bought a huge one. Filled it, with two years of one-day a week class-work plus evening Life Drawing. Plus the watercolours I was especially pleased with.
Appointed day, I par…[Read more]

It’s not. The chit chat thread is over in the Challenge Group “A Room with a View” but as all votes count – so does yours!

Is this the chit-chat thread? If so I vote MEAN. (If not I still vote MEAN)

OK – this is really important. This is NEW, this is a TWIST and this is IMPORTANT.

The choices you have made, are making and are still free to change can have an impact on the way you write your story. However, one of the choices may have a surprising effect depending on whether I am GENEROUS or MEAN. And the surprise may not be expected. So –…[Read more]

Histfic can definitely have mainstream appeal. Seems as though one of Juliet Mushens’ biggest successes as an agent recently was with The Miniaturist. Though I gather Juliet is interested in history. The blogpost about how that novel was pitched to her is interesting. I think the link was posted somewhere around here. Go for it