Mad Iguana

Not actually doing this Nano thing in a formal sense, but by a remarkable coincidence, I morphed into creative/productive mode early in November. After a slowish start it’s coming together nicely and I have nearly 12k words down. Done 3k today alone.
Will it last?

Good on you, @elle.

Agree with all this. Use all 5 senses, and incorporate the sixth.

Well done, Elle. 🙂

Well done @elle. Such a sad little piece, and the bird image is perfect.

Really interesting, thanks for posting @elle. Place is crucial – for me it’s pretty much as vital as character and sometimes feels like character itself. I can’t write anything half decent without knowing what surrounds us, what the history is, how it has formed and influenced what’s going on ‘onstage’…

Oh that story is beautiful and awful both, @elle. A well deserved win.

I’ve now watched this and it is brilliant. Quality programme, as others have said, and you shine, @daedalus. I was spot on (as @richardb said) when I said I bet you were ‘engaging, knowledgeable and quietly authoritative’, before I had a chance to see it…:-) Really well done! x

Yay! Such a beautiful and chilling story…. well done!!

My flash “Little Bird” has been published in Reflex Fiction today https://www.reflexfiction.com/little-bird-flash-fiction-by-laure-van-rensburg/

Glad it is useful.

The workshop was great and organised by Word Factory. I highly recommend them if you’re in London.

After the workshop, some of us stayed behind to discuss what we learned and then after that they have a short story club where everybody read a designated story beforehand and then we spent an hour discussing it. The story this…[Read more]

Good to know! Coffman starters are great. Basically using a shotgun cartridge to start an engine, minus the lead shot of course. I don’t just do naval aviation btw, my last nonfic was a biography of a RAF bomber pilot, flying instructor and test pilot before and during WW2. Any technical queries, feel free to ask

Thanks Elle. These are good prompts. I’m very into settings, which I think comes from my previous life as a conservation ecologist – working in some amazing wild places. So I’ve always got to have a strong sense of the natural world that my story takes place in – weather, plants, animals, noises, tides, rock types … yeah maybe I go too far, but…[Read more]

Thanks Elle. Setting is something I usually skim over, so I will try applying this and see what happens!

Just seen this post…

I too am floundering about in the “half-idea” realms…. I think I usually need two sort of “touch points”: an inciting incident of some kind, but then another event of some kind to head towards in the narrative. At the moment, I sort of just have my inciting incident and not another “way point”. Grrr.

These days, I find…[Read more]

Very interesting blog, Elle. Place is very important to me when I write and when I read. It’s often the element of a novel that stays with me longest after I’ve finished it. I try to think in terms of how the people in my story react with the space within the scene and what part the place has played in their lives but your list is very helpful.