Raine

That’s interesting @elle. Is it that level of tutor contact in all the online courses?Sounds like it runs the risk of being a bit hit and miss. I did think the London based courses looked a lot more in depth and directly tutored. And they have a great reputation .. But they are A LOT of money, and yanno, in London. Sigh.

INteresting question. Funnily enough, sometimes the first thing I get is the setting. I’m very into the atmospheric setting & its role in the story, so that’s definitely there before I start any planning or research or even think about characters! The other thing though is a pretty formless idea of some sort of ‘issue’ I want to explore. Not big…[Read more]

Wow, well done, Alan. That’s a major bit of validation, and those courses look great. I’ve eyed them a few times, but never bitten, so will be really interested to hear how you get on.

@KazG & @emmad – oooh, I like the phrase ‘thinker on paper’! That sounds a lot closer to what I do. For all my love of graphs and themes and character outlines, and more graphs, very little of the detail gets decided until I’m in the story. I think it’s a little like my old self’s data analysis process – first you gather all the plethora of…[Read more]

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]

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]

Also @squidge – The entire universe makes profound and powerful sense when Craig talks!! 😀

@richardb and @squidge – I don’t think there’s anything wrong in not wanting to use models like these! I have a penchance for graphs, which is probably ~60% of why I love it! No – I like the tie-in between internal and external, but it’s definitely not for everyone.

@athelstone, yeah you’re totally right, I agree it’s foolish to think that any…[Read more]

@katemachon glad it makes some sense & hope it’s helpful! 🙂

@philippaeast that’s so interesting. The thing that’s always drawn me to this model is how it really explores the psychology of the character and how that drives their interactions with the external world. BUt I’d never made the comparison between that and things like the stages of…[Read more]

So SloMoNoWriMo (!!) looks a go-er! Perhaps a group (no need to be private, I’d have thought) where we can each post our daily intentions/plans/progress, so we can mutually cheer each other on (in slow motion). Whether the plan be just some words, or edit a chapter, or plan a short, or whatever. Or even have a break day (yay for break days filled…[Read more]

Ooh I love a good title debate.

Tbh, I’m not a fan of ‘The {x persons}’s {female relative}. BEcause a) there’s been a gazillion of them, and b) it reduces the woman/girl to an addendum to their male relative. Also, I think ‘The Time-stealers Daughter’ is too close to The Time Traveller’s Wife for me. I know that’s adult, and a bit dated now, but…[Read more]

😀 @seagreen. Perhaps December could be a Den SloMoWriMo, because December and writing do not appear to ever co-exist anyway!