Changing character names
Do you ever wonder about the origin of words? To be honest, I don’t really think about it more than the next person. But when you do pause to think about it, rather than breeze past it like we do …
Music in novels
If you’re anything like me, you’ll have a song playing in your head on a constant basis, sometimes automatically and unnoticed, until it has focus again. This is especially true when I listen to a song in my car on …
My next book’s progress
This week I wrote 8,000 words, progressing the first draft of Book 3 to roughly 15,000 words. I also worked on my protagonists and minor characters more. So, now I’m not predominantly focusing on the plot. I know what characters …
Theories and reality
Have you ever wondered how facts pop into existence? Some theories on reality suggest that it’s largely based on perception. What we accept as the truth is our perception of that very truth. To confuse matters further in one way …
Memories
Have you noticed how we generally rely on a protagonist’s memories in fiction to give us a full picture of who they are, and where they came from – their back story? Whether we use flashbacks once the reader cares …
The best of times
You’ve probably noticed by now that my books, at least my first two, take place in the late 1990s to early 2000s. ‘Why?’ You might ask. A few reasons come to mind… The first and more obvious reason is that …
Waves of change
I’ve often written about the effects that Covid has had on our lives – no more so than us spending the majority of our weekdays working from home. Our pets love it, don’t they? They’re so used to having us …
Objectivity
Characters in fiction aren’t generally known for being objective, right? If they were, we’d have little conflict, and dialogue would be too polite to be interesting. Nor are characters known for being selfless, or story goals would be particularly boring …
Reaching story goals
Sorry for the hiatus, everyone. If my last blog post didn’t give any clues, I’ve been rather busy lately! But it’s now time to get back to it – write a blog post, give a few shout-outs to my first …
Life imitating art
Have you read The Holiday Romance yet? If you have, you’ll know that Kate has had a few challenges in the past (as most protagonists do). But hers have been particularly intriguing and although amplified, not entirely unlike one challenge …