Judging the Length
When I started the current work – Dark Roads, I made a guestimate as to the length and the target date. Eighty thousand words seemed a reasonable length for a full-sized novel and because I expected to need a certain amount of research, 30th June seemed a reasonable end date. Well, it’s the tenth of […]
Time Lines
One of the problems that crop up when there are several distinct but connected strands to a story is making sure that everything and everyone is in synch. Currently at 95%+ into the story and I suddenly find one of my characters is where he shouldn’t actually be. The bad guys have launched a vicious […]
How Long is Too Long?
When I set the target lengths for a book, I usually put 80,000 words. It’s a purely arbitrary figure and has no specific significance. But it does give me a target to aim for. Likewise I usually decide on a deadline date, Scrivener, my writing program, is then quite happy to do a simple calculation […]
Pacing – Again
While the pacing of the story is one concern, there is also the pacing of the writing. It isn’t the same sort of issue. In the story, we need to keep the reader’s attention, so the ebb and flow of action and the changes of perspective all add to the mix. In the writing, it’s […]
Research
It seems that researching while writing is more than half the fun. Or so far, at least. Looking up archaic the usage of words, making sure that the facts are right in the context of the setting and desperately trying not to be distracted by some obscure tidbit of knowledge that suddenly drops in your […]
Incidentals
It’s interesting when you start to do some research for a story just how much incidental information you can pick up. For example, how far can you ride a horse in a day? Apparently a fit horse could travel anything up to one hundred miles in a day, provided that it could be rested for […]
Language
The current work, Dark Roads, is set in the medieval period, 1201 to be precise. How people spoke then was effectively a completely different language to what is spoken now, so much so that we would not understand someone from those times, nor they us. Given that, how do we write dialogue that sounds sufficiently […]
Timing
I suppose timing can be important in a story also. Perhaps not so much timing but pacing. Keeping a story moving, but not too quickly. So many of the books I’ve read lately have been non-stop action. The author throwing one problem after another at the cast and hoping that they can distract from the […]
Characters
It seems strange that the characters in story sometimes take over and shape where the story is going and what is likely to be happening. In the current story the male main character, de Quincey was always going to be the strongest. The one with the most action and in theatrical terms, the most lines. […]
Getting Complicated
I suppose, there is a sweet-spot somewhere between complex and simple that allows the story to unfurl easily while still keeping the reader’s attention captivated. I’ve read enough books recently to know that too simple is boring, books full of pointless description because the author can’t think of what he or she wants the character […]