The Flash 500 quarterly competitions are set to close for entries at the end of this month. You have two days left to send off your masterpieces for the flash fiction and humour verse categories.
Flash Fiction Webpage
Humour Verse Webpage
I hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas and send my best wishes for a successful 2015.
Lorraine
Critique Service for Writers
Flash 500 Home Page: Flash Fiction, Humour Verse
and Novel Opening Chapter and Synopsis Competitions
Monday 29 December 2014
Friday 28 November 2014
Writing for Children - Tip 24 #writetip
Children use sarcasm to each other all the time. They hear
it in films and on television, and then transfer their favourite characters’
expressions into their own way of speaking.
They’ll sigh and roll their eyes and tell their friends the
most outrageous things, knowing the sarcasm will be picked up on and
understood.
Because of this, you would be forgiven for thinking that they would easily realise
when someone in a novel is using sarcasm, but this is not the case.
Tip 24 – How to Use Sarcasm
Children read exactly what is on the page and take the
meaning literally, unless there are sufficient signals to the contrary.
Irony and sarcasm have to be clearly signposted so that your
young readers are aware that the words are being used in a sarcastic way.
When you want your characters to be sarcastic it is
necessary to show the personality of the speaker from the outset.
It isn’t going to work very well if someone who has been
meek and mild all the way through the book suddenly becomes the queen of the
one-liners halfway into the story.
On the other hand, it is perfectly acceptable to have a
character who has been too timid to speak up throughout the novel, finally find
the courage at the very end of the book to
make one glorious put down directed
at his or her impotent enemy.
If you decide to include sarcasm in your novel you must
remember to signpost it well and use it sparingly.
Critique Service for Writers
Flash 500 Home Page: Flash Fiction, Humour Verse
and Novel Opening Chapter and Synopsis Competitions
Tuesday 25 November 2014
Is it worth celebrating?
A reader from
Huddersfield, who asked not to be named, was recently long listed in an
international competition, but she wasn’t sure if it was something she should
celebrate. She writes: when I saw my
name on a long list for a flash fiction competition, I was really excited, but
one of my writing friends said that was probably just the list of all those
who’d entered. Is that the way competitions work?
Obviously, I cannot answer for every competition around the
world, but it is generally accepted that a long list is made up of the best of
the entries after the first (and sometimes second) round of judging.
As I know which competition you entered and were long listed
for, I can categorically state that the long list was decided by a team of
readers who waded through hundreds and hundreds of entries before picking a
long list of stories to put forward for the next stage of judging.
I think, possibly, your writing friend might be suffering a
little from the green-eyed monster. Celebrate your appearance on the long list
– it is hard to get through the initial stages of judging in any competition.
To do so in one where the entry count is so high is an achievement indeed.
Critique Service for Writers
Flash 500 Home Page: Flash Fiction, Humour Verse
and Novel Opening Chapter and Synopsis Competitions
Friday 21 November 2014
Writing for Children - Tip 23 #writetip
As mentioned in the previous tip, generally children have an
extremely low boredom threshold. They want action in their books and not
history, geography, or any other type of lesson – not even on subjects that are
otherwise exciting.
Tip 23 – Mama Don’t Teach
Let’s say your story is about time travel and your young
heroes find themselves back in the middle-ages. Clearly they’ll be wearing the
wrong clothes and will have all sorts of adventures.
Don’t be tempted to write long passages on what everyone
wore back then – your readers won’t care, they’ll just want to know what
happens next in the story. Your audience only needs to be told about medieval
clothing as it affects your story.
Let’s take the same tale a little further and have our time
travellers landing in France, or some other European destination. As with the
clothing, your readers only need to know about the country’s language and
geography where it impacts on the characters in your story.
If your time travellers land in a mystical world where
everyone can use magic except them, the same rules apply. Show the reader what
the magic can do, but don’t bore them to tears with a lesson on how it works.
The exception is when understanding the workings of magic is
essential to the story, but do try to keep the lesson short and introduce it
through action and dialogue.
Then we come to the time travelling machine itself. Describe
what it looks like by all means, but don’t go overboard with long narrative
passages about shiny chrome panels and levers.
If it is going to break down and leave your travellers
stranded, or a second one has to be built for some reason, give some details
about the mechanics, but only what is essential to make the story work.
Critique Service for Writers
Flash 500 Home Page: Flash Fiction, Humour Verse
and Novel Opening Chapter and Synopsis Competitions
Wednesday 19 November 2014
Getting to know … Lisa Tenzin-Dolma
At the moment they fall into two genres. The Swan Lake is classed as contemporary fiction, and the Lainey Morgan books, starting with Lainey’s Lot, are Young Adult, though the Lainey books could be considered as crossover books.
What made you choose that genre?
It wasn’t a deliberate choice. The main characters popped
into my head and refused to leave, and they led the storylines. Astarte, from The Swan Lake and Lainey from the YA
books are both quirky, eccentric people and their stories naturally took on a
darkly funny, dramatic tone.
How long does it take
you to write a book?
Usually around three months, but with the Lainey books I
started the first one about 8 years ago, set it aside halfway through to write rather
a lot of commissioned non-fiction books, and only went back to it and finished
it this year.
What is your work
schedule like when you're writing?
I start early, take breaks to walk my dogs (and walking
often clears my mind, too), set some time aside for assessing coursework from
my canine behaviour students in the afternoon, usually finish writing early
evening, and then catch up on mail until about 9pm. While I’m immersed in the
story I tend to lose track of time, though, so often end up writing late into
the night.
Where do you get your
ideas for your books?
With fiction, mostly the ideas come to me out of the blue,
starting with a character and expanding from there, though I have a couple of new
novels on the go that started with a question: What if? This then sparked off a
whole storyline.
The Swan Lake came
about when a friend who was an Intensive Care nurse came to stay. We had a lot more
wine than I’m used to and were laughing about some crazy things that had
happened when I lived in the depths of the country in Ireland, throwing ideas
back and forth about how my friend (a city dweller) would have coped with going
back to nature. That gave me the idea for Astarte’s character, and the next
morning I woke up with the whole story in my mind. It bugged me until I wrote
it down, and the book was written very quickly.
I started the first Lainey book when my daughter, Amber, was
13 years old, and it was great fun getting into the mind of an adolescent girl
– all those dramas! Amber’s nothing like Lainey, but funnily enough life
imitated art, in a way, because when I was halfway through writing the book
Amber started going out with a boy who was remarkably like Kieran, Lainey’s boyfriend
in the first book – even to his looks and musical talent! They both found that
hilarious.
With non-fiction, the books develop through what I’m
particularly interested in and would like to read books about. I love doing
research and sharing ideas and knowledge!
When did you write
your first book and how old were you?
I wrote my first book when I was 13. We lived in Malaysia at
the time, and my class in school had to do a history project on London in 1665/1666.
It was the time of the Great Plague, so for my project I wrote a novel about a
girl who lived through that. It won me a prize at school but I wouldn’t have
dreamed of sending it to a publisher.
My first published book was a non-fiction book called The Dolphin Experience. That came out in
1992, when I was 38.
What do you like to
do when you're not writing?
I spend as much time as possible with my family, friends and
my two dogs, and I do a lot of teaching work, which I love. I’m principal of
The International School for Canine Practitioners, teaching dog psychology and
behaviour to students all over the world, and I also run the Dog Welfare
Alliance, a non-profit organisation that brings together professionals and the
public and supports rescue centres globally.
I read a lot, in all genres, and there’s always a very varied
pile of books on my coffee table. I play guitar, too, though not as much as I
used to.
What was one of the
most surprising things you learned in creating your books?
How a story can completely take over your mind for the time
it takes to write a book! This week I put a tongue-in-cheek post on Facebook
about how chocolate can help the creative flow for me, and this set off a
discussion with some author and screenwriter friends about how the characters
in a story become very real while we’re writing about them. As one friend so
aptly put it, it’s exhilarating and exhausting, and I agree – to really enter
that world we’re creating, we need to tune in and live inside each character’s
head (the unlikeable ones, as well as the likeable ones). They take on lives of
their own.
How many books have
you written?
I’ve had 22 books published, with another four books coming
out next year: three of those are fiction and one’s non-fiction.
Which is your
favourite and why?
That’s such a tough question to answer – it’s like asking me
which one of my five children is my favourite! I can’t choose. Each book is
different and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed writing all of them. Plus, fiction
writing is totally different to non-fiction. With fiction I’m entering an
imaginary world (that seems very real at the time), whereas while I’m writing
non-fiction I think about what readers need to know about a subject, and how to
make that interesting as well as informative.
The most deeply personal book I’ve written is Charlie: The Dog Who Came in from the Wild, which
will be out through Hubble & Hattie in August 2015. It tells the story of
how I rehabilitated a one-eyed Romanian born-in-the-wild feral dog who had
never mixed with humans or dogs outside his social group before his capture.
The book covers Charlie’s first 18 months with us, and described how I helped
him overcome his many fears and become a fully integrated, much loved member of
our family. It was an intense journey for all of us. I’d kept a journal
throughout, so it was fascinating for me to sift through so many memories and
remind myself of the extraordinary transformation that Charlie’s gone through.
As a child, what did
you want to do when you grew up?
A writer!
What are you working
on now?
I’m working on another Lainey novel, and have several more
books on the back burner.
Bio
Lisa Tenzin-Dolma is the author of over 20 books, principal
of The International School for Canine Practitioners, and founder of the Dog
Welfare Alliance. She has five children and two dogs, and lives in a small
village near Bath, UK.
Websites:
List of titles
- Charlie: The Dog Who Came in from the Wild (Hubble &
Hattie, 2015)
- Lainey’s Lot. Accent Press. (two more Lainey books to come
in 2015)
- The Heartbeat at Your Feet: A Practical, Compassionate New
Way to Train Your Dog. Rowman & Littlefield
- Dog Training: The Essential Guide. Need2Know Books.
- Adopting a Rescue Dog. Phoenix Rising Press
- Mind & Motivation: The Spirit of Success. Phoenix
Rising Press
- The Swan Lake. Phoenix Rising Press (to be republished by
Accent Press 2015)
- Mandala Source Book (with David Fontana). Watkins
Publishing.
- Natural Mandalas. Duncan Baird Publishers.
- Healing Mandalas. Duncan Baird Publishers.
- The Mandala Colouring Kit. Duncan Baird Publishers.
- The Celtic Mandala Colouring Kit. Duncan Baird Publishers.
- Celtic Mandalas Colouring Book. Watkins.
- Buddhist Mandalas Colouring Book. Watkins.
- Healing Mandalas Colouring Book. Watkins.
- 3D Mandalas. Watkins.
- Take Control with Astrology. Hodder Education.
- Teach Yourself Astrology. Hodder Education. McGraw-Hill.
- Understanding the Planetary Myths. Quantum/Foulsham.
- A-Z of Dreaming. Igloo Books.
(Also published by Igloo as Understanding Your Dreams and
Dreams & Dreaming)
- The Glastonbury Tarot. Papaveria Press.
- Swimming with Dolphins. Foulsham.
- The Dolphin Experience. Foulsham.
Critique Service for Writers
Flash 500 Home Page: Flash Fiction, Humour Verse
and Novel Opening Chapter and Synopsis Competitions
Monday 17 November 2014
Help! My novel's too long! #writetip
Veronica from
Marbella has a problem with her novel being too long: I’ve been told by many people (and seen it on countless websites) that
publishers won’t look at debut novels that are too long. I’ve been told mine, a
story set in the days of the French Resistance, should be between 70,000 and
90,000 words. I’m only about two-thirds of the way into it and it’s already
over 85,000 words. What should I do? Should I cut out one of the characters?
Change the plot slightly? Take out one of the subplots? Please help, because I
can’t bear the thought of spending all this time writing a book and then being
told it’s too long to be published.
First of all, the thing to bear in mind about word count
guidelines is that is all they are – guidelines. If a stunning novel landed on
an agent or publisher’s desk that they simply couldn’t put down, there is no
way it would be rejected as being too long, even if it was well over the standard
word count!
Secondly, you have said yourself that you haven’t even
finished the book yet, so there is no way of knowing what should be cut, if
anything.
A first draft is just a way of getting your thoughts and
ideas down on paper. When you go through your first rewrite you will
automatically cut sentences, paragraphs, maybe even entire scenes, because they
don’t fit. You may find that you have two or three minor players who could be
morphed into one stronger character, which again would affect the word count.
On second, third, fourth and fifth drafts, you’ll tighten
dialogue, cut out all the padding and unnecessary adjectives and adverbs.
By the time your novel is ready to be sent anywhere, it will
be a much smoother, sleeker beast than the one you are currently wrestling
with. Get the words down and leave the worries about length and publishing
needs until you’ve polished your baby so that it gleams. If it does that, no
one will care if it’s a few thousand words more than the guidelines say it
should be.
Critique Service for Writers
Flash 500 Home Page: Flash Fiction, Humour Verse
and Novel Opening Chapter and Synopsis Competitions
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