With only three weeks left until Nanowrimo 2023 kicks off, there’s still time to prepare your story so you can hit the keyboard hard on November 1st. More importantly, a little prep will give you something to fall back on when the words run dry on November 21st. I won’t be on board the Nano […]
Plottr is my latest bid to find a story outlining tool that will tame my excesses as a discovery writer and help me to work faster. I’ve looked at how I hoped to use it with three different projects, now it’s time for a deep dive into the experience. Navigating the Plottr interface When you […]
I’ve been away for a while [DRUM ROLL] writing a new novel in my Nightmare Vacations series. It’s also been an opportunity to test drive Plottr, a visual tool for story planning. For a lazy pantser like me, outlining can be a chore that gets in the way of turning that great new idea into […]
How much does it cost to write a novel? Surely, writing costs nothing more than time and something to write with, whether that’s pen and paper, a computer, or a secretary to take your dictations (if you’re Barbara Cartland). Right? Wrong! Most successful novelists employ editors and readers at different stages. That’s particularly important for […]
How do you turn a collection of story ideas into a coherent 100,000-word novel? Novel planning was one of the most daunting tasks I faced as a first-time novelist. As a journalist, I’d got used to writing a few hundred words without an outline, or jotting down a few ideas for a thousand-word article or […]