Advice

Nobody can tell you how to write your story or give you cast iron rules to follow for a bestseller. Others can only advise and suggest techniques and perspectives you may not have considered.

So, having studied writing for years I’m hoping I can offer you some thoughts on what I’ve learnt and point you in the direction of a few gems I found in my studies.

If you can’t find what you’re looking for ask a question via the comment section below each article or Twitter: @SisterQuill

Finding Your Toolbox:

Getting Started – A few things to consider.
Reading Like a Writer – Learning from others work.
Putting Pen to Paper – On observing and researching.
Getting Grammatical – Considerings apostophes, homophones, commas, and semi-colons.
More Gruesome Grammar – Looking at commas, brackets, dashes and double punctuation.
Words, Words, Words – Looking at tricky tense changes and overused convoluted sentences.
Troublesome Words – Looking at those tricky words that change depending on context, may be or maybe?
Writer’s Block – A few things to try when you’re stuck.
Creative Writing Workshop – How they can be helpful and unhelpful.

Finding Your Voice:

Forming First Drafts – Using the first draft to find your story.
The Purpose of Plot – What is a plot and how does it work?
Follow the Narrative Road – A look at narrative structure.
Where For Art Thou Beginning? – Finding the right beginning.
A Different Type of Beginning – Do we begin with action? Speech? Or monologue?
Meditating on the Middle – Finding the balance between plot, character and pace.
All The Way to The End – Finding the right ending can be a tricky thing.
Edifying Endings – Different types of endings present different problems.
Chipping at Chapters – To chapter or not chapter? That is the question.
Pacing Prose – Considering the basics of pacing a story.
Looking at Love – How can we create romance plots and romantic tension in our fiction?
Covention and Expectation – Looking at genre conventions and how we can break them.

Finding Your Perspective:

Picking a Perspective – The different narrative voices you could use.
Centre Stage – The basics of first-person/subjective narration.
Assembling a Narrator – Creating a first-person/subjective narrator.
Those Pesky Side Characters – Revealing secondary characters in first-person/subjective narration.
Making Narrators Unreliable – Looking at different ways a first-person/subjective narrator might not tell us the whole truth.
Limiting Omniscience – A look at the challenges and benefits of limited omniscient narration. (Third-person)
The All Seeing Narrator – Looking at omniscient/reliable narration. (Third-person)
Sitting Outside the Story – Is the omniscient narrator the author or someone else?

Finding Your Characters:

Agonising Over Archetypes – What are archetypes and can they help us in our writing?
Casting Characters – What’s the difference between main characters, secondary, and bit parts?
Painting a Protagonist – Every part of your character is important.
Vile Villainy – A villain is more than a stereotype.
The Antagonistic Force – Sometimes our character’s antagonist is them.
Creating Characters – Looking at different ways of using character description.
Attack of the Plot Puppet – Comparing when our characters are puppets to the plot or have agency of their own.
Describing Characters – Looking at painting our characters in vivid shades or leaving a gap for the reader to fill. Also features an extended article on describing women.
Discussing Dialogue – Dialogue is about more than just words.
Dictating Dialogue – Looking at some of the technical aspects of dialogue.
Adding Some Sparkle – Considering how to make speech individual.
Starting a Setting – How can we use setting to show character?
Clarifying Character – Keep characters moving forward.
Hero Versus Villain – Protagonist and antagonist can be more complicated than good and bad.
Focusing on Friendship – Looking at the different ways friendship can affect plot or be affected by plot.
Relating to Relationships – Looking at relationship arcs and what we can learn from Romance fiction to help us write them.
Getting Internal – Beginner’s guide to internal monologues.
Getting Characters Thinking – How do we get those internal monologues going?
Breaking Up Backstory – Looking at how a character’s backstory impacts their present.
Revealing a World – How can we use characters to reveal a world?

Finding Your Inner Editor:

Editing, Editing, Editing – Editing can be your best friend and worst enemy.
Brick-By-Brick – Perfecting plot during editing is like a jigsaw.
Getting Emotive – The importance of emotion and a few ways to show it.
Showing The Senses – Considering the different ways we can use the senses.
Let’s Get Less Busy – Looking at different ways to streamline action.
Keeping it Short – Looking at experimenting with short fiction to improve our self-editing skills.
Exposing Exposition – Considering what exposition is and how to use it.
Adding Atmosphere – Looking at ways to create atmosphere in fiction.
Dicey Description – Looking at the different ways to use description
Differing Description – Wading through the depthsof description and considering the pros and cons of different techniques
Editing Others – Looking at points to consider when editing other people’s writing.
Building a World – The basics of world building.
Elements of Editing – A look at my personal method of self-editing using Hysteria from Victorian Mistress as an example.

Simplifying Self-Publishing:

Writing a Weekly Serial – Mistakes I’ve made so you don’t have to.
Year of The Weekly Serial – What I’ve learnt from my first year of serialising fiction.
Starting Self-Publishing – Where can we begin on our journey? What options are there?
Finding The Format – How do we format a manuscript for an editor/agent or for publication?

History of Literature:

Sex and Censorship – Surprises lurk in every story.
Considering the Classics – How time has change literature and theatre.