Tag archives for Writing - Page 3
Giveaway on Goodreads – Themself in Paperback
My latest work, Themself, is now also available in paperback. I've organised a Goodreads Book Giveaway. All you need to do is go over to the goodreads website and tell them you would like a copy (see below for the link). At the end of February they'll randomly select five lucky winners who I will send a paperback copy of Themself to. Here's the book blurb on the paperback version: "On a whim in November 2012 James Kemp took part in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge to write 50,000 words during November. He didn't quite make it, but he did get hooked on writing. That was his spur to enrol on a Creative Writing course with the Open University starting in October 2013. Themself is his story of how he became a writer, told in part using contemporary blog posts…
Green Ink for happier editing?
For almost two decades I have used green ink when commenting on documents and for editing. I've come to believe that green ink is the best colour for editing for a variety of reasons. Here they are. Green Ink is psychologically positive Traditionally red ink has been used for correcting proofs. Red has a negative connotation, we use it for stop signs and prohibitions. Psychologically red can symbolise the blood from our work, and if there is a lot of red on the page then we get disillusioned and dispirited. So much so that UK civil service core competency framework has "wields the red pen" as an unacceptable trait for senior civil servants. Green Ink carries the opposite connotations to red ink. We use green for go, and for affirming things. So green ink on the page doesn't carry the…
Dialogue: Five Facts for Fantastic Dialogue
Dialogue can be difficult, but there are some things you can do to make it way better. Here are five things for you to focus on when editing your dialogue. If you do these then your dialogue will be amazing. As with everything, you need make sure the dialogue advances the plot or develops the characters. If it doesn't do either, or both, then cut it out. Dialogue Directions 1. Read it out loud 2. Show the emotions 3. Give each character their own voice 4. Use only 'said' 5. Keep it short Read it Out Loud This is how you know that you've got the rhythm right. If you can record yourself reading it and listen back. Don't take any shortcuts here. You need to actually say it out loud, reading in your head doesn't work. This is good advice for all…
Editing Perfects
Over the last few weeks I've been editing Perfects for a second draft. I finished it over two years ago and it has sat in the metaphorical drawer waiting until I had time between uni courses to focus on it and apply what I learned from A215 to it. As a re-cap, Perfects is an evolution of Exodus, which was my multi-threaded NaNoWriMo 2012 story of a mid twenty first century exodus of people from Earth into space as space travel became an order of magnitude cheaper. I decided when I re-looked at it that there was an interesting world there, but that the strands needed loads of work to knit together. One of the strands became the novella Crisis Point, which I released in 2013. Perfects followed a group of genetically engineered teenagers and twentysomethings living mainly in Cambridge.…
New Books 2015 pt.5
This is the latest crop of book acquisitions this year. Three ARCs, two for megagame research, three from a charity shop and one from a publisher's special offer. About half way through the year and I've acquired 38 books, meaning that to meet my reading target I need to read 43 paper books. So far I've only finished reading 12 paper books (out of 29 total). However I've broken my kindle, and there are a number of paper books that I've read part of, but not quite finished. So I'd expect to finish at least 30 books between now and the end of the year. Why I Acquired the Books Haking A Dutiful Soldier - I've got one of the books he wrote before the war, and a few on the 1916 Battle of Fromelles, where he was the Corps Commander. The Last Roundhead -…