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How to Write A Novel, Step 5.1: Character is Action

Oct 5, 2015
3 min

How to Write A Novel, Step 5.1: Character is Action

I kept saying in Step 5 that character is action, and I promised to explain myself (eventually). This is how I see it. So, we’ve made those tentative first steps in getting to know our characters... perhaps we’ve built a file with vivid descriptions of what they look like, we’ve thought about how they speak, how they dress, how they see the world. Perhaps we are starting to see them as real people who inhabit that other world, the world of our imaginations, and we may even ha

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How to Write A Novel, Step 5: Coming to Know Your Characters

Aug 7, 2015
4 min

How to Write A Novel, Step 5: Coming to Know Your Characters

I’m assuming that by the time you have sorted out all that planning (see Step 4...), you will already be quite conversant with your characters. If you are like me, they will be pretty much like real people, probably already interfering with the planning process as they put their two bob’s worth in. Or twenty cents’ worth, if you are post decimalisation, or, allowing for inflation, possibly twenty dollar’s worth (if you are reading in a country other than Australia, feel free

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How to Write A Novel: Step 4.1, or, More About Planning

Apr 17, 2015
3 min

How to Write A Novel: Step 4.1, or, More About Planning

I promised last time that I hadn’t said all I was planning to say on the subject of planning, and I also promised that I would let you know how the workshop I was going to went. It went... brilliantly. And completely changed my ideas. Since spending a day with the amazing Kate Forsyth, Building Castles in the Air at the ACT Writers Centre (gosh, I wish they would find their missing apostrophe!), I have developed a whole new lease on life in planning. I now understand my own s

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How to Write A Novel: Step 4, or, To Plan or Not to Plan

Apr 3, 2015
5 min

How to Write A Novel: Step 4, or, To Plan or Not to Plan

Planning is one of those vexed questions that some experts on writing can become quite passionate about, even resorting to saying unkind things about writers who do it differently to them. I’ve read quite a lot about planning, however, and I’ve come to the conclusion that EVERYONE plans (or, possibly, doesn’t plan – but I’ll come to that in a moment) differently. At the two extremes are writers who plan their story to the nth degree with everything that is going to happen nea

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How To Write A Novel: Step 3, Getting Words on the Page

Mar 21, 2015
5 min

How To Write A Novel: Step 3, Getting Words on the Page

Believe it or not, getting words on the page can be daunting for anyone, even seasoned writers and best sellers. Having a firm idea for your story is only the start. Sitting down every day and knowing what you want to write is both a habit and a skill, and some days it will seem easier than others. The first thing to realise is that you have to commit to forming a writing habit. There are different ways to approach this. Word Count Some writers have a word count that they str

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How to Write a Novel: Step 2: Ideas (or, 7 Different Ways to Come Up With Story Ideas)

Mar 6, 2015
5 min

How to Write a Novel: Step 2: Ideas (or, 7 Different Ways to Come Up With Story Ideas)

Most people who want to write a novel probably already have a good idea about what they want to write about. It’s the idea that fuels the desire, and keeps you up at night (or, if you are like me, wakes you up early in the morning, kind of like the family pet, helpfully licking your face to let you know the sun is about to come up). I understand, however, that it is a source of mystery for many. And perhaps some of them would like to write a novel if only they could work out

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How to Write a Novel: Step 2, or, actually, let’s make that Step 1 continued...

Feb 28, 2015
4 min

How to Write a Novel: Step 2, or, actually, let’s make that Step 1 continued...

When I ambitiously started this little project, apart from ruthlessly choosing to split an infinitive or two in the quest for conversational style, not to mention other grammatical anomalies, I had visions of a neat, linear group of posts that would follow one from the other and provide a guiding light for others who, like me, are on the never ending quest for knowledge. Ha. Ha. And then I started thinking. Learning to write is not a sequential process. It is an amorphous who

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How to Write A Novel: Step 1

Feb 14, 2015
5 min

How to Write A Novel: Step 1

So, how do you write a novel? This is a question that is asked by a lot of people I meet (online and in real life - or perhaps that should be online and in person, as online is real life for a lot of us introverted types). It’s a great question, and one I’d like to answer, although they weren’t necessarily asking me at the time. I do, however, feel qualified to profess that I know enough to offer some advice in this area, and will regale you with my knowledge in what I hope w

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Gems of Wisdom - Conflux Writers' Day 2014

Apr 8, 2014
2 min

Gems of Wisdom - Conflux Writers' Day 2014

One of the things I really loved about Conflux Writers' Day was that they knew where to put the apostrophe, which is a great start. I don't know what it is about apostrophes, and, I will admit, I am not perfect myself, but I do like to see them in the right place. I'd been looking forward to this, the inaugural Conflux Writers' Day, since I first saw it advertised months ago. I jumped straight in to purchase my ticket and wrote it in on my calendar and in my diary so I wouldn

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