We’ve put together this checklist to help you decide whether your novel is ready for submission to agents, or for self-publishing. It’s just a guide, don’t take it too seriously! Details on each of the checkpoints can be found below. You can get a PDF version here. Great core concept Is the central idea unique…
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We’ve created an infographic which presents each of the Hero’s Journey’s steps along with a concise description of each one. If you’d like to find out more about the Hero’s Journey and see examples of it in action in popular fiction, you can find a complete guide to the Hero’s Journey here. A quick note:…
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If you haven’t heard of the Hero’s Journey, then brace yourself, as you’re about to learn one of the most useful tools to help develop your skills as a novelist If you’ve already heard of it but want to know more, then you’re in the right place. In this article we’ll explain what the Hero’s…
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This is a guest post by Krystal N. Craike, the Writing Pirate Congratulations! You’ve finished the first draft of your novel. Pat yourself on the back. Open a bottle of champagne. You deserve it! But the work isn’t over. Now you need to edit the darn thing. And editing is a word that can strike fear…
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This is a guest post by Luke Palder of Query Letter. If you’re considering publication, that means you’ve finished your manuscript. Take a moment to bask in the glory of this achievement. Finishing a manuscript is an impressive feat, and you deserve to be proud. Now it’s time to show the world the masterpiece you’ve crafted.…
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This is a guest post by Rachael Cooper of Jericho Writers. For centuries, women have had the opportunity to read about the world from a man’s perspective. This often gives us an insight into the male psyche and therefore, a way into writing believable male characters. There is an absence, or indeed a limited field of,…
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On a basic level, there are two kinds of pace. On the large scale there is story pace. This is controlled more by the balance of different types of prose sections in the larger story structure. On a smaller scale, there’s the pace of a particular paragraph. This is the pace controlled by things like the sentence length…
Read MoreWe all want something. You’re probably already aware that the protagonist of your novel needs some kind of motivation – an objective (or several) to carry them through the story. But have you considered what they want versus what they need? (This can also be expressed as external versus internal motivation) In this article I…
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Writer’s block can be incredibly frustrating – here are some ideas for smashing through! Writer’s block can present itself in different ways. We may be struggling for inspiration and ideas. We may be paralysed by the desire for perfection or the fear of not being good enough. We may be stuck on a particular point…
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This is a guest post by Ali Harper, author of The Disappeared (HarperCollins). Unsurprisingly, every novelist I know hates writing synopses. Of course we do. Writers are creative beings and we’ve just spent the last god-knows-how-long trying to imagine something that wasn’t there and having conversations with people who don’t exist. We’ve grown a germ…
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