Online publishing has thrown open the door for authors everywhere to launch their work to the world, without the need for a traditional publishing deal. This free-flowing market has nurtured authorship in an unprecedented way, and – importantly for us Aussies – removed the ‘tyranny of distance’, allowing direct access to the major markets of the US and UK. And we’ve taken to it like ducks to water, happily splashing around in the same pool of publishing opportunity as our cross-ocean counterparts. But while Aussie authors have ridden waves of publishing success through text, our uptake of audio has languished. …
How to tap back into your creativity with Sarah Gates
I teach writing workshops in school and libraries. Sometimes it’s the same workshop (with just a few variations) that I’m asked to deliver to 13-year-olds as to adults. I’ve observed that something happens to our creativity when we hit adulthood. Kids and teens will throw out the wildest of ideas. Once you break through the shyness, it’s a free-for-all. When I ask a group of adults in a writing workshop to throw ideas out, a silence falls. The ideas tend to come slowly, in dribs and drabs. They often stay within the box. Adults will say things to me like, …
The Number One Concept to Stop Confusion About Showing
‘Show don’t tell’ is one of the most worrisome writing guidelines ever created, but it’s also essential to modern authors. Finding the right balance of showing and telling in your story is like patting your head and rubbing your belly while balancing on one leg at the top of a pole in a river full of crocodiles. (And I never exaggerate.) Authors get themselves tied up in knots over showing and telling, but the good news is if you take a deep breath, let go of the minutiae that are bogging you down and remember one simple and liberating concept, …
Building believable characters | Paula Roe
Give your work the best possible chance in the increasing tough world of publishing. Learn how to self-edit your work. Polish your work and present it to others at its very best.
Workshopping your Work – How to find out what readers think | Sarah Gates
Give your work the best possible chance in the increasing tough world of publishing. Learn how to self-edit your work. Polish your work and present it to others at its very best.
Why Romance Readers Love Third Person Point of View
Give your work the best possible chance in the increasing tough world of publishing. Learn how to self-edit your work. Polish your work and present it to others at its very best.
Kickstart Your Novel Dream
By Leeanne Vernon In some ways, I feel like a fraud teaching this course – I’m yet to have a romance novel published, despite trying. That’s not very encouraging if you’re thinking about joining my How to Kick Start your Novel sessions but let me put your mind at ease. I’m an awesome writing coach. Several people I’ve coached have gone on to publish their books. One young man wrote about his travelling adventures including ending up incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay detention centre. Tim left school in Year 10 and knew nothing about writing, but he was passionate about his …
The Secrets of Show Don’t Tell
By Samantha Marshall Whether you’re an aspiring writer finding your feet, an emerging author with a couple of books under your belt or an established author with a career spanning years, chances are you’ve heard the phrase ‘Show, Don’t Tell.’ Perhaps you’ve submitted a manuscript for either assessment or editing, and received feedback highlighting elements of telling in your writing, with the request to show instead. Or maybe you attended a talk with an author you admire, and they encourage their audience to show instead of tell wherever possible. You may even have come across the advice in craft books, …
Is Treating Writing Like a Business Holding You Back?
Shape Your Ideal Author Career workshop with Sandy Vaile You may have heard over and over again that you need to treat your fiction writing like a business or you’ll never be a successful author, but what you don’t often hear is that doing that could be the very thing holding you back. Say what? If you haven’t had your first book published yet, then I believe focusing on the business of writing is wasting writing time, and we all know what a precious resource time is. Building a platform, blogging and posting on social media regularly, getting your branding …
Master Story Point of View With Sandy Vaile
Character Experience in Deep Point of View Characters experience the story world through raw visceral and intellectual information that comes at them from other characters and their environment, but how does that translate onto the page? When you’re writing in Limited Third Person Point of View (POV), moving into Deep POV draws readers even closer to the character by removing any trace of the author. This has the benefit of enabling readers to experience the story like the character does, so they can be completely immersed in that world. When something is happening to the character, you only show what …
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