Writing the Tie-In Novel: Structure

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So how do you go about writing a novel then? Well, I don’t know how you do it but here’s how I go about it. I start by writing a very simple synopsis. This can be anything up to 1000 words. It covers the basic flow of the action, names the main characters and settings. That’s it. There’s no description, no dialogue, no bits of business of any sort. It’s just the bare bones of the story set down in the most basic way. Once that is done, I go through this very basic outline and I start expanding upon Read more…

Living In Writer’s Time

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Just like deadlines some special occasions sneak up on you. It’s Gamesday in a couple of weeks and Blood of Aenarion is going to be released there and yet somehow, while wittering on about writing and Macharius and short stories, I have forgotten to talk about it. You’re probably wondering how that is possible. I mean it is a major hardback release with the most astonishingly beautiful cover and it features some of my favourite characters ever. It’s also my first new book for Black Library in what– 8 years? (Bloody hell!) How did this escape my notice? The secret, Read more…

Revising Macharius

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This is the part I always enjoy. The grunt work of writing the first draft is out of the way and I am now going through The Angel of Fire in Scrivener with an eye to improving it. I took a short break away from the book last week so I could come to it cold for the rewrite. In an ideal world this interval would be longer than a week, but even that small amount of time has given me some distance. Since it’s been several months since I wrote the earliest parts of the book, I have plenty of Read more…

Great Scrivener Tip From David Hewson

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David talks about how to quickly mark scenes for revision here. I’ve been using this program for four years now and this has never occurred to me. While I am writing this I may as well mention that I highly recommend David’s book Writing a Novel with Scrivener available from amazon.co.uk and amazon.com. In it David takes you through every step needed for getting a book done in Scrivener, even as far as epublishing it onto the Kindle. Hewson is a former tech journalist and a bestselling detective/thriller writer and he really knows his stuff. The book is a model of clarity Read more…

Lawrence Block on the Renaissance of the Short Story

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Over on his blog the great Lawrence Block is talking about short stories. He thinks that ebooks might be the salvation of the form. If you’re interested in the short story I urge you to go ahead and read what he has to say. Block is, in my opinion, one of the greatest living writers and the very definition of what it means to be a professional. What he has to say is always worth hearing. I’ll still be here when you get back. When I was starting out a quarter of a century ago, I wrote a lot of Read more…

What Do Angels Have To Weep About?

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Two weeping stone angels guarded the entrance to the tomb. Their features were weathered which just made them look even more mournful. I wondered what it was angels had to weep about? Priests say it’s the sins of mortals but none of the angels I ever talked to cared much about our sins. They were more concerned with their holy war. There in one paragraph is the reason I love writing fantasy. It starts with a concrete description and progresses to a throwaway line from a bitter, disillusioned man who has lost his faith then, in the last couple of Read more…