Posts by robertcday
How should I approach plotting a compelling story, i.e. one aimed at changing the way people think and behave (rather than just being "art for art's sake")? I want to write a novel or collection o...
I have a problem when it comes to writing (blog posts, stories and novels). It might just be me, but maybe other people have experienced it too? When I come to start writing, my ideas before I sit...
There are definite advantages to writing comprehensive character maps, but one downside that I've found is that when a character is fully fleshed out, she/he tries to take on a life of her/his own ...
I'm midway through a Masters in Creative Writing. My tutor recently told me (something like): each character deserves a chance to be liked by the reader. I didn't want people to like the particula...
I'm increasingly having to write User Guides as part of my job and I need routes to make this into a more interesting exercise. Hence, I was actually looking for something completely different whe...
I got into trouble last year for submitting an assignment (Masters in Creative Writing) that included a story that sprinkled elements of humour (think Despicable Me) into a gritty and frankly distu...
I've never seen or read Game of Thrones but I hear that the author is in the habit of killing characters off quite frequently. I have no idea what these particular characters in the series are like...
Last Christmas my sister bought me a tome called The Book of Human Emotions (by Tiffany Watt Smith). I just started reading it and it got me thinking about how a writer might arouse emotion in a re...
I'm reading The Book of Human Emotions by Tiffany Watt Smith (good stuff if you want to inform the use of emotion in your writing), and I've just come across Overwhelmed (feeling). It talks about t...
I often have trouble deciding whether (or how often) to take breaks from writing, or to "double down" and try to write, and try to eliminate anything distracting me from that. I am not looking for...
Think action movie. Think two heavily-armed men - one chasing the other over rooftops, down through buildings and into the mean streets of a crowded city. Think big guns, explosions and other loud ...
Every now and again I think to myself how nice it would be to give up my staid life as a Software Developer and start an exciting new career as a Novelist. But then I think to myself that there ar...
Because I enjoy reading Science Fiction, I'm thinking of writing a Sci-Fi novel myself. I'm interested in 'hard' (related to the engineering sciences) science fiction with a military bent (think Th...
I have been accused — shock, horror — of using the dash (the one that indicates a three-quarters pause) too much in my fiction. Thing is — I quite like the effect (the space inserted in sentences b...
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