Ann McTaggart Characters Concept and plot Dialogue Elaine Graham-Leigh News about BGBW members Pacing Point of view Susie Helme Suspense Techniques Women Writing
Trying our hand at suspense
Elaine Graham-Leigh Now that we’ve analysed some examples of suspense, we in Bounds Green Book Writers have been trying our hand at creating our own. Below is Elaine Graham-Leigh’s attempt at a visit to a haunted house – see if you can spot some of the techniques we’ve discussed. There will be more to come!…
Writing advice blog: Examples of suspense analysed
Susie Helme and Elaine Graham-Leigh In the last post, Susie Helme talked about techniques for building suspense in your writing. In this post, we’re taking a look at how it can be done in practice, by analysing some examples from our favourite authors. Leigh Bardugo, Ninth House Inside, the music thumped and wailed, the heat…
Writing advice blog: Writing suspense
Susie Helme The art of writing suspense is all about building the reader’s expectation and then at some later point, either hitting them with it with a bang, or twisting it and hitting them with something they weren’t expecting. This can stimulate a pleasurable dopamine rush, so that your readers enjoy reading your novel. Mysteries…
Writing advice blog: One hundred wonderful metaphors
Susie Helme Susie shares her favourite metaphors from literature and film. Which will inspire you to craft some wonderful metaphors of your own? shuddered as if something multi-legged and primal had stalked across his spine[1] a man of low birth whom Providence has thrown like dice[2] feels the soft, warm parts of herself being removed…
Writing advice blog: Editorialising and qualifiers
Susie Helme When I worked as a journalist, we were taught never to Editorialise (express personal opinions or feelings). Our readers want to know Who, What, When, Where and How. They don’t care about what I think or feel about it. If I was lucky and they liked the piece, they’d look at my byline…
Writing advice blog: Writing wondeful metaphors
Susie Helme A metaphor is a literary device, a comparison between two dissimilar things, using descriptive or figurative language, for rhetorical effect. Metaphors are a great way to add colour to your descriptions and spice up your writing. By using symbolism, they tell us more about the subject than a literal description. They create a…
Writing advice blog: Writing aliens
Elaine Graham-Leigh One of the trickiest but most interesting aspects of writing fiction, I find, is writing alien characters. How do you show your reader the differences between the alien culture and ours? While it’s only in science fiction that you might find yourself writing actual alien characters, this is a challenge you’ll face as…
Writing advice blog: Second person point of view
Susie Helme The second person could be the most difficult point of view to use in a novel because it ‘can feel trite or gimmicky’, requiring a Voice which is ‘hard to sustain for the length of a novel’.[1] It’s a very effective point of view (POV) to use in how-to nonfiction, of course, as…
Writing advice blog: Zooming in, zooming out
Susie Helme The Reedsy blog How to Write a Closer (or More Distant) Point of View, is all about psychic or narrative distance, where the narrative (and therefore the reader) stands in relation to the character. I was intrigued by the statement: ‘The furthest you’re going to go in terms of Point of View is…
Writing advice blog: Dialogue – learning from the best
Susie Helme and Elaine Graham-Leigh Last week, we looked at some tips for how to write great dialogue. Now we’ll see how they can be put into practice with some examples from literature from 1813 to 2020. Literary style and conventions change over time, but the need for great dialogue remains the same. Pride and…
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