I came across this review of Hunters in the Dark by Lawrence Osborne, written by none other than Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher novels. I’ve pulled out his intro below, which contains an uncomplicated and practical definition of ‘literary’ as opposed to ‘suspense’ writing. A valuable distinction for genre writers wanting to move…
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I just finished watching the seventh and final season of Parks and Recreation. It is a brilliant show: funny and endearing, playful characterisation. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. This post is about two interesting elements of the show you may not have noticed. They made a drastic change after the first…
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My final post as blogger-in-residence for the ACT Writers Centre can be found here (or below, as usual). Thanks for coming along for the ride, and prepare for the brutal honesty… Keeping the Dream Alive I want to be a writer. For the longest time I found this difficult to admit. I guess I thought…
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At its best, sport may be the pinnacle of story-telling. All the key ingredients are there: larger than life heroes, egotistical villains, a grand stage, the weight of history and expectation. But it also has something fiction does not: reality. The story hasn’t been made up by some overstimulated Hollywood boffin, it has been written…
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[Edit: Link and tags removed due to the volume of spam this article generated. Why this one, I wonder?] If you want twenty crisp, insightful lessons on writing genre fiction, I strongly recommend watching this video. [Copy and paste this link into your browser: https://youtu.be/QHHg99hwQGY] It’s not what you think. Mark Rosewater is a…
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Another one of my posts from the ACT Writers Centre’s CAPITAL LETTERS blog. The link to the article is here, or you can, as always, read the full text below: Latin verbs, letters home and Stephenie Meyer: an interview with Daniel O’Malley I went to the same primary school as Daniel O’Malley; he was…
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I am very pleased to announce that the first draft of my third novel, Blood Artist, is complete! It has been a total blast to write this crime thriller, and I know you are going to love it. As a special treat, here is the first chapter. I hope you enjoy! There is, of course,…
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My fifth CAPITAL YARNS blog post is up. This time the topic is how to raise children while also trying to find time to write. If you have kids, this should all sound horribly familiar. If you don’t have kids, stop reading now because this may put you off entirely… Original post is here: actwritersblog.com/2016/04/19/writing-with-kids/….
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My next CAPITAL LETTERS blog entry is an interview with Capital Yarns author Sean Costello. The original post can be found here, or, as usual, you can read it all below! I was in Harry Hartog’s in Woden the other day when I came across something unusual on the counter. Neatly folded in a…
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Ever thought about setting your fiction in the place you live? My latest blog post on the ACT Writers Centre website (actwritersblog.com/2016/03/23/setting-your-fiction-in-canberra/) looks into this very issue, weighing up the pros and cons. It is about my hometown – Australia’s capital of Canberra – but most of the concepts apply wherever you live. In case…
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