Never Open a Book with the Weather One of the first things my publisher said to me before she read my book was, ‘I hope you don’t talk about the weather in the first paragraph!’ I didn’t. Instead, I talked about it in the second paragraph. Yes, that’s the truth. It’s still there, and the book is about to be printed. But here’s the thing – the season in which the book is set is significant as far as the story goes. It’s autumn and my female protagonist, through whom we experience all the action, loves colour and delights in […]

I recently came across this on someone’s Facebook page: The Rules for Writing a Modern Novel Never open a book with the weather Avoid prologues Never use a verb other than ‘said’ to carry dialogue Never use an adverb to modify the verb ‘said’ Keep your exclamation points under control Never use the words ‘suddenly’ or ‘all hell broke loose’ Use dialect sparingly Avoid detailed descriptions of characters Avoid detailed descriptions of places or things Leave out the parts readers tend to skip   After reading this list I was more than a little depressed. I think I break every […]

When I was three years old I decided I wanted to be an actress. When I was four I decided I wanted to be a writer. When I was five I decided I wanted to be a hairdresser. I think it’s a good thing I gave that one up! Even though the desire to do people’s hair faded quickly, the desire both to act and write stayed with me. I spent most of my daylight hours making up stories in my head and acting them out, always for no other reason than because it was fun. I can remember the […]