Writing skills | Alison Morton Author

It's raining, it's pouring!

One of the first things we notice in the mornings is the weather. How many of those first tweets go something like this: ‘Brrr – cold as I crawl out of bed – not LOL’ ‘The sun. At last. Damn, I have to go to work.’ ‘DH now in garden shed building an ark. Blasted […]

The journey home

Lagos, Portugal, six a.m. Luggage bundled into the car, fumbling in the dark with the satnav. Farewell waves from my magic circle, then eighty kilometers to Faro Airport. The ex-pat South African banters as the receives my hire car back into his fold. I escape from the wrong passport queue – I’m in Schengen, unlike […]

Distractions

What? Oh, yes. I just have to finish my coffee, load the dishwasher, clean the cat’s bowl, check my Facebook author page, nip on to Twitter – but only for five minutes – do the filing, have a Skype with my critique partner…

Um, what book?

Even writing this blog is a distraction. So why […]

Conflict for characters - how to make a decision

How do you make a decision? Whether it’s buying a new pair of shoes, going to law or plunging into a new life in a different country and culture, it’s a complicated question.

First of all, there’s an instinctive reaction to the decision: you see, you want, you say yes. Then your brain kicks in: […]

So what makes a good read?

As I promised in the previous post, I’ve turned my beady eye to current bestsellers and read through some of the Amazon bestselling rankings reviews. These are some of the words the readers and critics used about them:

The Thread – Victoria Hislop Twin timeline, discovery, history, fast narrative, sense of pace, fresh, intrepid storytelling, […]