Writing skills | Alison Morton Author

(Im)plausibility and telling whoppers

Now I’ve started telling people about my first alternate history thriller coming out in March, one person said, ‘Oh, you’re lucky, you can make up anything!‘

Er, no.

It’s about plausibility. Merriam Webster gives one definition: ‘appearing worthy of belief <the argument was both powerful and plausible>‘. Synonyms include credible, creditable, likely, believable, presumptive, […]

Grammar Nazi or dilettante?

I’m reading a book at the moment full of “prithee, varlet” language. It’s as irritating as Hades, but maybe that’s just me. The atmosphere of fear is building, the characters are forming and the plot slowly emerging.

But despite the over-elaborate language, the author’s grammar is spot on. And that’s what saves it.

Writing is […]

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 […]