Writing skills | Alison Morton Author

The big print

Post-machete, post-rewrite of scenes, post-restructuring, I may possibly have kneaded the flabby dough of my master-work into some kind of presentable product. The plot has changed, the tension ramped up, the prose decimated and a sting in the tail (tale?) injected into the ending.

I’ve printed the whole thing out, double-spaced, ready for the tooth-comb. […]

A brain flash…

Perhaps I’ve been a bit slow, but I had a light bulb moment when munching my croissant this morning.

I’ve been playing around with some ideas for a one-sentence ‘hook’ for my novel INCEPTIO and have been researching, scribbling, thinking about it over the past few days. Scanning the Radio Times at breakfast, I read […]

How well do you know your character? Part Deux

Following my previous post with questions to help you to dig down into your characters, here are a few more:

20. Which schools did your character attend? 21. How did they do at school? 22. Did they have a nickname? 23. Did they go on to university? 24. What did they study? 25. Why did […]

So how well DO you know your main character?

On my Arvon Foundation course in early October, we had a workshop on characterisation led by Mavis Cheek and Paul Sussman. They showed us how well we must get to know our main character(s) if we want to ensure they are fully-developed. Ask them questions!

Here are a few they suggested… 1. What is your […]

The Arvon experience

Lumb Bank

What magic turns sixteen anxious wannabees with doubts a hundred feet high into confident, capable producers of good writing within a week?

In February this year, I booked the Arvon Foundation course ‘Popular Fiction’ 4-9 October at Lumb Bank, Yorkshire. It was to run from 4 to 9 October, with tutors […]