Writing skills | Alison Morton Author

Why do I host guests on my blog?

Top row: David Penny, Clare Flynn, Liza Pratt, Anna Belfrage, Keith Dixon. Middle row: J J Marsh, Debbie Young, Antoine Banner, Elizabeth Buchan, Helen Hollick. Bottom row: Tony Riches, Jane Davis, E M Powell, Susan Grossey, Ruth Downie

I like having guests on my writing blog. Unlike my thriller blog which is all […]

Using light and darkness in writing

We’re biological animals. Light is daytime and activity; dark is night-time and rest. However, since the age of artificial light, be it from an open fire in a cave, a candle through the ages or electrical light, we’ve attempted to counter that. Then there are the grey areas. Lightning blasts […]

Adventures in writing a spin-off with Charlene Newcomb

I’m delighted to welcome to the blog Charlene Newcomb, aka Char who writes historical fiction and science fiction. Her Battle Scars trilogy is set in the 12th century during the reign of Richard the Lionheart. It’s filled with war, political intrigue, and a knightly romance of forbidden love. All three books are indieBRAG […]

Mind your language!

As a language nerd, certified translator and writer of fiction (and in a previous existence of proposals, reports, corporate documentation, advertising and PR copy), I’ve always been interested in the power of words. Tone, style and formality as important as context.

Although multi-lingual, I write in my mother-tongue English, but when writing a story in […]

Forgetting your characters?

Surely not?

Picture me at a writers’ conference, a good two years before I published INCEPTIO, the first of the Roma Nova thrillers, in 2013. Full of enthusiasm, going to every class, talk, workshop and seminar followed by long nights in the bar discussing structure, characters, pitfalls, agents, heroes, failures and […]