As a writer and story-teller I have often taken inspiration from the movies. When I write I create a movie in my head and write what I see and experience. I'm not sure all writers necessarily think the same way. To me the words on the page are just a medium by which I can …
Category: For newbie authors
Genre — reader expectations
A recent piece of advice I heard from a successful author was for new writers to focus their attention on their chosen genre. But what does that mean? I think it means to be successful you have to give your potential readers what they want. The problem however is discovering your potential reader base and …
Beginnings and Endings
One of the first books I ever read on the art of writing emphasised the need for a good opening line, opening paragraph and at least ten opening pages to catch the reader's attention. It's advice I find difficult to disagree with. Writers need to arouse their readers' curiosity. Here are some of the best …
A Decade of Writing
March 2021 will mark an important anniversary for me. It will be a decade since I retired from 'normal' work. I was an accountant in the City of London working for one of the largest firms of accountants in the world. It was a job I enjoyed, but working in an accountancy practice is a …
Story Themes
I normally blog monthly, but I missed-out in December for personal reasons. For many, 2020 was an annus horribilis (horrible year) -- it was the year of the pandemic. But for me it was exceptionally sad. I lost two dear family members near the end of the year, one expected and one very unexpected. It …
Story design and readers’ expectations
What makes a story a compelling read that the reader cannot put down? Is it the story idea at the heart of the story? Or is it the way the story is executed? Great writers, of course, do both. But creating the readers expectations about the book and delivering what they want must be of …
The writer’s toolbox (iii)
In my last two blogs I covered two of my favourite tools that I use for writing novels. Scrivener -- my go to software for researching, planning, writing and book formatting software. Scrivener has virtually everything you need to plan, produce and publish your novel. It's a very powerful application, but it takes time to …
The Writer’s Toolbox (ii)
In last month's blog, I looked at Scrivener, the primary tool I use for writing and publishing. This month I want to look at another tool, which is relatively new-- Plottr. Plottr, is essentially a time line planning tool. It allows you to quickly map out a story's timeline with scene cards. It also allows …
The writer’s toolbox
In this blog I want to look at Scrivener -- a software tool that changed my life as a writer, and which today I couldn't do without. What does a novelist or writer need in order to write? Comparatively little. Remember Shakespeare only needed a quill, ink and paper. And he did quite well with …
Eliminating the saggy middle
Choosing a topic for this month's blog was a difficult choice. During the month I finally managed to see the Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker and commenting on the unbelievable bizarre ending could easily fill at least one blog post on story design. But I don't like to give negative reviews and there are …
JMJ Williamson 