blog

The Plot Thickens

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 15:31:53 +0100

Or does it? There is no right or wrong way to plan a piece of writing. Use whichever method suits you, because if you ignore it, you're likely to run into trouble. Some people are pantsers, and are happy to set off on a 150,000-word novel with only the skimpiest of ideas to guide them. Others aren't comfortable unless they have every plot point, character flaw, setting and back story marked on a spreadsheet or graph, as if they're heading out on an expedition to find the source of the Nile although they're only going as far as a short story.

You have to have some part of an idea to begin with, whether it's a one-word prompt found on social media or a dictionary opened at random; a certain fall of light through the leaves in the park; an overheard conversation; a piece of music or some other flash of inspiration. It could be a character, a place or a situation that sets you off.

From there, you could jot down whatever ideas occur to you at random just as they arrive. The next stage could be to sort them into a loose order by using a spider plan, or you might prefer to use index cards or post-it notes that you can stare at pinned to a board and shuffle around until they fit in the right place. Of course, you can use a computer instead.

One advantage of putting things on notes or cards is that you can more easily spot where there are gaps or inconsistencies, or that you have no logical reason for 'B' coming after 'A'. You can number your cards and add others between them e.g. 1(a) etc.. You can also use these numbers to indicate where supplementary notes such as character features, particular conversations or details about settings might be relevant.

Your work might have several storylines intertwined and putting these on a graph or spreadsheet is a way to keep track of them, so you can see what should happen when i.e. in relation to the other storylines, and show you where the climaxes should occur and when they should meet or cross.

I usually go for something in the middle. I have tried writing whatever pops into my head and simply following wherever my pencil leads me. Occasionally, I've found it works, but more often I get lost and have to write all around the houses to find my way back to the right track. That's why I note as much as I can and put it into some sort of order before I begin, then I add to the plan as I go along. For a novel, this means a separate page for each chapter, with the bones of what happens. I have notes for each character (their appearance, temperament, skills, back story etc.), and for settings. For Fantasy and Science Fiction, it's particularly important to think about any different cultures and societies, and what the implications of these might be. Also, things like the climate and time of year. Without doing this, I find it all too easy to write things that couldn't logically be there and/or write myself into a corner.

There's no need to stick rigidly to the plan. In fact, it's almost inevitable that it will change, because as you write, the characters tend to go the way they want to, and other ideas come to you. This is what's been happening with the novel I'm currently writing (working title: The Omega Hunt). I thought I knew the characters well, and I'd plotted what needed to happen in each chapter, but I keep discovering more details about the former and that while I have decided what happens, I have no idea how. The result is, I've been writing one scene forward, then having to go back and change what I've already done. At least the notes I've made help me to find the place that needs editing.

It doesn't really matter whether you are a plotter or a pantser; the most important thing about a first draft is that you finish it!

Playing Around

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 09:53:31 +0100

You've written a play. Great! Now what are you going to do with it? There are hosts of theatres, theatre companies and groups, but which ones put on new work and are open to submissions? Which ones pay? Will you be expected to have input in the production, or be forbidden to 'interfere'? How are plays licensed for performance? How do you get them published?

A good place to start looking for answers is the BBC's Writers Room. It lists all kinds of openings and advice for TV, film, radio and stage dramas, as well as providing formatting templates and examples of scripts. Some of these are for contests, some are simply open reading periods. Many offer the chance to work with established professionals to develop your work for performance and/or training rather than a monetary reward.

There are companies who specialise in publishing plays and in handling licensing for which you receive royalties. These generally want you to have a record of having work performed, either professionally or for a minimum number of consecutive days/nights.

One way to gain experience and performances is to approach am-dram groups in your area. This is a good idea generally, as you meet people with shared interests, can learn from their experience, gain a profile in your area and make helpful links. Many small groups don't have a big enough budget to perform established plays and are always on the look-out for work by local playwrights. However, if you want to enter your play in a contest, the chances are that it has to be unperformed and unpublished. (Do I hear you sighing?)

Perhaps the best idea if you have a new play is to ask a local drama group to read it and give you feedback. Tell them that you want to enter it in whichever contest you have chosen, but that if they wish, you would be delighted if they'd perform it afterwards. If you win, they will be able to use your success in their promotions. If not, you might at least gain extra feedback. I know I have found members of Theze Guyz, Duston Players and Northampton Playhouse friendly, helpful and encouraging.

I Confess

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 18:46:28 +0100

Okay, hands up, I admit it–I have yet to read the books I downloaded in the Smashwords Winter-Summer Sale and spring is already here. What is more, so is the Smashwords Read an Ebook Week Sale. Until midnight on 7th March, readers will be able to choose from hundreds of free and discounted novels, and I know I won't be able to resist downloading more.
It is a great opportunity for readers to catch up with the latest works by authors they already know and love. More than this, it is a great opportunity to discover authors who are entirely new to them. For indie authors it is also a great opportunity for them to find new readers. It can be hard to get our work noticed. Advertisements cost money, and sites such as Amazon do not promote a book unless it already has many reviews to prove it has a following. They also restrict how books can be offered for free. This is why the Read an Ebook Week Sale is so useful for authors such as myself.
Of course, the more reviews a book has, the better, even if they can be contradictory. Some will be written by professional reviewers who, hopefully, will indicate that is what they are, but you don't have to be a writer to leave your opinion of a book. You can say as little as 'loved it' or 'hated it', although saying why helps readers to choose whether they are likely to enjoy it, and authors to learn what they are doing right or otherwise. Checking other reviews by the same reader will help to judge whether you and they are on the same wavelength. As an author who benefits from reviews, I certainly like to leave them myself.
However, readers don't have to rely on someone else's opinion to find a good ebook. Most will have quite large samples to read before you make a final choice. All the novels in the Exiles of Ondd series have samples on my website as well as on the Smashwords site, and with Discord's Child, Discord's Apprentice and Artists & Liars FREE what have you got to lose? Visit http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ksdearsley and enjoy!

At Last!

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 10:08:53 +0100

It can be very frustrating when you have some good news but you aren't allowed to share it. Before Christmas, one of my stories was accepted for publication, and I was bursting to let the world (okay, my friends and followers) know. However, not all the details of the anthology concerned had been finalised, and until they were, I was sworn to keep my lips sealed.

Well, now the news is out, and I can tell everyone that my story, 'The Silent War', will be appearing in Flame Tree Publishing's Dreams Divine anthology, due out in June. I'm delighted on two counts.

The story has always been one of my favourites. Don't ask me where the inspiration came from (see my last blog), because if I ever knew, I've long forgotten. It was one of those stories that seemed to flow of its own accord. Sometimes it's the stories that you struggle over that turn out best, but this one simply felt right.

Thankfully, other people thought so too, because it won the QWF competition. That was years ago, and I hadn't really sent it anywhere else since, until late last summer, and I'm delighted to find that I haven't been fooling myself all this time, as Gillian Whitaker, the senior project editor, liked it enough to publish it too.

Flame Tree Publishing specialises in anthologies of speculative fiction based around a theme. Dreams Divine will be a hardback book containing 25 romantasy stories inspired by the meeting between wishes, dreams and reality. The company was established in 1992 and among the authors it has published are Ramsay Campbell and Paul Du Noyer. Dreams Divine will include a great range of authors, and I'm excited to be in their company.

For the full list, and more information about the anthology visit https://blog.flametreepublishing.com/fantasy-gothic/romantic-fantasy-contents-announcement-dreams-divine

There you go–something to look forward to in 2026.

Out of Thin Air

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 09:05:25 +0100

"Where did your inspiration come from?" It's a question that many authors dread. My answer is usually: "If I knew, I'd bottle it." Last year, I wrote a blog for Bacopa on the subject, especially about how fragile inspiration can be and how easy it is to crush it if you try too hard to catch it. Yet the question about how an idea arrive keeps cropping up, so I've decided, where possible, to make a note of it after I've jotted it down.

I'm hoping that this will have another benefit beyond being able to give a satisfying and honest answer, even if it isn't as interesting as the questioner might imagine. All too often things intervene between getting the idea and being able to start work on it. An idea can go cold, and what excited me about it in the first place might no longer make sense. By writing down a reminder of how the original conjunction of thoughts came about, I might be able to return to them and rekindle whatever it was that made the idea seem worthwhile.

An example could be something I wrote recently. It came out as somewhere between memoir and fiction, and I'm not sure what to do with it. As it stands, it doesn't seem to fit anywhere. I shall seek the opinions of Get the Word Out, the local writers' group to which I belong, and being able to tell them the inspiration behind the piece might help us all to judge what to do with it. There are at least four separate factors involved: the play I appeared in concerning World War One; an article I once read about weavers who taught themselves Greek so they could read works by the likes of Sophocles in the 'original' language; a book I found on a stall which had an inscription on the fly-leaf, and the debate about digital versus hard copy books.

Simply reading the last sentence has made me see that the 600-odd words I have written so far could be turned into something much bigger. (Another project to add to my ever-expanding list!) Even if it remains a modest piece, returning to the source of my inspiration has got the creative thoughts moving again.

You could give it a try too. You never know what you might come up with.

Seasonal Shortcomings

Sun, 11 Jan 2026 12:50:53 +0100

It's the same every autumn. Maybe the air nips my exposed fingers first thing in the morning, or a weighty sky presses upon me the thought that a season of perpetual twilight is approaching, and I realise that if I want to write something appropriate for winter, the solstice, Christmas, the season of good cheer etc., I'd better get on with it. My intention is always to write something profound or beautiful, but it never turns out that way. However wonderful the piece I have in mind is, the results always feel didactic, trite or sickly sentimental. Look at the doggerel I posted last time if you don't believe me.
Why is it? There are plenty of prompts to help from Charles Dickens's ghost stories to Jingle Bells, from penguins and muddy field walks to the smell of burning sprouts and thoughts of what your granny will buy you this year. (Socks again, I'll bet!) Perhaps it's this plethora that is the problem. There are so many aspects to choose from that it's hard to narrow them down to one. On the other hand, most aspects of Christmas have been written about so many times, and by far better authors than me, that coming up with something original seems impossible.
For me, part of the problem seems to be that my ideas usually begin with a 'what if' rather than a setting. It's too late for this season, but next Christmas maybe instead of trying to narrow my writing down to one aspect, I should try combining two e.g. the Christmas ghost burned the sprouts. It will probably turn out silly again.
Not all authors are blessed with being able to make any subject a hit. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was desperate to escape Sherlock Holmes and wrote SF/Fantasy stories about Professor Challenger and funny stories about a Napoleonic soldier, but who has seen them in the book shops? Ben Jonson was a master of stage comedies but wanted to be known as a great historical dramatist. Sadly, plays such as Sejanus flopped.
We can't all be Shakespeare, and I'm sure even he had his off days. Maybe I should be content with what I am good at.

Don't Panic!

Sun, 28 Dec 2025 11:26:01 +0100

It is all too easy at this time of year to take everything too seriously and stress about things that really aren't worth it. So you forgot to buy the sprouts–who cares? The cat wrecked the Christmas tree.: it isn't a disaster. In future years it will be one of the fond memories you share.
To lighten the mood, and in the spirit of seasonal silliness, here are a couple of pieces to make you groan or laugh. They aren't perfect, but that's Christmas for you. Relax and enjoy it.

Inspired by Baldric...

Stir, stir, stir, stir,

Stir, stir and stir some more.

Making pudding's such a bore.

Is it worth it? That's the question.

Or will it give us indigestion?

There are so many things to eat,

But Christmas pud's our favourite treat,

So on the whole we would prefer

To have our pud and stir, stir, stir.

O, To Be a Bauble

I'd like to be a bauble

And hang upon the tree.

With golden bows and glitter

I'd sparkle prettily.

I could have been a fairy,

But I'm sure you would agree

That having a branch stuck up your 'frock'

Isn't sitting comfortably!

Hopefully, I'll write something less silly in the new year. In the meantime, you can treat yourself to something more sensible by visiting the Smashwords End of Year sale and downloading Discord's Child and Artists & Liars FREE until 1st January at http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ksdearsley

All good wishes,

Karla

Break a Leg

Sat, 08 Nov 2025 12:14:21 +0100

Not literally, of course, but at the moment I almost wouldn't mind having a leg in plaster if it meant I didn't have to go on stage tonight.
I've never thought of myself as an actress and only agreed to take the part to help a friend. I should have known better. I suppose I was flattered to be asked, and the previous productions I've taken part in have been good for me. I've enjoyed meeting the rest of the cast, I've learned much about what makes a good script and I've had fun. This time, however, it hasn't been fun, only a worry.
I've been nervous from the first rehearsal, and the anxiety has grown–will I remember my lines? Will the actor I'm on stage with remember theirs, or will I have to ad lib? Will I miss my entrance or trip over my costume? As a result, the play has not only taken up my Friday evenings for months, but every spare moment has been spent repeating lines until I'm sick of them, but I daren't stop in case I forget them.
There's been no room in my head for daydreaming and letting my thoughts drift to let writing ideas or the next chapter of my novel take shape. It's driving me mad.
I have a significant birthday–one with a nought on the end–coming up, and it's time I learned not to get involved in other people's projects when someone else could do them just as well, if not better, especially when the outside projects bring me no joy and/or make life difficult.
It isn't being selfish, only realistic. Writers need to protect their time. If I don't prioritise my work or treat it as important, no one else will. I'm not suggesting anyone should turn their back on people who need them, only that they should not feel obligated to take part in things.
Once the play is over, I might see it in a rosier light–never say never, after all, but if I'm tempted, I'm going to reread this and be warned!

Bonfire Season

Sun, 02 Nov 2025 17:10:26 +0100

Few writers arrive on the literary scene fully formed like Athene from the head of Zeus. There are 'instant' successes, such as Zadie Smith whose first novel White Teeth was a bestseller, but most writers have to learn when they start out–me included.

Recently, I came across a publication that had an open call for a particular type and length of story. The only ones I had that I thought might be made to fit the bill, were some that I wrote when I first started trying to get published. They were rejected multiple times, and I had put them in a 'retired' folder with the intention of eventually rewriting them. There they languished so long that I forgot what they were about.

What I discovered was that they weren't about very much, and what there was of them was pretty awful. Had I really been that bad? and how could I ever have thought they were good enough to be published? There is no way a little rewrite could ever raise them to a level that wouldn't embarrass me.

It was a sharp lesson. I can take comfort in the fact that I have learned enough to recognise the mistakes I made. What disturbs me, is whether or not my judgement of my work is any more reliable now. Any proofreader will tell you that your own mistakes are the hardest to spot, and the same could well hold true with assessing your writing. After all, you know your characters and what your story is about, but readers have to start from scratch. I belong to a writers' group whose members can be relied on to give me honest, constructive criticism, and I have had many pieces published, which, I suppose, is the most certainty I can hope for. However, there's no guarantee that the piece I'm working on now will be any good.

Apart from giving my ego a knock, has this experience resulted in anything positive? I've realised that there's little point in hanging to these stories. I shall go through them to see if I can salvage anything at all–maybe a character's name or a descriptive phrase–then I shall add them to my pile of rough paper for writing first drafts on, and ensure they never turn up to embarrass me again.

That said, perhaps I should keep just one to remind me never to be complaisant.

Read All About It!

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 08:40:34 +0100

Writers don't have to resort to fake news to influence how readers will interpret what they write. It is not only what they say that is important, but how they say it.
Inevitably, a certain amount of editing is involved. It is impossible to include all the facts and details of even simple stories or issues. There has to be some decision on what to include or exclude. What kind of language is chosen is also influential: is it formal, authoritative, chatty etc.? This might in part be influenced by who the writing is aimed at i.e. whether the writer wishes readers to feel that they belong to the same group, or whether they want to distance themselves from another group. Which words are used is allied to this: are there any slang terms? are they sensational? are they moderate or exaggerated? Watch out for adjectives and adverbs (Were comedies ever advertised as anything less than 'hilarious' or side-splitting'?).
Beyond the selection of material and language is another factor, and that is word order. Sentences in English can have theme, rheme and end focus. Generally, readers perceive the first part of the sentence (nor necessarily the subject) as the theme. It is the most memorable part of the sentence and is perceived to have the greatest importance. The second most memorable is the end focus. The rheme carries all the other information, but it might be the part the writer wants to gloss over. This aspect of English can be scaled up for any piece of writing from lectures to short stories. What is most important comes first, the second most important last, and the least important in the middle.
I'll use a line from the play I'm currently rehearsing for as an example (Good War, Soldier? by Salli Belsham and Trevor Smith): "I can read for you, whatever comes in." Splitting the sentence this way places the emphasis on the speaker i.e. what is important is that 'I' can do it. Another way of ordering the sentence would be to 'front' "whatever comes in." This would make the news that comes in and the uncertainty of what it might be most important. The playwrights could have put "For you, I can read whatever comes in", in which case the speaker's relationship with the hearer would be what matters most. This seven-word sentence can have three very different emphases and three very different interpretations merely by changing the word order. If it's spoken, it can be given even more e.g. by stressing 'can' the speaker could highlight her ability to do so, or the possibility that she won't.
This aspect of English could give writers a headache, as it highlights the importance of every single word and punctuation mark (think of the difference a comma can make) and where they put them. My advice is to write instinctively, but to be aware of any unintentional emphasis when reading.
For readers, it can help them to sift fact from opinion, and to detect when the writer is trying to manipulate the facts to produce a particular response. Try comparing the headlines for the same news story in different publications such as the tabloids and the broadsheets.
My word for it, you do not have to take!