February 3, 2013
Last week, I wrote about the joys or otherwise of being asked to critique someone else's work as a favour, and offered some suggestions as to how to survive the process with all your friendships intact. This week, I want to share some of the pluses that linger after feeling flattered has worn off.
Editing or proofing someone else's work makes you more aware of how you write yourself and of any bad habits you might have drifted into. It teaches you to take an objective look at what you do, as if you were a reader coming to the piece fresh with no prior knowledge of what it's about. This distance soon highlights shaky structure or plotting, repetition or gaps where you assume readers have information you haven't given them.
If you still don't fancy picking over someone else's work, here are a few excuses you could try:
* I was researching goatherding for my next novel and a goat ate your manuscript;
* My neuralgia's playing up and I wouldn't want to risk twitching and deleting everything;
* Your file crashed my computer and now all I get is the wheel of death.
No one will ever see through them–honest!
Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
January 28, 2013
Sooner or later it's bound to happen. Someone discovers that you're a writer and presents you with your manuscript asking for your opinion. It would be easy to see this as an imposition. After all, you have your own work to get on with and someone else's project is yet another reason to procrastinate. Instead, take it as the compliment it is.
How you tackle the task you've been given depends on how experienced the writer is, how long or complicated the manuscript is and how well you know the ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
January 20, 2013
It's wonderful hearing from people who like what you do. I've been fortunate to have received positive feedback and kind words from people who call themselves my fans this week (imagine that–me having fans!). They aren't family members or people whose opinion I've solicited, but readers who took the trouble to let me know that they appreciate my work.
Before I put everyone else off by blowing my own trumpet, the main point I wanted to make is that a little praise goes a long way. Everyone l...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
January 13, 2013
You can wait ages for work to get from acceptance to publication then, like buses, several come out at once. This week I received the latest wonderful edition of The Binnacle Ultra-Short. Included are the winning prose, poetry and humorous entries in the annual competition along with a host of pieces receiving honourable mentions, including one of mine, 'Plucked from Obscurity'. The edition is in paperback form, plus a box with each work on a separate business-sized card, which you can mix...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions
January 8, 2013
A friend recently complained that when he did a search on Amazon for Discord's Child, my novel wasn't listed. I couldn't understand this as a Google search for the title finds it straight away on both the Amazon.com and .co.uk sites. I tried the Amazon site myself and discovered that if I used the title alone, or my author name (K. S. Dearsley) Discord's Child was top of the list. However, if I prefixed the title with 'book' or 'novel', as my friend had done, it didn't appear at all. Inst...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
January 3, 2013
It's no good having a fragile ego if you're a writer. It isn't like being a mathematician or a scientist, there are no absolute right or wrong answers or ways to do things. All the rules can be broken as long as you know that you're breaking them and have a reason for doing it. The problem is that writing is subjective.
Some readers will happily ignore the occasional grammatical error or typo if there's a cracking plot, or will forgive a slow pace or digression if the language is beautiful...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : FantasyFiction
December 24, 2012
It looks as if 2013 is going to get off to a good start. I've heard from Daily SF that my story, Salvage, will be available to subscribers from Christmas and that everyone will be able to read it free at
www.dailysciencefiction.com from around the beginning of January.
If you've never read Daily SF, I recommend it. There's an impressive range of genres and styles, with a new story every day, and you can rate the ones you read. I really loved the one they featured a couple of days ago, So F...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
December 16, 2012
I've always been a fan of the Pre-Raphaelites. They aren't everyone's cup of tea, but I've always loved the stories/poems that inspired them and the inspiration the paintings provide, their stained glass colours and the way they capture the moment. For me, the exhibition Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde at Tate Britain was unmissable.
Even though I had seen many of the paintings before at exhibitions, on television or in books, I found the exhibition dazzling. Reproductions certainly do...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Reviews
December 9, 2012
Plasma Frequency 3 is now available in print and free online versions, containing my fantasy story, Job Satisfaction. The magazine is a great mix of fiction from action or poetic to tongue-in-cheek. One of my favourites is The Glass Hill by Joanna Michal Hoyt, which is a beautiful tale about the reaction of a young musician to the mockery of his less talented schoolmates. Check it out
here. I've also seen the cover of Otherwhere and Elsewhen from Bridge House, which will include my science f...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : FantasyFiction
December 4, 2012
When you write to commissions you don't get to choose the subject you write about. Sometimes it can be something you've never been interested in. Instead of turning work down (and if you do, be prepared never to hear from that customer again), do your research.
Always ask the customer/editor whether there's a particular angle or aspect that they want you to focus on. You need to be enthusiastic otherwise your writing will be dull and won't hold the reader's attention. Speaking to people who a...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
