Exploring genre
I’ve always been fascinated by genre and the real and imagined boundaries between them. Digging into what defines genres is something I’ll never get tired of.
Size matters
Last week I spotted someone who was observing that the entirety of The Lord of the Rings trilogy has a word count equivalent to single entries in more recent fantasy series. While LotR clocks in at roughly 455,000 words (give or take tens of thousands of appendices, and whether you include
Storytelling in games & books
I used to write about games more than I do now. Most of my time is taken up with my own fiction and writing about writing, but I think I’ve always been a frustrated game designer at heart.
Story pacing in different genres
I’m writing my fourth book at the moment and it’s not going the way I expected. To be specific: it’s taking its time. The pacing of Tales from the Triverse feel very different - much slower - than the fiction projects I’ve worked on before and I’ve been trying to pin down what’s going on.
Writing optimistic fiction at the end of the world
I remember the 90s being a safe decade full of growth, entertainment and exciting prospects. I was a teenager in the UK, and everything seemed to be getting better. Tech was still cool and the internet was just emerging as something genuinely brilliant. It felt like the world was heading in the right direction in terms of equality, albeit still very slo…
Young writers are full of horror
I recently taught a writing workshop to a group of 10-13 year olds. The focus was on crafting science fiction and fantasy, something I’ve written about and talked about for many years, but I’d never delivered a workshop to such young writers before.
Writing an action scene
Action scenes are strange beasts. A good action sequence has an element of deliberate design to it which raises it above simple punchy-bang-bang into something more meaningful. As with most things, it is all about character and ensuring that character
Writing crime fiction is really difficult
Since 2016 I’ve worked in various capacities on the Noirwich Crime Writing Festival. Yes, that’s Noirwich. Because it’s a crime fiction festival that takes place in Norwich.