January 25, 2015
Today is Burns Night, the annual celebration of Scotland's national poet. He wrote in his own dialect, and while many people (including, I suspect, some Scots) might struggle with it, every poet owes him a debt. Robert Burns broke the chains that bound poetry to classical forms and helped us all to escape the 'thees' and 'thous' and archaic language.
Now, poets can write sonnets or haiku, odes or free verse. They can write about eating the plums someone had saved in the fridge ('This is Just to Say' by William Carlos Williams) or how your parents can mess up your life ('This Be the Verse' by Philip Larkin), and they can do it in heightened language or their own everyday slang. Where would rap be without the example of Robert Burns to show the impact that ordinary simple language can create?
I'm no whisky drinker, but I shall be raising a glass to 'Rabbie' tonight.
Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
January 18, 2015
I've been writing a short story, which seemed simple enough before I started. I'd got the beginning, middle and end, and I'd even jotted down parts of a couple of scenes. Yet as I scribbled away, it began to wriggle around. Would the story be better set in the past or the present day? Should I aim it at youngsters or adults? After a couple of false starts and much crossing out, I finally reached the end only to discover that the story isn't about what I thought it was at the outset at all. Ne...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions
January 13, 2015
I've been plagued with clichés buzzing around my head while I've been trying to write, but I'm holding out for my own fresh metaphors, similes and turns of phrase. Clichés might be accurate, but everyone has heard them so often that they have become meaningless. Maybe a heroine does 'go weak at the knees', but readers will no doubt forget her unless she does it in an original way. Notice that I haven't provided an alternative myself. Devising good ones isn't easy, but it's well worth making...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Coming Soon
January 4, 2015
Happy New Year! My festive season was quiet, to say the least. Injuring my elbow was more frustrating than painful, and it prevented me doing things like sending Christmas cards (I could write them, but not get them in the envelopes) or keying in Discord's Apprentice, although I did succeed in completing another rewrite. Typing in this blog one-handed is as much work as I've attempted at the computer.
The enforced inactivity gave me a chance to reflect on a number of things. Mine is a rela...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
December 13, 2014
Sorry to everyone who expected a new blog before this. I've had a fall, and although I feel fine, the plaster cast on my arm is slowing me down rather. Normal service wil be resumed when it comes off.
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
November 30, 2014
I don't usually use this blog as a platform to complain about society (apart from errant apostrophes), but the behaviour of the bargain hunters who stormed the shops on 28th November prompts me to break my rule.
What on earth did people think they were doing? Whatever happened to the British tradition of queueing? There was no politeness or consideration, and very little common sense. Wheelchair-bound people were knocked down and trampled over, shoppers were rugby tackled and people had go...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
November 24, 2014
How many times can you rewrite a first chapter? I think I'm heading for a record. The first few pages of a novel are crucial in hooking readers' interest and persuading them to keep going beyond the free sample. It's always going to be hard to get it right, but with a sequel it's even harder. How much of the previous novel's events should I fill in? Do I need to describe the characters again? There's a real danger that I'll end up info dumping–having characters tell each other things they a...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Coming Soon
November 16, 2014
You never can be sure what the consequences of submitting work to a publication or entering a competition might be. It might seem straightforward: your work is either accepted, or it's rejected. However, even when the editors or judges don't select your submission/entry you might still end up a winner.
After my story, 'Salvage', appeared in
Daily SF, Paul Coles of
Beam Me Up Podcast asked if he could broadcast it. Of course, I grabbed the offer, and I'm privileged now to have had dramatis...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions
November 2, 2014
Another magazine of speculative fiction has closed its doors only a few issues after it launched. In explaining why, the people behind it complained that there had been little take-up from advertisers and readers, and that people seemed more interested in writing stories than reading them. This may be correct. However, they went on to say that writers and would-be writers should spend $10 a week (around £6) on subscriptions to magazines.
Ideally, writers should always read at least one is...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
October 27, 2014
I've made a dreadful discovery: I've developed an addiction to 'as if'. It happened while rewriting the latest incarnation of Discord's Apprentice. Every other sentence has 'as if' in it, and the ones that don't, have 'seems' or 'like'. It's funny how you can fall in love with certain words or phrases and not notice how often you use them.
I suppose 'as if' is a result of wishing to 'show not tell'. Instead of writing: 'He gestured as if grabbing something out of the air...' I could put: ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
