Theatre Magic

April 22, 2012
This week I was fortunate enough to see Ladies in Lavender at Royal & Derngate, Northampton.  For anyone who's never seen the film, it's a gentle story set in Cornwall in the 1930s, which follows what happens when two ageing spinster sisters find and take in a young violinist who's washed up on the beach.  There's no sex or violence and no bad language.
It would have been easy to overwrite the play, but it was beautifully understated.  This can only work on stage or film if you have actors capable of conveying emotions and meanings without overtly stating them.  At Royal & Derngate the cast was headed by Hayley Mills and Belinda Lang–both excellent actors.  The last scene had the cast listening to the radio for three minutes.  The audience was totally rapt watching the emotions on their faces.  It isn't often these days that an audience is treated to three minutes of stillness.
The experience brought home to me, once more, how important it is when writing to show not tell and to trust your readers/audience to understand.

Posted by K. S. Dearsley.

 

More Rejects

April 15, 2012
One of life's more annoying facts is that it's usually the phrase/sentence/paragraph that you're most pleased with that you end up having to cut from your final draft.  In fact, always be suspicious of your finest lines.  What makes them memorable is usually that they are different from the rest of the piece and indicate a change of style that creates an (often inappropriate) jolt.  They're often descriptive so they could slow down the pace as well.  Hardening your heart and killing your 'bab...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration 

 

Cover Contest

April 10, 2012
The first entries in my contest to find a new cover for Discord's Child are beginning to come in.  For those of you creative people who haven't started work on it yet, there's still time.  The closing date is 30th April and the full details are here.  You could win £20, so get designing! 
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions 

 

Don't Call Us...

April 8, 2012
I never thought I'd say this, but I miss old-fashioned rejection slips.  Most of the time they would be nothing more than an impersonal compliments slip, but at least I could put they to some other use.  I could scribble ideas for my next great work on the back of them, or shopping lists, or I could fold them into wads to stop cupboard doors swinging open, or to prop up table legs.  I could do origami with them, make paper planes, scribble doodles....  If they arrived on a bad day at least I ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.

 

How to Win

April 1, 2012
Writing is supposed to have therapeutic qualities.  Setting things down on paper is meant to help get them out of your system. I'm not sure how true that is.  Reading through what you've written afterwards might make you see how ridiculous you or your worries were, on the other hand it might keep old grievances alive.
For writers, there's always the benefit of being able to use your outpourings on paper in future work.  Writing about arguments can be particularly satisfying.  You can make you...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration 

 

Sound Advice

March 24, 2012
In An Essay on Criticism Alexander Pope writes: 'The sound must seem an echo to the sense.'  He continues:
'When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow:
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.'
It's still great advice, and I endeavour to follow it.  More than that, I find that it isn't only the words that change tempo, but the speed at which I write them.  If I'm writing somethin...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration 

 

A Bolt from the Blue

March 19, 2012
Tell someone you write and one of the first things they'll probably ask is where you get your ideas.  My usual answer is, "I only wish I knew."  This week I'd be able to tell them something more definite, if not more useful.

1.  A television programme about moving house visited the river side in Bedford and sparked a memory of playing in a samba band at the festival, and the basis for a short story.

2.  In another television programme, a soprano spontaneously bursting into an aria in a town squ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration 

 

Oo-er!

March 13, 2012
Marketing my novel, Discord's Child, has had some unexpected side effects.  When I first set up this blog and website, and joined Twitter and Facebook, it was because a prospective publisher had asked about my 'online presence'.  At that time I didn't have one.  I'm not sure that any of these things have gained me readers, but they have brought me other things.
I have found work writing copy for web designers and various businesses via Facebook.  Getting my cover contest in Network Arts' news...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.

 

US vs. UK

March 3, 2012
When e-publishing is it better to use American English (spellings, vocabulary and grammar) or UK English?  If you're submitting to an e-zine or publisher, they will usually say which they prefer in their guidelines and, if they like your work enough, will correct one or two oversights that might occur if, say, American English isn't your first language.  However, if you're self-publishing you have to decide which one to use–or do you?
There's less risk of making mistakes if you stick to UK ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.

 

Tweet, Tweet

February 23, 2012
I'm not sure whether I'm more admiring or envious.  Since joining Twitter, I aim to tweet something of my own at least every couple of days.  Often it's a struggle.  I'm constantly amazed at how some people come up with not one or two tweets a day, but more than a hedgeful of sparrows.  Where do all the ideas come from?  How do they find the time?  Do they do anything else?  Why do they do it?  There are some people (myself included on occasion) who tweet to draw attention to their other work...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration 

 
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About Me


My writing career began as a freelance feature writer for the local press, businesses and organisations. Now a prize-winning playwright and short story writer, my work has appeared in numerous publications on both sides of the Atlantic. I write as K. S. Dearsley because it saves having to keep repeating my forename, and specialise in fantasy and other speculative genres.

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