Showing Tag: "quotes" (Show all posts)

Simply Complicated

Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Sunday, April 20, 2014, In : Linguistics 
With regard to writing sentences, Mark Twain said: "At times he [the author] may indulge himself with a long one, but he will make sure there are no folds in it, no vaguenesses, no parenthetical interruptions in its view as a whole; when he has done with it, it won't be a sea-serpent with half its arches under the water; it will be a torchlight procession."
    As soon as I read that I felt an urge to check my sentences. Have I indulged in parenthetical loops? Do I use lots of subordinate clau...
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Sound Advice

Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Saturday, March 24, 2012, In : Inspiration 
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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Excuses, Excuses

Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Sunday, March 6, 2011, In : Inspiration 
I've spent a lot of time this week staring at a blank page.  There can be little more frustrating than knowing what you want to write but not finding the right way to put it on paper.  It doesn't happen when I'm writing non-fiction.  Then, I simply make a start and keep going until it's done.  Luckily, the April issue of Writing and Writers' News dropped through my letterbox, so I had an excuse to procrastinate - until I read the interview with R. J. Ellroy and the article about Robert Louis ...
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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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