Tales and thoughts from the coal face of writing and life from Scottish crime writer Jennifer Lee Thomson.
Thursday 18 August 2011
Tuesday 16 August 2011
Noir Nation Call for Submissions
Do you write crime fiction? You may be the writer Noir Nation are looking for you.
They'd love to get some more stories (including graphic stories i.e. comics) from the UK for Issue 2 (Issue 1 will be available Sept 1, 2011). They start reading for issue 2 on Oct 1.
Note - until October 1st, submissions will not be accepted.
This is a paying market.
See http://noirnation.com for submission guidelines. http://www.facebook.com/noirnation https://twitter.com/#!/noirnation
Wednesday 10 August 2011
Kick-starting Your Writing
Call it writer's block, call it hitting a brick wall. Whatever you call it, it's every writer's nightmare when the words won't come and writing anything is an effort.
Here are some things I do you might find useful:
1. Stop at a question - is your character pregnant/dead/the killer/in a building that's about to collapse - leave your character on a cliff-hanger and you will want to know how that question is answered.
2. Leave your character in peril. They could be facing a gunman, about to fall down a cliff, be in a stolen car escaping from the cops.
3. Suggest characters are not who or what they seem to be. For example, the police come to protect your family in peril, but it becomes clear they are not the police. This is a good plot move as it leaves a question - if they're not the police who are they and what's their motive.
4. Follow Stephen King's advice. Think about what should logically happen next. For instance, I have a character who's been manhandled into a van by 2 thugs and taken to a deserted location. She's saved when one of them turns out to be an undercover cop. My character didn't see it coming and to be honest, neither did I.
5. Write something ese. It doesn't matter what it is. This can get you writing again.
6. Watch something funny. You might find laughing inspires you.
7. Do some unusual research. I knew that I wanted my Kirsty character to jump out of a cake but when I tried to write it, it was dreadful. I did the research and it really helped me with the writing.
8. Ban yourself from writing anything at all for one day. There is nothing more guaranteed to make you want to do than telling yourself you can't.
8. Ban yourself from writing anything at all for one day. There is nothing more guaranteed to make you want to do than telling yourself you can't.
Friday 5 August 2011
Bullying - A Parent's Guide
Bullying - A Parent's Guide has been updated for 2011 and will be on sale on October 1st 2011, from Amazon, all good book shops and the publisher's website. RRPis £9.99.
The updated book focusses on cyber bullying at greater length and also offers tips on how to keep your child safe online.
I also make the point that even princesses can get bullied as Kate Middleton had to leave her school when she was just 13 because of bullying. Because of that she asked that as a wedding gift, people donated money to her favourite bullying charity.
The best advice I can give to anyone who is being bullied, is to tell someone - I know its difficult (hey, I've been there). Bullies lose most of their power when you tell someone.
I have also created a Facebook Page for the book.
Thursday 4 August 2011
Don’t make your characters stereotypes
Make him real, not a stereotype |
I’m a woman, so I must like shopping, shoes and soaps. I must hate football, not know the offside rule and how to fix things. And of course, I abhor bad language as it offends my feminine sensibilities.
In reality, shopping is my idea of hell, I hate shoes and wear trainers all the time because I walk a lot and soaps, well as though I am as susceptible to big storylines as anyone, I can take or leave them.
I don’t just love football, I was a football journalist for years and I am the one who fixes things in our house.
I also (shamefaced) have done quite a bit of swearing in my time. Well, put it this way, if there was a swear box in our house, I’d be putting a heck of a lot more in it than my boyfriend.
Are you a stereotype? Chances are you probably are not. So, why should your characters be?
Make them different. Make them stand out. They can even be a contradiction. For instance, in the Harlan Coben Byron Molitar books his friend Win Lockwood looks like a soft rich boy, but he’s a violent man and a master in various martial arts.
Myron’s business partner Esperanza is a small, pretty Latino lady but she used to be a professional wrestler known as Pocahontas in the Fabulous Ladies of Wrestling.
Whatever you do, DO NOT make them a stereotype; don’t generalise.
Real life people aren’t stereotypes and you want to breathe life into your characters.
Tuesday 26 July 2011
If Choke Hold were a movie, Tarantino would direct
Sometimes you start to despair of the way women are portrayed in fiction. Even when they're the police officers in charge of major investigations they tend to be weighed down by child care arrangements and will they or won't they get it on with that colleague? You don't get that with male characters.
At times it seems that women are only defined by two things: motherhood and their relationships.
How refreshing it is therfore to read a book like Choke Hold by Christa Faust where the woman in it, the brilliantly named Angel Dare, is a person in her own right. She's not looking for the man of her dreams or looking to be a baby mamma. She just wants to stay alive and is feisty enough to do all she can, including using violence if need be.
If you think Choke Hold is the book for you, I've reviewed it at Shadowlocked. There's also a link in the review that will direct you to an excerpt so you can try before you buy.
This book is worth the money for the cover alone.
Released on 7th October 2011, priced £7.99
Wednesday 13 July 2011
Time saving devices cost you time
Don’t get me started on modern technology that’s supposed to save you time.
Yesterday, I was out and about when inspiration struck and I thought rather than doing what I normally do and writing in the notepad I carry around with me, that I would use the Notes facility in my Nokia 5800 Xpress Music mobile phone. That way when I got home I could synch it with my laptop as I’d done countless times before.
I tried it and the thing wouldn’t work. So, I went online looking for trouble shooting guides – you know the one the manufacturer didn’t think would be helpful to include with the phone.
Nothing seemed to work.
Five hours later, I’m snapping at my partner who’s only trying to help and have visions of taking a hammer to the phone and smashing it to bits, before setting it on fire.
In the end I did a factory reset and set everything up again from scratch.
Time consuming? Yes. Did I get any writing done? Nah. I guess these time saving devices aren't as time saving as they claim.
A word to the wise to Nokia and anyone else making electronic devices: if you have a manual it’d better be concise. You know one that actually has a trouble shooting guide on it, instead of space being taken up with things like ‘don’t let your phone overheat’ (do they honestly think I was going to send it to the sauna) and ‘how to switch it on’ (doh, that’s too high tech for me).
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