On my newsletter, I had the notion to do a full round-up of every story and event from 2023 that I’d published or been part of. It turns it, it makes for a long list. These are the sorts of things that it’s easy to forget about when December rolls around, when you’re tired and…
So far, while looking at the ‘Something explodes’ card, we’ve looked at types of explosions and Cause & Effect. For the final post in this series, before we move onto other cards and other ways of utilising them, we’re going to look the explosion’s position in the narrative. We’ll start with one key question: Is…
Announcing my next book – TALES OF THE FANTASTICAL – a collection of short stories from 2017 to date. Containing dozens of stories, TALES OF THE FANTASTICAL is one writer’s equivalent of an artbook, showcasing new and old work within the un-boundaries of speculative fiction. As well as an exploration into THE BLACK PAGES, the…
As I write this, Ireland is shy of a lockdown and people are generally practicing social distancing. The first couple of weeks were stressful, but as this continues, people will eventually replace stress with boredom. That’s where NaNoWriMo comes in, and with April right around the corner, Camp NaNoWriMo is the perfect opportunity to create…
In this NaNoWriMo Prep series, we’ve so far looked at why to do NaNo (aside from it being great) and how to turn a prompt into a plot. In today’s post, we’ll focus on planning your book to give you a guideline for writing. Getting started with your plan Your plan needs two things: the…
Any creative act takes time. Novels happen to take a lot of time, even just to get a first draft. That’s fine. When you’ve done it a couple of times, you expect to spend a large portion of your available time sitting at a keyboard, working away. NaNoWriMo just happens to require that you condense…
When it comes to writing short fiction, sometimes it can be difficult keeping the word count low. In this post, as part of my NaNoWriMo series, we’ll take a look at three tips for keeping a story short. This is essential if you’re planning on writing a short story a day for NaNoWriMo, if you…
Something explodes, a bomb, a volcano, emotional tension…but can it be prevented? So far we’ve looked at Cause & Effect in the sense that it’s a set thing, but is there something your characters could have done to prevent it from happening altogether? In this post, we’re going to look at the magical time travel…
Launched on October 12th and 13th between the Dublin Comic Arts Festival (DCAF) and Octocon, Pocket Prompts are decks of double-sided cards that provide prompts in three categories: Each deck comes with 25 cards, totalling 50 prompts, packed snugly to fit in your pocket, in your backpack, or in your handbag, so you can take…
Previously, we looked at the ‘Something explodes’ card from the point of view of taking it literally. Now it’s time to step it up a notch. In this series of posts, I’m going to show you how this one card can be used to tell many different types of stories, and affect much more change…