amreading

Be Focused and Finish Your Novel

It’s funny. I promised I would attempt to post regularly on my blog––and it’s not the first time I’ve made that promise with my followers. Each time I apologize but this time: I’m not sorry.

Okay, maybe I am a little bit but over the past months, I devised a writing routine that works for my lifestyle and busy schedule. It has taken me a long time to work out the best and most productive writing life for me.

It might take writers and authors days, weeks, months or years to work it out but once you work it out, you don’t want to break that cycle. I don’t want to break the writing cycle I’ve created for me.

(more…)

Four Ways to Explore Multiple Point of Views

In the last posts, I discuss Seven Ways To Add Subplot To Your Story and Four Ways to Build Suspense in Your Novel.

The most common way authors explore subplot and build tension is through multiple points of view. Multiple viewpoints can build the suspense for the protagonist, for example, in Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers. Having Merry and Pippin encounter the Ent in the Fangorn forest and deal with the source of Sauron’s army whilst Aragon, Legolas and Gimli are cornered in Helm’s deep with the people of Rohan, add pressure for Frodo and Sam to make it Mordor and destroy the ring.

Each point of view of the story should have a unique voice. Below are four exercises to challenge yourself and explore new ways to think about your point of view writing.

(more…)

Seven Ways To Add Subplot To Your Story

In previous posts, I discussed how to foreshadow and how to add suspense to your novel.

One of the points I intentionally left out was the subplot.

A subplot is an excellent tool for writers adding suspense and character dimension to their novel. The best authors know that much of a novel’s success depends on the interplay of plot and subplot. If your plot seems to be falling flat, or if your story starts to resonate as too one-note, it could be that a well-woven subplot is just what you need to add the kind of complexity and tension that readers crave.

When writers and authors begin to view subplots as material to weave into our main action, it becomes easier to see the strands of the plot individually—and to feel confident handling them.

I have outlined below seven ways to add a subplot to your story.

(more…)

Four Ways to Build Suspense in Your Novel

For many writers and readers, the suspense is a genre. However, it is also a key element in all stories—if you want your readers to keep reading, that is.

Tools for creating suspense belong in every writer’s toolkit because they help arouse expectation or uncertainty about what’s going to happen.

And that worry pulls readers deeper into your story, whether it’s fantasy, thriller, science-fiction, literary fiction or any other genre.

Below are four ways to help add suspense to your novel, no matter where you’re at in the writing process, from drafting to the fourth round of editing (like me).

(more…)

#FridayReads Challenge

Last year on my Goodreads account, I completed a reading challenge.

On a recent post, I shared my yearly #Fridayreads Challenge. I accepted and nominated eight books. I thought, if I at least set an achievable goal, it will motivate me to read more, however the eight books I chose were at least 700 pages long. In between the series I read short stories, poems and alot of articles on the craft of writing but I didn’t add those to my Goodreads challenge as they are alot shorter in length.

It has taken me awhile to complete the Memory, Thorn and Sorrow series by Tad Williams, but I did it. I highly recommend it for everybody who loves epic fantasy to read Tad Williams books.

What are you reading this week?

(more…)

Writing in Twenty-Nineteen

Happy New Year! Yes I know I am nine days overdue but it has been an eventful start to the new year.

As we finish rinsing our champagne glasses and packing away our decorations, our focus turns to the year ahead. So here’s the big question:

What are your writing ambitions for the next 12 months?

(more…)

Five Reasons To Write What You Are Reading

Aside from writing itself, I believe reading is the single most important element in a healthy writing life.

As Natalie Goldberg pointed out:

If you read good books, when you write, good books will come out of you.

You should be reading the type of stories we want to write. Why? Here are five reasons.

(more…)

What To Do After A Rejection Letter?

It’s that time of the week – Tuesday Discussion.

For those new to my blog, each week I post a topic (relevant to my WIP) and try to unravel the mysteries and perspectives of it. I haven’t posted in a while but I want to stay on the topic of rejection letters.

Here is last weeks post, My First Rejection Letter and today I want to question:

What did you do after your rejection letter?

(more…)

A Call to Beta-Readers for My Debut Novel

From a previous post, Reading chapters of my novel I asked people to read the first couple chapters of my novel, A Time of Stones, after the first draft. I have edited, edited and edited over the last few months and I feel almost ready to send off queries to agents and publishers. One last round of beta-readers couldn’t possibly hurt could it? So,

I am calling beta readers to read the first three chapters.

Remember constructive feedback only please and this time round, I do have a short questionnaire.

If you would like to read the first three chapters, please email me on the contact page or comment below with your email address. I will send you the list of questions along side the chapters.

Your email will not be spammed or you will not be added to my email listing without your consent – it is for sharing my work, nothing more.

If you have work to read, please send some through and I will do the same.

#DWTSmith #betareaders #atimeofstones

Lohgan throught the forest