Category Archives: Pictures

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Creating a Picture Inside Your Reader’s Head

Books are more than words on a page. When we read them their stories seem filled with real people and places in our imaginations. But how, as writers, do we achieve this clarity of picture in the mind of a reader? I took a long hard look at the opening chapter of my novel, Wolf Soul, and came up with the following: Continue reading →

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How to Perfect Your Author Biography

You may consider it an unwelcome chore, or an exciting opportunity, but every author, at one time or another, finds themselves needing to produce their Author Biography.

Here’s a blog post from One Step At A Time which you may find useful whatever your feelings towards the task.

Andre Muniz Gonzaga Dalata is one of Brazil’s most famous street artists and this series ‘I See Things’ is a wonderful example of how graffiti and street art interventions can transform a run down urban centre. Dalata is well known for painting on irregular surfaces in run down areas – interacting with nature and using stains, mould, cracks and collapsed buildings – in a style he calls ‘bizarre passion’. It’s his attempt to start a dialogue between art and the public. Here’s what he says about the scene in Brazil: There’s definitely something unique about Brasilian graffiti – it’s marginalized in other countries, but not in the same way. It’s different being broke in New York and being broke in Brasil. I’ve only put up a few examples of his smaller works in abandoned sites. You should check out his larger murals they’re amazing.

Picture c/o Hovercraftdoggy

If you have enjoyed this post – you might like to see how I put my methods into practice in my other work by reading SNAP by Lizzie Hexter, available from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.com.au, iTunes and Kobo.

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How to Describe Your Settings Without Boring Your Reader

Think of your setting as a painting, only instead of using colours on a canvass, you’re using words to describe a picture in someone else’s mind. The good thing about words rather than paint is you can use them to explore all five senses. Touch, taste, smell, sight and sound can all be used when describing a setting.

Every scene happens somewhere. It could be on a pirate ship, under a bed, or walking through a desert. Wherever your story is set you’ll want your readers to close their eyes and imagine they’re there. Continue reading →

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Experimenting with Point of View

There’s a good post here from the Writing Forward blog on using Point of View.

new POV

Picture c/o Hovercraftdoggy

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Picture It – Graham Gardner Reveals All

I’m delighted to welcome Graham Gardner to the blog today, who is the author of one of my favourite books, Inventing Elliot. When I asked him the secret of his success, this is how he replied: Continue reading →