Facebook and Chandler’s Ford Today
My Chandler’s Ford Today post this week is part 2 of my interview with paranormal historical fiction writer, Jennifer C Wilson.
She shares her thoughts on the joys and woes of writing ghost stories and crossing genres. She discusses the research she carries out and reveals what it was like to go to Richard III’s funeral. How many historical fiction writers can claim to have gone to the funeral of their subject several centuries later?!
Many thanks, Jennifer, for sharing your insights. Good luck with the next in the Kindred Spirits series too.
Facebook – From Light to Dark and Back Again
I must admit, with my dog walking hat on, I am not keen on the nights drawing in so early. (Lady is not that keen either!).
However, with my reading and writing hats on, the earlier nights do tend to encourage me to have cosy nights with something nice to drink (usually hot chocolate!), as I spoil myself with books and stories, whether I am reading them or doing my best to write them!
Yes, I do read and write during the spring and summer obviously, but there is something about the nights drawing in that drives me to my desk/book shelves that bit more readily! So there are compensations to the darkest of the seasons then…
Facebook – Round-up Posts from From Light to Dark and Back Again
The real art to flash fiction writing is to be able to say something concisely and leave your readers to fill in the gaps. Good fun to write and read. I suppose in some ways it is the exact opposite of the epic novel.
Plans for next year include trying to enter more flash fiction competitions, hopefully having a second book out, and I’d like to do more with standard length short stories. Whether the plans come off is another matter!
Flash – for light or dark fiction! Image via Pixabay
One great thing about having an author in your life is you won’t be short of ideas for Christmas presents for them!
There are the books they want to read, of course, (there WILL be a big list!) and then there’s the world of nice stationery. There are the notebook fans, writers can never have enough paper for the printer or ink cartridges/toners etc, and as for good quality pens…. lead me to them!
These days you can even buy gift vouchers for conferences, which I think is a fab idea and can make the difference to someone going or not going at all to such a thing.
So have fun choosing (and if you are the writer, get your wish list in!)
What ever writer needs. Image via Pixabay
Fairytales With Bite – The Joys and Woes of Writing in Genres
My Chandler’s Ford Today post this week is part 2 of my interview with paranormal historical fiction writer, Jennifer C Wilson, author of the Kindred Spirits series. She talks about the joys and woes of writing ghost stories/crossing genres. If you are looking for ghost stories that are a bit different, do check out her series. There are two books so far: Kindred Spirits: Tower of London and Kindred Spirits: Royal Mile. The former “stars” Richard III and the latter Mary, Queen of Scots. The common link here? Fotheringay Castle – one for happy reasons, the other the complete opposite!
Whatever genre you write in, there will be challenges to overcome and joys to relish! The important point, regardless of whatever genre you write in, is to ask yourself honestly would your story grip someone who doesn’t know you and who has discovered your stories by accident? This is where having trusted beta readers can be really useful as they will point out what works and what doesn’t. Another good way is to make yourself put your work away for a while before you come back to it and look at it with fresh eyes. It is much easier to read your book as a reader would if you do this.
One thing I did with From Light to Dark and Back Again was use Scrivener to export the book as a .mobi file so I could actually see what it would look like as an ebook. By putting it into this format, I found it easier to pretend I was new to the book and so I could read and edit it far more effectively. (The ability to change formats in Scrivener is one of the things I love about it).
The real challenge to genre writing is to win over readers who are NOT already fans of it. But it is a good challenge and keeps you on your toes as a writer!
This World and Others – Stepping Back in Time
Time travel is possible…. if you’re a good historical fiction writer or wonderful composer like Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis is, for me, one of my favourite pieces of music and conjures up the Elizabethan world so beautifully.
As for historical fiction, my Chandler’s Ford Today post this week is part 2 of my interview with Jennifer C Wilson. She writes historical fiction crossed with ghost stories in her Kindred Spirits series. In the interview, she shares some of the joys and woes of writing ghost stories/crossing genres and discusses the research she does for the historical side of her work. If you are looking for ghost stories that are different, do check out her series.
Good historical fiction should make you feel as if you have stepped back in time and as if you are the proverbial fly on the wall in whatever era and setting the writer has chosen. Can you sense the smells of that world? Can you picture how things would look?
One thing about history I love, whether it is fiction or non-fiction, is the way it shows how others lived. It makes me grateful for things I think we take for granted – the ability to read and write for the vast majority of us, decent sanitation etc. It does no harm to reflect every so often how fortunate we are to have these. They were not always a “given”.
So the secret here then is to give your readers enough information so they can picture and sense your world without giving them so much, they lose all sense of what the story is. This is true for every genre you care to name too.
Allison Symes: Collected Works 