Authors Electric

My kids couldn’t believe it. It was literally a few days after Christmas, and the shop was selling Easter Eggs! Is it me, or are they even earlier this year than normal? They’re all mixed on the shelves with Valentine merch. At least, it means as a writer, your timeline doesn’t have to be too precise. That’s my excuse, anyway. It’s a nice detail to include in your story, something like a poisoned cream egg, for example. Your time frame is from the start of January, all the way through to Easter. You can describe the victim, walking through the supermarket, tutting at the fact that Easter Eggs and Valentine's hearts are right next to one another. Maybe she dislikes the passing of the seasons, feels it’s like wishing your life away. She might hesitate between cream eggs and valentine hearts, with the killer peeking between the shelves to see if his dastardly plan will succeed. It could confuse your readers, I suppose. It makes the timeline less precise. Writing about seasonal s...

Oh, it happens, and it’s horrible. It’s like being in a maze when you can’t find the way out, and you keep passing the same point over and over again. Nine times out of ten there will be something wrong with the last section you wrote. There could be any number of issues here, but usually it’s just one, especially if you have an idea of where the plot is going. You need to re-read what you’ve written, as objectively as possible. This means making a note of the timeline – can everyone get to where they’re meant to be in the time you’ve given them to do it? It may mean making a map of the terrain. Are the characters in the right places? But the most likely glitch of all is that someone has behaved out of character. They simply would not have done or said something or other. Have a good hard look at each character, and the motivation for their behaviour. People (or animals, or mythical beasts!) don’t do things for no reason. Some characters seem to come from nowhere. Others ha...