That word knob (Picture by Simon Hurry on unsplash)
It’s been a long time since I’ve heard someone use the word knob – as in ‘you knob’, ‘you idiot’ – let alone write it. So when it popped up recently in a student’s assignment, I was intrigued. Was the word making …
Who’s who of SA crime fiction (Photo by Jan Antonin Kolar on Unsplash)
This who’s who of South African crime fiction features novels by writers working in English or translated into English who set their novels in southern Africa. Under the broad category of crime fiction, I have included a number …
SA Crime Fiction (Pic by Max Kleinen on Unsplash)
Despite the vibrancy of thriller and crime fiction elsewhere, not much has happened in SA crime fiction over the last five decades. Until the 2000s. This wasn’t exactly surprising as the cops have been more or less an invading army in the …
Food for thought (Pic Mathilda Langevin on Unsplash)
Food for thought: Well, not food at all but drink. Because, let’s face it, there’s a lot of drinking that happens in novels.
I really like associating my characters with a type of drink and often the brand too. It adds to characterisation. In …
Searching for Sarah: Dominique Malherbe goes looking for her aunt.
Lawyer, writer, blogger. Dominique Malherbe is a name to be reckoned with. I’ve known her for a number of years and watched her reputation grow. And now comes her biography/memoir, Searching for Sarah (from Tafelberg). It’s her third book, following two …
Food for thought (Pic: Rudi Fargo on Unsplash)
Food for thought: it’s a touchy subject cannibalism because if anything speaks of extreme characterisation (Hannibal Lecter, for instance) then it is those characters who eat other characters.
I came across this issue while writing Power Play. I was using Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus as …
The writing process: starting a story (Pic by Jukan Tateisi on Unsplash)
The writing process can get off to a slow start. You might wander around for hours, days, weeks, trying to find a way into your story. So, with the Writing Reality course a week away, a good topic is …
Interviewing as part of the writing process (Pic by Marten Newhall, Unsplash)
Two weeks ago (in The Writing process 1), I quoted extensively from John McPhee’s excellent book, Draft No. 4 , about the writing process in general. This week, for those keen to join the WriteOnline Writing Reality course on …
The writing process: creating a character (pic by Zane Lee on Unsplash)
With the start of the WriteOnline Writing Fiction course next week, I thought it a good idea to talk about an essential aspect of the writing process: characters.
We all know that characters make novels: think, Oliver Twist, Mrs …
