Sunday, August 14, 2011

Writing Help for New Voices

Over on Facebook there is a page for the New Voices Contest  - and it's buzzing. Everyone has questions they want to ask and  they are posting their queries and getting plenty of great answers.

But there are still more and more questions. To help with some of the queries, Nas Dean posted some links to posts I'd done in the past here on this blog - posts on Conflict when I did the Conflict series and Q&A  back in 2010.  That made me think of the other series of posts on writing I've done - All About Alphas for one. And the Writing Q&A  where I answered questions you sent in.

But these are scattered through  my blog, here there and everywhere. So I thought I'd try to make things a bit easier for you and I checked through, collecting up the dates  where I put most of these posts about writing, so that I could list themn for you to go back and find and have a read.

Writing for Presents-   1-4
Basic information about what I think is important if you want to aim for the  Modern Romance/Harlequin Presents line.
All About Alphas  1-22
A long  series of posts on the often vexed topic of  the 'Alpha Male' - love him or hate him, Mills & Boon editorial  have been heard to say that they only ever publish alpha heroes.  But  if you think Alpha means bully and brute, trampling a poor little heroine underfoot, you couldn't be more wrong. Read the contributions from so many successful  published romance writers and find out why there's so much more to this guy than being tal dark and handsome, successful - and snarling!

The link will take you to the first post - after that just scroll further and you'll find all you ever wanted to know about the Alpha hero.
Keep It Simple Dig Deep


Writing Q&A
A series of answers to questions readers sent in

Conflict 1- 21
Another long series of posts following on from the time that I taught a workshop on Conflict at the Romantic Novelists' Association conference  in 2010.  Why conflictr? Well, without conflict you don't have a story - but so many people get themselves in a tangle about internal conflict/external conflict/sustaining conflict/resolving conflict - it's all here. Just  start at post one and read on through.

And over on Sally Quilford's blog, I did a guest post for her  May -  You Write Your Novel  section - you can find that here.
Writing Category Romance

That should keep you quiet for a while - when you've read through all that lot, if you still have questions  - on these topics or anything else, then  come back and post them here and I'll start another Writing Q&A to  post some answers.

And of course, there  is a lot more information and advice in my 12 Point Guide To Writing Romance which is available in paperback or  on KINDLE both in America and the UK.

7 comments:

Nas said...

Hi Kate,

It's great. All the post links in one post! I've been searching through your posts and giving links to NV hopefuls emailing me! Now I'll just direct everyone to this one post!

Thanks.

Nina said...

Thanks Kate - Thats really kind of you!! Nina x

Anonymous said...

Hi kate. Can't wait to read all those posts.
Slight problem. Clicking the links only takes me to one post in each topic.

Kate Walker said...

Hi Anon - yes- each link takes you the beginning of each topic. Then you'll need to click on 'Conflict' in the labels to get them all lined up.
Or equally, just go the the main blog page and put Conflict in the search box

Anonymous said...

Kate, sorry to be such a nuisance but I can't find the search box on blog page.

Kate Walker said...

Hi again Anon

Ok, either click on the first post I've linked to, read it or scroll to the bottom and in the list of words there, click on Conflict

Or - right at the top of the blog, above the red banner with my name you'll find an orange letter B and a white box beside it Put Conflict in there and click on the magnifying glass symbol


Or - in the sidebar down near the bottom where there are lists of dates the Conflict posts are in July 2010 and August 2010

Hope you find them one of these ways - do let me know

Anonymous said...

Hi Kate
I managed to find the list of words at the bottom of the first posts and spent a lovely afternoon reading your blogposts on Q&A and conflict. (Saved everything as it's such great advice. Looking forward to reading all about alpha males tonight.)
I thought that little box next to the orange B was for searching the whole of blogger! Thank you so much for pointing me in the right direction.

 

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