I finished my second novel, Dead Moon, two weeks ago. My wife is reading it. She hasn’t fired me yet. My first novel, Vile, has spent the last four
months with an editor. Goodness knows if
it will ever emerge again. So, here I
am, starting a new novel again. But where will I find the idea? And how do I know it’s the right idea? And what sort of ideas make the best
foundations for your novel?
In this article I’m going to talk about putting together those first ideas that will launch your new novels. Ideas so strong, that at times they’ll feel they are writing it for you.
How do you avoid writing a boring, uninteresting play?
I read more than 300 play submissions during our 2018 Little
Wonder Radio Play competition and there were an astonishing number that fell
into one of the three types:
Some has an interview and discovers it isn’t what it seems!
Someone is in a strange place and discovers they are/were
actually dead!
And worst of all…
Someone is waiting for something… but nothing happens!
But there have been some great plays like this!
All three of these story formats can (and have) be very successful – but they’re also very dangerous. In this article I’m going to talk about why your play about something waiting to be interviewed to get into somewhere only to discover they are actually dead is BOOOORING, and what you can do to avoid writing it again.[i]
Big changes are in progress here both with Little Wonder and About Writing. Over the next couple of weeks the website will look a little odd as I make it ready for the awesome projects, series and competitions we have coming up. In the meantime, have you made sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out? Because 2019 is going to be a BIG year.
Want to write a successful radio play? Don’t build steadily to a big ending. Start with a bang!
Last year I had the privilege of reading more than 300
entries to our Little Wonder Radio Play Competition. I read every single one and gave feedback to
almost a hundred. This was an incredible
opportunity for me to see on a large scale what does and doesn’t work in a play. And one of the most common mistakes made by
our playwrights was that they thought a good play should look like this:
This seems to make sense.
Start calm, introduce a mystery, steadily build tension until you blow
their mind M. Night Shyamalan style with an ending they’ll never forget. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work at all. In this article I’ll show you what this
approach looks like, I’ll explain why it doesn’t work and I’ll show you the
alternative that will keep your listeners listening.
In December our good friend Toby Frost published his fantasy novel Up to the Throne, which you should go and buy straight away here.
If that wasn’t enough to convince you, then Radio Charades recently released a recording of Toby reading the first chapter of the novel. Have a listen, and I’ll bet you’ll want to read more…
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