How On Earth Did We Make a Radio Series – And How Can You Do It As Well?
The last episode of our 5-part sci-fi comedy Space Station Zeta released yesterday! This is a big deal for us, and I hope you’ll check it out. In this article I’ll talk about how we did it and how you can write your own – how to develop the initial idea, how writing a series is different from a one off, how to record your own series and the pros and cons of a series compared to one off plays.
Before that, you really should listen to the plays – first, there are major spoilers in the article, second, it’s funny, I promise! So here it is: Space Station Zeta, All Five Episodes, about intelligence, love, and Chairman of the Federation Ronald Dump. Once you’ve listened, come back after the break to find out how to do it yourself.
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Have you been asked to critique someone’s story? Been given a short story, screenplay or novel to discuss and have no idea where to start? Fear not. This is a guide to giving good feedback on creative writing. It explains how to deliver your critique and the key questions you should answer. As a reader, it will make you very popular with your writer friends. As a writer, the crib-sheet for reader questions will help you edit your own work.
It may also improve your love life. I’m not even joking. Ready?
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I just finished the second full draft of a novel. I’m going to take a couple of weeks of for Christmas, then get started on the third. But the titles “second” and “third” don’t refer to a number of revisions (I have worked through each chapter many, any times). Rather they refer to specific stages in the drafting process. In this article I will describe what I mean by a second and a third draft, and illustrate my personal checklist for revising third drafts. How do you turn a rough draft into a ready draft?
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English is a subject/object structured language. A normal English sentence goes like this: Subject -> Action -> Object. But, because English is a wonderfully flexible language, we are allowed to re-order our sentences. We can hide both subject and object within subtle layers of meaning. So how do you choose your sentence structure? And why have years of academic writing left me struggling with my fiction edit?
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