Book Review: Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon
Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon My rating: 4 of 5 stars I came to this from a first chapter included at the end of the kindle edition of Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. This is a different sort of space opera from Ancillary Justice, but the opening chapter was so gripping that I immediately ordered a copy so that I could read the rest of it. The universe it is set in is sort of recognisable as a fast forward on our current one. The initial setting is in a naval academy that would be recognisable to anyone with military experience (and the author served in the USMC, no doubt she drew on that). That's just the starting point for the story though, and most of the action takes place on board an interstellar freighter. The story is told…
Writing and Tension/Conflict
I've been working my way through the Big Red Book (BRB) that supports the Open University's A215 Creative Writing course. I've just got to the Chapter on structure and it has made me think about how to get tension and conflict into my stories. In particular I was thinking about how to write the sort of scenes that make you want to keep on reading and keep people up at night to see what happens next. I also found this writing resource post on tension vs conflict in writing. The thought process that these triggered reminded me of an incident from my late teens. Back in July 1991 I spent a couple of weeks on the Isle of Lewis with my UOTC on annual camp. One night we were sent out on an orienteering exercise in the dark (it wasn't…
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Black Belt Boy
A picture in celebration of my son getting his Choi Kwang Do black belt. Alexander has a black belt! (Photo credit: greencoatboy) Video to follow. Related articles Can my black belt help get me into college?
Book Review – Story Design: Storyteller’s Handbook for Writers and Dream Merchants by SEAM
Story Design: Storyteller's Handbook for Writers and Dream Merchants by Shared Experience Art Machine My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is an awesome resource for writers, providing a concentrated source of helpful advice and a thoroughly worked example of how to design stories and produce a good pitch to sell them. The book is born from the experience of a group of script writers, who recognised that it was better to sell lots of pitches and then write the accompanying scripts than trying to do write the scripts first. After all, if you want to earn your living by writing it is best to be sure you're going to be paid for it before doing it. The core of the book is an approach to designing your story before trying to write it. There is a 8 step approach…
Product Review – MEElectronics Air-Fi Runaway AF32 Bluetooth Headphones
I have acquired a new set of wireless headphones, which is the first time I've had a set of bluetooth headphones. I must say that it is oddly liberating not having a wire attached to my phone while listening to music. In the box you get the headphones, a USB charging cable and a backup flat cable with two jacks for using with devices that don't have bluetooth. There is also a storage bag and a very good set of instructions on pairing the bluetooth with a range of devices including apple iPads and iPhones, android tablets and phones, blackberry smartphones and other bluetooth devices. Personally I have been using it with my android smartphone, it attached first time and all the buttons worked for their intended purpose. It changed the volume, skipped to the next and previous tracks, paused…