September has been (and still is being!) our blogging month. October will be our reading month. Then, most of the Crowvus team will settle into writing in November. Our reading is, of course, ghost stories - the stories you have submitted to us for consideration in our competition. We love this! It is a highlight of our year, and it is always difficult to make that final decision on those which will appear in the book, and those which will win the big prizes. Enter the Crowvus Christmas Ghost Story Competition ! Crowvus HQ last Hallowe'en Night What we're looking for is not always the same thing. This is why there are a number of judges, so that different styles and plots can be accommodated. Over the years, there have been stories which have stuck with me which never even made the book. By the nature of the judging system, I have no idea who wrote them, but there are some stories out there that I hope managed to find their home, as they have left a haunting impact on me. Give...
Yesterday was Lord of the Rings Day. Every January, we sit down for an entire day and watch the three Lord of the Rings films back-to-back. And that's the extended versions. It's a perfect way to spend a January Saturday, when Christmas is over and before the gardening season truly begins and you feel bad for being inside! I thought yesterday, as I was crying at the Fellowship of the Ring, that I would do a blog post about Boromir and how he's actually a pretty awesome character. Then I thought, when I opened Blogger to write, that all of the Fellowship play important roles, and there's someone there who would appeal to everyone. So, in this 9 part series on characters, let's take each of the Fellowship and discuss the role they play in the story. What's their character arc? What's their purpose? You never know - it might teach us a thing or two about designing our own characters. WARNING: This contains spoilers. Obviously! The first one we're going to ...