Middle Grade Settings: An Introduction Having photos in front of you can help you write about your settings I’m going to make a confession. Settings are not something I often spend time planning. Perhaps my stories are the poorer for it, but the settings come as I’m writing or editing. The Glass Room, in Taking Wing, is not something I planned before I started writing. Personally, I’m a very visual writer, seeing my characters as though they are a video in my head, and I write what I see. As such, the setting just happens! There are benefits and drawbacks to this. The main benefit is that the writing process is more interesting. Not everything is set, and my story can still give me surprises. The drawback is that, similar to AI, I cannot know that I’m not stealing settings from films and books I’ve seen/read previously. I certainly don’t mean to plagiarise but the concern is a real one! With that in mind, I have started to at least have a vague idea of my settings before I start t...
I absolutely love this song! I don't know whether it is that I know more Tom Jones and Welsh songs which the Owain Glyndŵr song calls on, or whether it is just more my sort of music, or that - which I think is another consideration - this is about a historical figure who drifts into the realms of legend. At the moment, I am rereading my family saga and I came across this line: That man will be a legend until the day he dies, and an inspiration beyond. When I decided to write today's blog on Owain Glyndŵr, this quote fitted rather well. The man being discussed in the book was not a real figure from history but - after sharing more than 400,000 words with him during the course of my family saga - it certainly feels like I know him better than any of his real-life contemporaries! When I was researching Owain Glyndŵr for this blog, I was surprised to find just how long his reign lasted. I had assumed it was almost a flash-in-the-pan uprising, similar to those we had in Scotland se...