Crowvus Book Blog

 Welcome back to Middle Grade Monday! Today, I'll be discussing how to deal with adults in middle grade fiction because, and I hate to break this to you, kids just don't want to read about adults stealing all the fun. Consider your favourite books from when you were younger. Mine was The Moon of Gomrath by Alan Garner. It's a story about a brother and sisters - kids, of course - who have magical adventure in the English countryside. There's danger, magic and battles. What's not to love? And yes, there are adults. But they are kept on a very short lead by the author. The most powerful character in the book, debatably, is Cadellin. He's a wizard who has a startling knowledge of the secret world of magical beings. He would find it so much easier to win in the end, but it has to be Susan and Colin (the kids) who are the centre of the book. So, what can you do with adults in middle grade? How can you make sure they get out the way? Some authors take the orphan option...

June is a 5 Monday month, meaning there's an extra #MGMonday blog to write. This Author Life blog is all about blog tours, and whether they are really worth their while for middle grade books. What is a blog tour? In the past, authors would travel around the country, promoting their book at bookshops and festivals. IT was a logistical nightmare, not to mention prohibitively expensive for many authors. Then, there's the headache of making sure you actually have an audience at these events. Cue, the blog tour. An online version! One without the need for travel, or the headache of wondering if you'll be speaking to an empty bookshop! My First Blog Tour Experience For my debut novel, Taking Wing, the blog tour was a magical thing! I didn't really know what to expect and the fact that several blogs had written reviews was fantastic! I shared each post on my social media, and got lots of comments from people I knew. My first blog tour was organised by Goddess Fish Promotions ...

 Today is the arrival of #HistFicMay, now in its third year. When I started it, I did it because I had really enjoyed meeting new writers through a similar #IndieApril list of prompts. I had a quick perusal to see if anyone had done a Historical Fiction one, saw they hadn't, and decided to set one up. It had the desired effect, and I have "met" (only online!) and discovered some wonderful writers and their books over the last couple of years. Community is a bigger thing than most writers realise. The more detached individuals may refer to community as networking, but the writing community is so much more than that. Don't get me wrong, I'm as introverted as they come, but without those people I have met during #HistFicMay or the online community of historical fiction writers, there are so many things I would never have known - sometimes even things which have led me to write certain scenes or books. I'm not saying you can't be a fabulous historical fiction ...

 I'm always impressed by the power of social media in spreading the word about books and writing. In the hope of giving back to that, I'm going to be running a social media event throughout May to help spread the word for the fabulous historical fiction authors who are in the online writing community. All you have to do is answer the questions/challenges which match up to each day on the list. Remember, posts with pictures are always more eye-catching. You can include pictures, quotes, and purchase links in any of these. If you don't have a picture for any post, just use the #HistFicMay banner (which you can download from this blog). You can choose light or dark depending on which best suits your writing. And remember to use the #HistFicMay hashtag so I can find your post! I will retweet, share, and like all the posts which answer these challenges on Twitter (@DaysDyingGlory), Facebook (@DaysDyingGlory), and Instagram (@StomperMcEwan), and please feel free to give me a nud...

This week's curator on the @WeeklyScribe account is E.L. Lyons ( @Lyons_Pen ), author of  Starlight Jewel . Here is her writing advice on drawing from history to incorporate into fantasy... When writing fantasy, the magic system always seems to be at the forefront of attention. Wands and dragons and spells are exciting. But when writing epic fantasy, where you’re creating a whole world different from ours, history is essential to grounding that magic and those cultures to make them seem real. If the history doesn’t feel real, or the world seems like it’s just starting, it gives the entire environment an inauthentic feeling.  Contrast this with the terrible E word… Exposition. The one thing that no fantasy author wants to be accused of. You have to craft your world’s history, lace it with magic, and then you can’t even tell your reader about it. But you also have to make sure they know it’s there.  I’ve learned a lot of hard lessons about this delicate balance with Starli...

It is #HistFicThursdays once again, and today I'm delighted to be sharing a guest post from Brenda W. Clough, in which she explores the creation of believable speech and the power of slang! My great power in historical fiction, the thing reviewers praise me for, is making my characters sound genuinely historical. You would never mistake the people in my novels for the folks in Bridgerton or Dakota Jackson movies. I make them think and talk and react like they were born in 1819, not 2009.  The trick to this, as you might expect, is research. You can find out how people talked when Victoria was queen. The great charm of the 19th century for the novelist is that there is so much material! Newspaper archives, paintings, periodicals on line, books, massive memoirs and biographies of the main players of the period – you could research forever, and never come around to writing your novel. But be careful to consult the right sources. Google, for example is unreliable. Those sites ‘Twelve V...

 By the very nature of the books I write, whether medieval, Jacobite, or regency, there are invariably battles to recount. A lot of historical fiction features wars of some kind because it's often in these times of trial and conflict that we can see the very best and the very worst of humanity. Writing battles is a daunting prospect. After all, most of us writers have never been in a battle, and certainly not one which used the type of warfare with existed 200, 500, or 1000 years ago. Re-enactments and handling artefacts are great for getting an idea of the weight of weapons, the blindspots of armour, the power of a charge, but these events are full of people who have all gathered for the same purpose. This means (thankfully, I should add!) that there is not that driving fear and recklessness which must have been present in those forays. But this is where you as the writer come in. No one enters the field of combat without some reason for - or belief in - what they are doing. Mass ...

One of the most incredible things about history is that, the older it gets, the more it resonates. It doesn't shrivel up like an old apple, or drop limbs and branches like an ancient tree, it just gets bigger. With every second which passes and every century which grows, history only piles up. Of course, there are aspects which fade, artefacts which succumb to erosion, but that's the archaeology not the history. I don't remember exactly what got me into writing historical fiction, but I do know I have always loved that my family are hoarders of antiquities. Ranging from the colossal millennia-old ammonite fossil my dad saved from the children who were chipping it to pieces, to the papers which define my own thirty-six year history, we have kept so much. It has it's downside - moving house this year has been a long, drawn-out process of about five times as many trips as a normal family move - but the richness it affords is second to none. But you don't have to come f...

One of the most problematic aspects of this genre is that, inevitably, we end up covering real people in some way, shape, or form. My books have included a range of real people, from kings to outlaws, prime ministers to military captains. It's not really possible to write a convincing historical fiction story without at least referencing someone who was a true historical figure, and with this comes a series of considerations which historical fiction writers have to address. My multiple-great-grandfather, William the Conqueror (pic: Man vyi) Firstly, in what way are you choosing to reference this character? It could be one of three things, and each of them have pros and cons attached: The real person is only mentioned. There is a pretty decent likelihood that your invented characters will know of the people who existed in the real world. This is a cunning way of setting a time and place for your story. The obvious one being a reference to a ruler and, unless you're writing with ...

Last weekend, historical writers around the globe came together for an online book fair. I've been a part of other virtual book fairs since Covid arrived on the scene, but this was the first genre-specific one I've done. #HistoryWritersDay was the brainchild of Simon ( @Books2Cover ). Despite its hashtag, the event was actually two days and, over those two days, I fell even deeper in love with the fantastic world of historical fiction and non-fiction writers. Writers and publishers were offering discounts, signed copies and giveaways, welcoming and including stalwarts as well as newbies to the many realms of history. As well as fabulous new friends, the weekend also provided a few sales along the way - most people buying The Year We Lived  which continues to be a mystery as well as an adventure for readers! And I'm looking forward to hearing the feedback and reviews from these sales, and making connections there too. The benefit of being a part of the Historical Fiction com...

 Did you ever play that game where you have to avoid the cracks on the pavement? The original version of it seems to be: Tread on a crack, break your back although we used the slightly milder version of: Step on a crack, marry a rat With hindsight, its more a cautionary piece of advice than a game, but it certainly was a fun game to play as a child, trying to gauge how many times to put your feet down on each flagstone. But the warning remains in place. Don't fall into or over the cracks... ...unless you're a historical fiction writer! At the moment, I'm writing a book for Sapere Books' Writing Competition . I have to admit, I originally recoiled from the idea of writing to someone else's brief, but I am putting together a submission for Brief 5 as a way of encouraging my sister to put in her entry for Brief 4! And I'm thoroughly enjoying the challenge. [It remains to be seen as to whether or not we submit our entries but, either way, I intend to take my charact...

Last Christmas (no, don't worry, I'm not about to burst into song!) one of my sisters got me a box file. Inside it, were a number of artefacts linking back to - or around - the year 1863, including letters, a death card, a penny and several other things. On the box was written the challenge: It was a little bit sneaky of her because, after the Crimean War, I had decided to put my family saga to rest. But, given that I loved those characters so much and - more to the point - so did she, I re-awoke them and gave them a chance at an alternative sort of adventure: espionage. This was a very different way of writing. In the past, I had collected things which linked in with my story ideas or completed books. Now, the challenge was to start with the objects and built up from there. And what a mixed box of goodies it was! Included in the box was this letter from the esteemed polymath, Henry Thompson, to his daughter. It showed a very different side of him to the one you read about. Thi...

 It's weekend again! That means it's time for another Positively Weekend post! Let's be positive about the writing and publishing world. Today, I'm talking about why I love to write for younger readers, in particular 10-12 year olds. 1)  Imagination Kids have a greater imagination than most adults. Yes, they perhaps can't show it as eloquently as mature people can. Yes, adults don't always understand what kids are trying to say. But their imagination is lively and unique. An adult sometimes gets upset if a child draws a picture of a battle, but more often than not this is just a story that is playing out in a child's mind. Writing for kids is so rewarding because they add their own imagination to the story. 2)  Uncomplicated To make a good children's book, you need an engaging plot and believable characters. The ethical themes and unusual dialogue is what will engage the parents and teachers, but children really only care about an entertaining story. Thi...

 It's Thursday! So get ready for some harsh truths about writing and publishing. This week, we are talking about that divisive of all writing topics: writer's block! Writer's Block is when, for no explicable reason, a writer loses their productivity. Some writers believe that it exists, others are certain it does not. But, here's the harsh truth: writer's block does  exist. There are times when a writer struggles to write a single page. When people say it doesn't exist, what they usually mean is "you can do something about it". To say writer's block isn't real takes away from of the skill of an author. It is the author's skill to work through writer's block. So, here are a few ideas to help you work through this very real predicament: Just sit down and write. You might write a load of rubbish, but you're going to edit your book anyway, so don't worry! Get that chapter down and, by the time you've written a few hundred words,...