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...

  Characters in Middle Grade: The Baddy Happy March! We saw our first daffodil out in the garden on St David's Day, 1st March. Very fitting! Last month, in our middle grade characters series, we looked at the main character, giving some (I hope!) useful tips and pointing out some things to watch out for. Today, we’ll be looking at your main antagonist, otherwise known as ‘The Baddy’ ! I’ve read some fantastic middle grade baddies, and some terrible ones, and I’m going to share what I think makes a great antagonist, and what to learn from some of the books that just don’t get it right. Before we start, I have a slight confession to make. It doesn’t matter who my bad guy is, they’re always my sister’s favourite character. She likes Raedwald in Taking Wing, she likes the pirates in Exiled (yet to be published!) and I haven’t asked her, but I bet she likes Nox in Heartstone. The book I wrote for her Christmas present last year was a pirate story where there were two sets of baddies: th...

Mehrangarh Fort - the inspiration for Caer Cleon in Doorway to the Sunset Writing a blog about writing settings is like writing a blog about the length of a piece of string. The fact is: the setting will likely depend on the genre and, as I have said many times, Middle Grade is an age range , not a genre. But, I can at least offer some hopefully-handy tips on how to get ideas for your setting. Firstly, it helps to have some idea of your setting to begin with. Do you want the scene to be in a forest, or perhaps you're looking for some building inspiration. This is where I get really controversial. When to use AI AI gets quite a bad press in the creative world, and for good reason. But to have a blanket ban on using AI to help you with the creative process is to shoot yourself in the foot. There is a time and a place for AI, and one of those times, I would argue, is when looking for inspiration. There are some good picture generators out there, and all you need to do is write a descr...

 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...

As a writer, you're increasingly told to show don't tell . It's one of those phrases which has infiltrated all lessons from the highest ranked authors to the little primary school child taking their first steps into writing. Ironically, there are now so many clichés in this particular idea that it is now becoming something of a cliché itself! But one particularly significant area of inspiration and writing when this works at its best is when we are dealing with the supernatural. By its very meaning, the supernatural transcends the laws of nature. It's our job as writers of historical fiction not only to convey that but - and this is a real biggie! - to acknowledge and accept that these beliefs were true. Belief in these ideas (which, at best, now get you labelled as quirky) was commonplace in history, and you need not look too far back to find them. According to surveys run ten years ago, 34% of people in the UK said they believed in ghosts, and 42% of people in the USA...

 Well, I won NaNoWriMo, actually with three days still on the clock to complete. That means I’m being inventive with writing my words if I want to get all my badges and, in turn, that means that I’m getting this blog written. I’ve been meaning to write a NaNoWriMo blog all month (Virginia wrote one which is available here ) but I’m only just getting round to it on 28th November. I can’t share great words of wisdom, because I’m not a great researcher like Ginny is, but I can tell you that this is the first time I have ever – ever, mark you – completely pantsed a novel. Here’s how it happened… Before NaNoWriMo comes Preptober, and I took it seriously this year. I came up with this idea of “Me: A 50 Piece Jigsaw”. This would be the story of a girl whose dad dies and so she joins the circus (or, more precisely, the fairground) whilst realising that she’s actually psychic. Oh, and there’s this villainous doctor in the shadows who is trying to “cure” people of psychic-ness and her friend...

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 ...

 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...

 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 ...

 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,...

During my #AuthorOfTheWeek interview, I mentioned (amongst a lot  of other things) that the lockdown has challenged my focus with writing. I've begun several things which have been fated to end up on the back-burner or just completely discarded. My #AuthorOfTheWeek interview! The truth is, when all those other things I'm mentioned so far this week fail to inspire me, there's one last-ditch attempt I have of getting writing. And that rests with a very significant group of people: my characters. I have a terrible - but incredibly rewarding - habit of allowing my characters the gift of Free Will. Sometimes they resist, sometimes they run wild, and then on other occasions they actually dictate the next development. I have utmost respect for each one of them, goodies and baddies, men and women, human and inhuman. Why? Because when I've completely run out of steam, they're the ones who make the story their own. I've had some great feedback on my characters,...