Category: Writing

Machine Wars Back Cover Reveal

And we now have a back cover for Machine Wars, due April. In the spirit of all good back cover blurbs, read and be tantalised.                          ...

Top Language Secret Revealed!

Actually, I didn’t discover it because it’s been there all the time and I’ve just learned about it. And I’m sure that no linguistics professors want to keep this rule a secret; I just wanted to have one of those clickbait teasers suggesting a great conspiracy to keep language...

Machine Wars Cover Reveal

And here it is: the superb, stylish, sensational cover of Machine Wars, my 33rd book, due in April from Random House Australia. I love it!...

‘Year’s Best’? Perhaps not …

It’s that time of the year again, and I’m not talking about the festive season. I’m talking about the end of year musing that gives us the parade of ‘Year’s Best Books’ lists or ‘Holiday Reading Guides’ that are starting to feature in the arts pages and corners of...

Writing Advice from C.S. Lewis

On this fiftieth anniversary of the death of C.S. Lewis, I thought I’d bring some of his writing advice to you. This comes from a letter that Lewis sent to a young correspondent in 1956, but the suggestions are eternal. Always try to use the language so as to...

Measuring Your Fantasy World

A writer has many challenges when creating a consistent, self-sustaining fantasy world for a story. Some are easy to anticipate, but others sneak up on you. After months of preparation, mapping, outlining and imagining, many a Fantasy writer has leaped into the first draft intoxicated by the joy of...

Using Real, Historical People in Fiction

Writers have many challenges. Getting a pencil to a perfect sharp point. Coming up with alternatives to ‘Once upon a time’ to start a story. Finding time to count our enormous sacks of money. Things like that. With The Extraordinaires, my most recently released series I encountered a challenge...

Character Vs. Characterisation

I’m about to make a distinction that is bound to be argued with, disagreed with and flat out rejected but, nevertheless, I’m going ahead because I think it’s useful, especially for beginning writers. Character is one of the vital aspects of storytelling – this isn’t the controversial bit, by...

Machine Wars

I’m excited to be able to tell you all about my new book, to be released by Random House Australia in April 2014. It’s called Machine Wars, and it’s unrelated to any of my other series. Machine Wars is a return for me to writing for a slightly younger...

Names, names, names

If you’re writing Fantasy, names can be a real headache. You want names that are distinctive, evocative and resonant, without sounding ‘just made up’, and that put a real strain on the old creative gland. The answer lies, as it almost always does when writing Fantasy, in History. For ...