Saturday 24 November 2007

The Craft of Writing

The last few weeks I have spent the majority of my time writing as well as learning different viewpoints and methods on the craft from two New York Times bestsellers, Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer, at their website which is linked on this blog. This website outlines the collective writing experience Jenny and Bob have learned over their years of writing; and how they applied it to their two recent books: Don't Look Down and Agnes and the Hitman. It covers all aspects of planning, developing and creating a new novel, including informative feedback from beginning writers to published authors.

My current writing is in the genre of fantasy with the multiple sub-elements of romance, horror, paranormal, crime, time travel, adventure and bits of science fiction. I have been told by others who make their livelihood with writing that my story has too many sub-genres and that I should limit it to one, perhaps two. Then there are my test readers, some who are not in the business of writing and others who do business writing at different levels, and they have all eagerly awaited the drafts itching for more. Myself, I write what I know and like. I like all of these sub-genres and have chosen to write about them.