There has been a huge five year gap between the release of my last book – Origin of Shadow (a novella in the Light and Shadow Chronicles) and my latest release – The Sins of Silas. There are a number of reasons for this. First of all, I have had some huge life changes in this time: A divorce, two house moves, two mental breakdowns, two new jobs, a world pandemic, a new engagement, a new career path. Oh, and five cats.
It was very hard to focus and be creative with all this upheaval in my life. The passion to write was still there, the stories and characters still shouting in my head, but having the physical and mental capacity to pay heed to them was difficult.
But there was another reason for the delay. As part of my writing development, I began to research the writing craft in further detail – from writing convincing dialogue, to planning story arcs effectively, to wrenching the heart out of your reader emotionally. And the information I picked up was so revolutionary to me, so utterly critical, that I needed to seriously overhaul the way I had been doing things.
I was mid-way through the initial editing stages of The Sins of Silas (the first draft having been completed just before the cataclysmic changes occurred) when I began to undergo all this research. The things I learned along the way were too tantalising to not implement into my works-in-progress. Unfortunately, as I was learning how to plot effectively, I was looking over a novel draft in which I had done everything wrong!
So, I overhauled everything, changing huge plot points, writing in sub-plots, altering the entire flow of the book. When I come to write my next book, I feel confident that I’ll be able to impart the new knowledge from the off, but for poor Silas, the process had to be slow and painstaking.
The research I undertook came in a variety of formats, but was all triggered by one very significant revelation.
I discovered Brandon Sanderson.
My friend (a true fantasy conoisseur) had been raving about Mr Sanderson for a long time. I am a little slow to act on recommendations sometimes, but when I began the first book in the Mistborn trilogy, The Final Empire, it was as if a switch had been thrown inside of me. This was how I wanted to write.
Sanderson has this truly remarkable ability to produce extremely vivid mental images, thoroughly detailed worldbuilding and magic systems and characters I would lop off a limb for (Kelsier, I’m looking at you…). And he miraculously manages to do it all without the reader realising it’s happening. There are no purple passages of boring description, no long and tedious explanations of how things work. Every piece of information is somehow discreetly hidden amongst funny and charming dialogue, and thoroughly riveting action.
I truly don’t know how he manages it. Sorcery. it can only be sorcery.
So, I began to overhaul my writing style by looking at the ample resources offered for free by Brandon Sanderson himself on his blog and Youtube channels. Not only is the man a GOD at writing, but he spends his life educating others in the art and allowing access to all his lectures and wisdom for FREE. What an amazing human being.
After binging as much of his Youtube material as I could, I discovered that this man (who I was coming to idolise) also had a podcast, talking about writing, with a group of other authors. The Writing Excuses podcast was my next port of call – a true treasure trove of knowledge. And the good thing about this podcast was that I could pick and choose the elements I wanted to brush up on, because each episode is only 15 minutes long – because I’m in a hurry, and they’re not that smart 😉
The next discovery that blew my mind was The Story Grid by Shawn Coyne. A book that completely changed the way I did EVERYTHING. And not only a book, but a podcast that detailed how to plan out and execute an effective plot. This methodology is perfect for me and has revolutionised my writing.
I ran all my existing books through the Story Grid methodology to see where I had, and hadn’t, succeeded (that was interesting… if a little concerning…) From there, I rejigged all the chapters and story beats of The Sins of Silas until I had it just as I wanted it.
I also teach a story writing club at the High School where I work and I have started working on the Story grid methodology with them. So it has benefitted me in two areas of my life.
Other books that gave me a great deal of crucial knowledge:
Immersive fantasy fiction 