Lazlo Ferran, Romance, Vampire, Werewolf, Magic and Science Fiction writer writes a guest post on Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar’s blog: ‘How to Write Strong Female Characters‘ This article shows what difficulties are faced and some possible solutions when writing female characters from a male feminist point of view.
Tag: how to write a good book
How to Write a Good Vampire Book – 6. Editing
At last your manuscript about Vampires Rudolph and Santa is complete and has gone to your beta readers for one round of testing. What next?This is where the hard work begins. Most writers don’t enjoy it, but editing is the stage that will lift your work from just a rough story to a world-class bestseller. Well, okay, we hope it will. Seriously though, without good editing, you book will not stand a chance in an increasingly competitive market.
If you can possibly afford the cost, I recommend you get another writer or professional editor to do the final edit on your work. You can always swap books for editing with other readers, if you are short of money. Why do I tell you this? A writer reads what he thought he wrote, not what he actually wrote, when he reads it back. He or she will read the same paragraph 20 times and not see the typo. It has happened to me in a very embarrassing situation; a submission to a pubisher had an error in the first line of the query letter. Two other people close to me checked it and didn’t spot it. I read it at least 20 times and missed it. Once the tension of submission was over and I received their rejection, I saw the error and it was blindingly obvious!
Continue reading “How to Write a Good Vampire Book – 6. Editing”
How to Write a Good Vampire Book 3. – Characterisation
Basic Rules of Characterisation
So, in our story about Vampire Santa’s sleigh problems, we have Santa, Vampire Rudolph, and Rudolph’s wife, Erma!
Now how do you create characters for them? There are no hard and fast rules, but be wary of simply writing the story as it comes into your head without setting the characters. If you do this, the most likely outcome is that all the characters will sound like the same person, or sub-personalities of the same person. For instance:
“Wow! I got an egg for my birthday. Thanks Erma. I really love you. It’s exactly what a male reindeer wants!”
“It’s okay Rudolph. Wow! I really love you too. I’m glad it’s what you wanted.” Continue reading “How to Write a Good Vampire Book 3. – Characterisation”
How to Write a Good Vampire Book – 1. The Idea
This will be the first post detailing what I have learned about: How to write a Good Vampire Book. Note, I am not saying a great book. I don’t feel I have written a great book yet, and by that I mean something like Lord of the Rings, A Tale of Two Cities, Wuthering Heights, Far from the Madding Crowd or Silas Marner. When I do write such a book, I will be sure to update the title of this post.
Writing about Vampires?
Vampire Santa is a bit of fun, but the rules here apply to all books. My only advice specific to writing about vampires, werewolves or other shifters is not to use common English names; it’s hard to believe in a vampire called John Smith. On the other hand, posh English names including titles such as Lord can work well.
I will make permanent pages for the general techniques (without vampires) so that they are always available as pages in the menu at the top. So let’s gets started. Continue reading “How to Write a Good Vampire Book – 1. The Idea”
Occult, Sci-fi & Military 