Once upon a time in a house deep in the woods of Northern BC, a strong, thoughtful woman invited all her family and friends to Thanksgiving dinner¬—her parents and in-laws, convict brother-in-law, divorcing neighbours, and her two children: ten-year-old Tommy and his teenage sister, Charlotte. There were twelve in all, as one couple didn’t appear; …
AUTHOR OF HEAVY METAL HORROR AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: JULIE HINER JULIE HINER Julie Hiner is an author of heavy metal horror. She spent endless hours during her childhood lost in the pages of books and listening to the metal gods of the 80s. To this day, Julie is a hardcore 80s rocker at heart.After securing a …
IMPROVE YOUR WRITING READY TO EDIT At last! After months of work, I sent my novel-in-progress to my substantive editor. This is the editor who will delve into the overall story, characters, plot, and writing. She’ll point out places where I should dig deeper into my characters and flag scenes with ‘talking heads’ that would …
What do I need to reach the delicious writing goal? You need a host of fresh characters, imaginative plotting, soupçon of back-story, descriptive settings, minimal but creative description, tension leading up to conflict, theme, subtext, allusion, pacing, climax, resolution, logic, whimsy, surprise, and prose.
As a Canadian writer, I often find myself in a unique position. As a child in a commonwealth nation, I grew up learning the British spellings of words, the metric system, and with the Queen on my coins. But with the USA as a bordering neighbour (neighbor), and most TV and film media coming from the States, their influence on Canada is undeniable.
