The new year is traditionally a time to try something different, change old habits or get organised. So many times, I’ve made resolutions on New Year’s Eve and forgotten them a week later.
Age is a wise teacher. This year I will make one sound resolution. I will meticulously assess the challenge envisaged having learned to be circumspect, prudent and wary of unguarded and reckless promises.
I will become a wordsmith.
Changes to my writing must not be as fleeting as a summer day but soar like mountains; my tenacity only worn away by seasons of foul weather. (Well, maybe the odd earthquake too.)
Words are like rainbows; they need to contain pure colours and fascinating hues as the colours blend at the edges. Like rainbows they must conform to a set of rules in terms of the colour spectrum, but they can soar, be broken and finish or start in peculiar places. Words, like rainbows can be fleeting, lovely to behold but quickly forgotten as clouds cover the sun. But then some words achieve immortality and stand up to centuries of use and misuse.
“To be or not to be, that is the question.” ~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1601.
What words will you craft in 2026?
I hope you find your own challenge for the forthcoming year. Enjoy writing, whatever it may be. Enjoy reading and have fun.
No two writers will ever write the same; unless they copy each other’s work.
As we write our history emerges. Our birthplace and early childhood lay down the roots of our language, the words we use and how we say them. Education hones our writing skills, providing the rudiments of spelling, grammar, clarity and brevity. The extent of our education is reflected in our vocabulary, knowledge and understanding.
Life, with all it’s trauma, joys, grief and love add a layer of personal experiences that shines light on, or clouds, our perceptions.
Writers of fiction take the written word further. In ignorance or awe, they craft words into edifying entertaining stories. They create worlds in time and place with characters who are as unique and exceptional as real people. The process is magical.
Style is the author’s choice that allows their personal history to shine through the story. The summation of a singular life; bent by beliefs, passions, opinions, encounters and events.
Style is a matter of establishing the mood of the story, the best tense to tell the story, what word choices capture the emotions, which character can tell the story in the most effective way.
Style can come down to sentence length, grammar and spelling. Dialogue can add history and dialect with a character’s utterances which shape their relationships and place in society.
Style can be manipulated by writers to provide rhythm and metre.
Style can be transparent and easy to read, enhancing a strong story. Dense prose may hide the story behind word smithing or complications that may entrance or offend.
Purple prose, too much of everything, isn’t recommended.
But what about the reader?
I liken literature to the composition of music.
Some composers write for the entertainment of their listeners. They want to transport the listener on waves of sound that draw out emotions and memories. Good music can bring tears, stir resolve or just provide a wonderous relaxation. Music can move people from the humdrum to the fantastic, and it is pure entertainment.
Some composers, especially those before technological devices, wrote music for players of musical instruments. Their compositions were to build skills, challenge and inspire. They incorporated complications and tests of dexterity, difficult techniques to build confidence and proficiency in fellow performers. They didn’t write for the entertainment of ordinary listeners.
But some composers both entertain listeners and challenge musicians. They achieve immortality.
But what about the reader?
As writers, like composers, we need to consider our audience. Are we writing to provide our readers with entertainment? A good story, easily read that delivers our ideas and characters simply and clearly. A bestseller, one among many, distracting, diverting and providing pleasure; for a short time.
Or are we writing to impress and challenge aspiring writers? To build the writing craft and stretch the boundaries of our fellow wordsmiths. Do we want to craft a style that may be dense and hard to read for the average reader? That needs re-reading. That stirs love or hate, or both in equal measure.
Our bushwalk included some city-slicker newchums. Crossing a wide plain between mountains, we noticed cows in the distance. They began wandering across to check us out. Newchums, trailing behind with heads down, slogging it out, were only half way across when we reached the fence.
Suddenly the newchums became aware of large creatures approaching. They walked faster; the cows came closer. Newchums trotted. So did the cows. Newchums ran. The cows, udders swinging, galloped alongside. We doubled up laughing.
Newchums, white faced and panicked, arrived safely, totally oblivious that your average dairy cows are peaceable animals. But curious as cats.
I’m pleased to announce that my story “Ant Honey Magic” has been short-listed in the Romance Writers of Australia Sweet TreatsAnthology for 2025.
The theme this year was Honey and required a sweet romance story of up to three thousand words. Romance Writers of Australia run a competition every year. The stories are judged and given scores and the top sixteen are selected for inclusion in the anthology.
I’m very pleased and proud to be included this year. The competition provides participants with excellent feedback and gives us a chance to get our work published along with some wonderful authors.
This is my second short story to be included in a Sweet Treats anthology. I also had a short story, “The Houdini Lollipop”, published in 2023.
Honey will be available on Amazon from mid-August 2025.
Here’s a post from the past on feedback, or more accurately, “On-line Reviews”; a vital part of refining our work and making our stories the best they can be.
Those On-Line Reviews
I like to celebrate. As a child, when I received full-marks for a spelling test, Dad rewarded me with a Kitchener Bun from the Fish ‘n Chip shop/Bakery which in the good ol’ days of my childhood was situated opposite Glenelg Primary School. A few years ago, now, when I used to drive my son his course in Magill, my mum and I treated ourselves to lunch at the local hotel.
Every so often, I check my Amazon account. I wipe off the virtual cobwebs of neglect, and dig deep in the files of my mind, retrieving the password to enter. I expect nothing much to have changed.
I’ve been busy with my blog and the rewards, small, though they are, compared to the rest of blogging world, but the steady trickle of views, likes and comments, satisfies me. Over the years, the number of followers has steadily grown.
Once long ago, now, I made a daring move, and posted my short story, Boris’ Choice—not for the faint-hearted or while one eats breakfast…After the post, I checked for results on Amazon with my War Against Boris Series books.
And…there were. Yes!
Then, I checked the reviews. Now, I don’t know how other writers have fared with reviews, but for many months since my books were published, I had received no reviews. Yes, I asked my readers to do the deed and tick the star-boxes and comment, with no results. Yes, they’d say, and the weeks went by and nothing. Were they just being polite? I have no illusions, and the reality is that art and literature are subjective—what one person likes another won’t.
Anyway, back to checking the reviews…I looked again at one of the countries one of my books sold. The page appeared different. A yellow bar, and a comment. Genuine feedback. Not a great appraisal, but an appraisal all the same. I knew the person responsible for this first-ever comment for my book but was not surprised at their response. I did wonder at the time how my novella would work for them—not well—just as I imagined when they informed me, they’d bought the book on Kindle. As I said before, Boris and his antics are well…not for everyone.
That being said, and for fear my works may be misunderstood, the over-riding theme of my stories are the classic fight of good against evil. How evil, like Boris, can creep into our lives. And when for whatever reason, usually when we maintain and enhance our self, and to avoid discomfort, we allow evil to stay. This evil, however subtle, will drive us to isolated places in our lives, much like Boris does in The Hitch-hiker; places we never wanted to go. I want young adults and people young at heart, to make choices and use their energy for goodness and to fight evil, so they can live a full life and also be an agent for good in their community and the world.
Summer holidays are over, and school has started again here in Australia. With it, memories of the way things were way back when I was at school, in the 1970’s. Those were the days…
Our Sensei, the Avenger
Timmy hunched over his desk, sobbing.
Luke laughed at him. Simmo slid back on his chair sneering. Bruce barked in the small skinny lad’s ear. I watched, guarding my books from being flung out of the window, again.
Those boys!
Our Sensei marched into the classroom. We stood.
His face turned crimson. He thumped the blackboard. ‘Da’me Yo! Bad! Very Bad!’
Sensei swooped on Bruce and Simmo. Grasping their shirt collars, one in each hand, he clonked their heads together, forcing them to look at Timmy.
‘Look what you have done! You made him cry! Bad! Very Bad! Dame Yo!’
Would you like to join in the 100-word challenge? If you have a story you’d like to share, drop us a line in the comment box. The one requirement: the story must be exactly 100-words.
In 1986, all pumped up from a successful finish to my university degree, I began writing my “Great Australian Science Fiction” novel. I chose Science Fiction because I thought it would be easy to write.
Hah!
At every opportunity, I inflicted the latest chapter of this rough and raw work on my friends. Below are the first few paragraphs of the very first draft of “Mary’s Story”, which 30 years later would be Mission of the Unwilling, written in 1986. The reason the title changed? Well, frankly, my writing mentor at the time thought the title, “Mary’s Story” was a bit lame. So, the book title had to change to something that would grab the reader. As a result, the main character had a name change.
Here I am inflicting this piece that needs a great deal of TLC to polish it into shape, so you can see that I was just like any other hopeful author, making all the mistakes common to novice writers. Have a look and see what you would’ve changed to improve this piece.
Twenty years passed. The manuscript languished in the cupboard. Unfinished. I had progressed halfway through. Lost my way. Lost in space and time, you could say.
Then a spark, and an idea. The story changed and continued to its end. As technology had progressed from Commodore and floppy disks to Windows PC and CDs, I had to rewrite the whole novel. Not a bad move, actually.
After printing off the reams of paper that made up the book, I took it to my uncle who was in the writerly business.
[2. Sample of MOU from 2008]
Suffice to say, he was not amused and gave feedback: Basic errors like no page numbers and glaring grammatical mistakes to using a ridiculous amount of speech attributions. It would seem that my years of motherhood had been detrimental to my writing craft. Bad habits in my writing had developed. He recommended joining a writers’ group.
Writing is a craft that requires honing skills and words to impact the reader in a positive way. Test readers, editors, fellow writers are essential to a manuscript developing from a rough draft to a polished piece ready for publishing. There is no shame in reworking or rewriting a story.
[3. Sample of MOU after reworking from writers’ group feedback, before my mentor gave her feedback]
I recall my writers’ group mentor saying that with feedback: listen to it, consider it and if it works for you, implement it. If not, put the suggestion aside. It’s your writing, it’s your voice.
You may see in the sample 4 and 5, that I took most of what my writing mentor advised. There were suggestions further on in their manuscript appraisal, that I didn’t agree with. One was the use of the expression “Man!” which they said wasn’t used in the 1980’s that it was only an expression that turned up in the 1990’s. I begged to differ, as I lived through the 1970’s and 1980’s as a teenager/young adult and behold, I remember the expression “Man!” being used; not just locally in Adelaide youth circles, but also on the television.
[4. Sample of mentor’s feedback]
My mentor stressed that we need to consider our readers. Who is our audience? What do you want your story to say to them? Is the story for entertainment? Or do you have a point to make? In the end, you won’t be sitting alongside them and being able to point to a word and say, “Sorry, I didn’t mean that—this is what I did mean.”
Our written work needs to stand on its own literal two feet and make sense to the reader without the author having to be the virtual translator, and thus committing the mortal writing “sin” of “author intrusion”. Author intrusion is when the author tells the reader how they should see, think and understand the narrative. For example, think of “author intrusion” like explaining the punchline of a joke.
[5. After many more drafts, and 30-years later—Mission of the Unwilling, those paragraphs as they were, published in 2015.]
The editing process never ends. More changes in 2022: A cover aligning with the War Against Boris Series, a new “preamble” chapter, more proof corrections and formatting done to make a second edition. check out Mission of the Unwilling as it looks now.
The final result is about refinement of the work: sentence tightening, word tweaking, word cutting and polishing the prose. All through revising and proof-reading.
Now I know you’re all hanging out for the nitty-gritty; the how do I make my writing good? Make it shine? How do I make my story clear and interesting for my readers?
For a start, invest in a good “How to Write” or “Grammar and Spelling” book. The reason we have and learn this language tool of grammar is to keep us all speaking and writing our particular language on the same page. It’s like a cake recipe. Follow the recipe, the cake bake is a success. It’s so that we understand each other. Adhering to the grammar and spelling rules helps readers understand what you have written. Not misunderstand. Of course, rules can be broken for effect, but you need to know the rules of your writing craft well to have the skill to know how to bend (or even break!!) them.
As I have mentioned in previous blogs, the World Wide Web is full of resources for writers. So, no need to “reinvent the wheel”. I have mentioned Microsoft Word Editor and Grammarly but there are other websites out there you can search for and find.
Our own Indie Scriptorium’s Mary McDee has some good grammar tips which you can look at. Click on the link here on her post on the Little But Important Words as an example.
I come back to the lesson I learnt from my dad: Keep It Simple.
Use basic sentences. Avoid purple prose. Use strong verbs and choose words that are understood by most readers. Be consistent.
After all, the aim of reading is for the reader to have an experience they find enjoyable and worth their time.
A friend once told me: “Reading a novel is like eating cake. If you start reading something expecting “chocolate cake” but instead have “vanilla”, you feel cheated.”
Such is a reader’s experience when they pick up your book or download it as an e-book. They have certain expectations of the story from looking at the title and cover, reading the blurb, and glancing at page 100 (yes, that’s a thing).
However, the writing and language of the prose within can make or break the book’s success. If the writing is not up to standard, that is, it’s hard to understand, and a slog to read, then, you have lost your reader’s interest, I’m afraid to say.
In this blog I’ll stick to the “nuts and bolts” of what makes a piece of writing readable. That is, the language used, and writing conventions.
We may think that we have to wow the reader with clever phrases and words put all together like we are painting a fancy picture. This type of writing is called “purple prose”. Many writers have been there, believe me. Anyway, I don’t know about you, but I have.
Thirty-something years ago, I wrote about climbing Mt. Giles with my dad, brother and cousins. I did just that trying to convey the magic of the MacDonnell Ranges and the beauty of the Central Australian landscape. I gave my offering to Dad. His feedback: too much “purple prose”. That “purple” piece has been binned, so, here’s an example from the Reedsywebsite and their blog on “purple prose”:
“The mahogany-haired adolescent girl glanced fleetingly at her rugged paramour, a crystalline sparkle in her eyes as she gazed, enraptured, upon his countenance. It was filled with an expression as enigmatic as receding shadows in the night. She pondered whether it would behoove her to request that she continue to follow him on his noble mission…”¬~Reedsy(What Is Purple Prose? Writing 101: Definition, Tips, and Examples)
The Lesson: Keep it simple. Write as you speak. I should have known, as this is what I’d been instructing my English students at the time. Stick to strong verbs (doing words) and nouns (things, places, people). But avoid, if possible, too many adjectives (words used to describe nouns) and adverbs (words describing verbs, usually ending in -ly). Again, the Reedsy blog mentioned above has examples of how to simplify and strengthen your writing. As an exercise of simplification from the Reedsyexample above, I have rewritten the first phrase as: “The girl glanced at him…”
The Aim is to have a piece of writing that is easy to read, easy to understand, and to be a rewarding and growing experience—not a waste of time or hours your reader, if they persevere with your work, will never get back.
The reason the language we speak and write has rules and conventions is for the sake of the reader. We want our stories to be understood, don’t we? Like a recipe for a cake, or road rules for driving, spelling and grammar norms help readers understand and enjoy what the writer has written.
To help with keeping my grammar and spelling in line, one of the tools I use is Microsoft Word Editor to refine my writing. Check “Editor” out if you have Microsoft Word.
Another internet tool is “Grammarly”. I downloaded and took the “Grammarly” test with one of my chapters from a detective novel I have been working on The Culvert. I found the exercise helpful in highlighting where my grammar needs correction. “Grammarly” offers a limited free service, but for a more in-depth check, a subscription is required. For some writers, “Grammarly” might be just the editing tool they have been searching for.
Simply put, the best ideas for a story may be wasted unread if the writing is not easy to read for the reader. Remember, write as you speak, and keep it simple.
Writing a book is difficult enough, but getting it edited, published and marketed adds three additional jobs to the process. A new author must go through a tremendous learning curve and expend a lot of time and effort to get their book completed to a professional standard. Luckily, there are some places to turn to for help. I have listed three organisations I have used for support, advice and information.
The Institute of Professional Editors IpEd
“Editors work with writers for the benefit of readers. They help writers get their message across with greater clarity, elegance, forcefulness and insight.”
The Institute of Professional Editors encompass editors, of all types from both Australia and New Zealand. They offer some excellent services for writers.
Check out their website for helpful articles about what editors do, the three types of editing and how editors are trained and accredited. They also cover the skills needed to be an editor. They even have advice on self-editing.
The IpEd. web site offers information about how to brief an editor and how to make a contract with one.
The Find an Editor Service is an invaluable way of finding the right editor for your project, whether it’s a romance, a history book or an academic paper. The search engine asks you some simple questions and then provides a number of editors that will fit your criteria.
I have used this service and found a wonderful editor who whipped my two novels into shape.
For more information go to the web site: Click on the link here.
The Australian Society of Authors (A.S.A.)
This professional organisation has been established for over forty years. A.S.A. provides services to aspiring, emerging and established authors and illustrators.
Services Include:
• On-line courses on a wide range of topics. • Providing advice on subjects such as copyright, royalties and contracts. • Supplying information about fair rates of pay for authors and illustrators. • Offering mentorships and manuscript appraisals. • Providing guidelines and templates for contracts. • They make submissions to Parliament about issues affecting authors and illustrators. • A find service for creators and illustrators. • Speed dating – 3-minute sessions to pitch your work to an agent or publisher. ($30 fee)
Annual membership fees (2024) Associate – $160 Full member – $215
This is a state wide service for authors, both aspiring and published. They are located in the Institute Building on the corner of Kintore Road and North Terrace. Right next door to the State library.
People can join for an annual fee of $98. Concession card holders and young writers can join for $60.
They offer courses, workshops writing festivals and other activities both on-line and in-person. There are fees for all activities but members get a 30% discount.
In addition, Writers SA provide manuscript assessments, pre-submission assessments, mentorship programs, feedback, consultations and synopsis audits. All these services are provided at a cost. The fees are negotiable depending on the scope of the service and size of the manuscript.
It is certainly a good idea to browse through Writers SA web site. Look at Opportunities to discover competitions and publishers seeking submission. They also have a list of Writer’s groups throughout South Australia. You can also subscribe to their free newsletter and read their blog.
If interested in joining Writers SA contact them on 0476999002
Words are wonderful, a vital means of communication for most humans. They are powerful but often we don’t treat them with the respect they deserve. We abuse them. We change the meaning – at times because we don’t fully understand for some reason.
But before we give ourselves a rap on the knuckles for our mistreatment of words, remember that language is alive. If words remained the same, with the same meaning for all time, then the language we speak would be dead—like Latin. The problem is that the meaning of words changes over time, but some of us haven’t kept up with the latest contemporary meaning. Or some people may use and understand a current, an “urban” meaning of a word but be unaware of its original meaning.
This happened with “decimate”. Currently most of us use it to mean “almost completely destroyed”. Originally it meant “every tenth one”. This was because it came to us from “decem”; the Latin word for ten. An ancient Roman army conquered and decimated i.e., lined up those who’d been conquered, counted their “victims” and every tenth man was put to the sword, the rest enslaved. Far from “almost complete destruction” of that enemy.
Two words that currently fascinate me are “million” and “billion”. We all know they mean “a lot”: a million of anything whether it’s dollars, dwellings or the inhabitants of those dwellings is a very large number–a seven-figure number, you know, one with six zeros attached to it (1,000 000). But just how much? What does it look like if we were to imagine it? Hard to comprehend even though we casually talk about a house selling for over a million dollars; even though we hear on the news of a million or so people in some country or other…
I once knew of a primary school teacher in a small country school who was in charge of the “middle lot”: two- or three-year levels of seven- to ten-year-olds. She wanted to give her class an idea of just how many a million was, so she decided to have the children collect bread tags to use for a number of aspects of their Maths lessons.
It wasn’t long before the whole town got involved. Bread-bag tags by the dozens, the hundreds arrived, and were used in a variety of Maths activities, then counted; the results graphed, tabulated… and finally those tags were added to all the others in a handy, unused glass aquarium. All were agog to see if that aquarium would hold a million. Everyone hoped they’d reach that magical million mark by the end of the year.
It was not to be.
The collecting continued throughout the next year. And the next. By this time friends, relatives, aunts, uncles, grandparents from near and far, some from the other side of the country were avidly collecting and contributing.
After ten years that teacher retired, and the project came to an end. The aquarium was about two thirds full and the grand total of bread-bag tags. Not even a quarter of a million.
The point was made, loud and clear. A million is an enormous number!
So, the moral of this tale is that we as writers need to take care when using words. Even simple words we use all the time can be misunderstood by the reader.
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