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10 Mistakes to Avoid While Writing Your Fantasy Story

All About Fantasy Fantasy is a popular genre, as there’s a large audience that loves to dive in a world of magic and mythical creatures. Real life can be quite dull and monotonous which is why fantasy novels, movies and TV shows tend to be great escapism. If you plan to try your hand at this larger-than-life genre, you need to do it justice. You don’t want your first fantasy novel or screenplay to be an epic flop, so here’s the mistakes to avoid at all costs. 1) ‘Infodumping’ Upfront  Some writers feel obliged to explain the setting and principles… Read More »10 Mistakes to Avoid While Writing Your Fantasy Story

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5 Ways for Writers to Find Their Ideal Audience

All About Audience You’re a writer who needs an audience. You’ve conquered the dreaded writer’s block. You have content that you believe in. You want to share it with the world. So, what’s next? Well, it’s not just as simple as pressing PUBLISH or SEND and hoping for the best I’m afraid! Check out our compiled list of ways you can use to gain an audience for your writing. Ready? Here we go, friends! 1) Identify your ideal audience Spend some time considering popular culture, current events, genre-specific trends, and where your story lands within various demographics. Try out various… Read More »5 Ways for Writers to Find Their Ideal Audience

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Top 5 Mistakes Writers Make That Get Them Rejected By Default

Getting Rejected For No Good Reason So script reader Allan’s back again, this time talking about the reasons writers may get rejected by default (aka for NO good reason!). As B2W always stresses, writers need to follow the submissions guidelines. Super-simple? Yes. Obvious? Absolutely. But when writers don’t, this is when they will get rejected by default. Fact. I always find it absolutely fascinating that writers fear getting rejected, but don’t always do the work to ensure this doesn’t happen. Often this is because they don’t know where to start. So check out this list of obvious clangers that can… Read More »Top 5 Mistakes Writers Make That Get Them Rejected By Default

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Top 5 Mistakes Writers Make With Plotting (According To A Script Reader)

Script Reader POV Following on from his first post, script reader Allan is offering his POV on common mistakes he’s discovered in the spec pile. For me, it’s SO interesting to see the same old issues rear their heads, even in 2021. It’s almost like the foundations of writing craft are timeless! Over to you, Allan … What I Learned From My First 300+ Scripts Out of a sample of 435 scripts, these were some of the most common structural and plotting errors in scripts sent to Film Festivals in 2021. Ready? Let’s go … 1) Ending Act 1 At… Read More »Top 5 Mistakes Writers Make With Plotting (According To A Script Reader)

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Why Novelists Should Write Outlines Just Like Screenwriters

Outlines: For Or Against?  It seems every writer has an opinion on outlines! But often writers will fall into two camps … Those who do write outlines and those who don’t. Generally speaking, novelists who do outline tend to advocate the practice as the ‘common sense’ approach. Their outlines may be super-detailed or broad strokes.  The uber-organised authors may even use spreadsheets to keep track of every minute detail in their book … or they may use bullet points, notes to self or similar instead. In contrast, novelists who don’t outline are often very loud online. Such writers like Stephen… Read More »Why Novelists Should Write Outlines Just Like Screenwriters

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5 Telltale Signs You’re a Writer at Heart

Telltale Signs There are telltale signs you are a writer at heart. If putting pen to paper to churn out books, screenplays or articles feels like something you’ve always been destined to do, you could be right! Check out our compiled list of telltale signs that could indicate the art of writing flows in your blood. Ready? Let’s go … 1) You Just Have to Write Down Ideas Way before I started writing full time, I always found myself coming up with new ideas for stories and articles. It was happening so regularly I found myself always carrying a notebook… Read More »5 Telltale Signs You’re a Writer at Heart

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A Feminist Top 10 Ranking of Iconic Vampires

All About Iconic Vampires Do you love vampires? Me too! Although I consider myself a committed feminist, there’s something about gothic glamour. All those pale and delicate women swishing their endless skirts around crumbling mansions as they flee from lurking dangers! It just makes me swoon. But however much I love the traditional vampire tropes, it’s always pleasing when a character kicks over the traces and shows us a viewpoint that’s less, well, victim-y.= Of course, some of these vampires do it better than others. 10) BELLA SWAN, The Twilight Saga (2008-2012) After falling for the undead high school hottie,… Read More »A Feminist Top 10 Ranking of Iconic Vampires

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Your Antagonist DOESN’T Have To Be A Villain. Here’s Why

All About The Villain Most writers ‘get’ the villain archetype intuitively. At their foundation, stories are often about ‘goodies and baddies’. Just like every story needs a protagonist, it usually needs an antagonist of some kind … … and that antagonist is nearly always a villain. A villain may have relatable and understandable motivations for their ‘evil plan’. We may invest in their journey every bit as much as the protagonist’s … Alternatively, they may just be evil because that’s their personality. They may be criminals, politicians, narcissists, abusers, serial killers, actual monsters … it doesn’t matter. The villain role… Read More »Your Antagonist DOESN’T Have To Be A Villain. Here’s Why

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How To Become A Writer Without An Expensive University Course

Expensive University Courses If you want to become a writer but worry about how expensive university courses are, save your money. Learn what they teach you on a Creative Writing degree, without the expensive debt. Here are the top 5 things they teach on a Creative Writing BA … Ready? Let’s go! 1) Think like a writer It might sound strange but the first thing they teach you on a Creative Writing BA is how to “think like a writer”. That should go without saying you might think, but here are some handy tips they taught us … Make sure… Read More »How To Become A Writer Without An Expensive University Course

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5 Things I Learned From Being A Script Reader At A Film Festival

Film Festival Script Reader Twelve months I began reading scripts for a film festival. What started as a volunteer script reader gig of maybe 4-5 scripts per week, eventually morphed into an average of 9 scripts per day. This became just under 450 scripts in the last eight months alone. So what did I learn in that time? Quite a bit. 1) There are No Mistakes So let’s start with the first lesson I learned as a film festival script reader. First up, there’s arguably no such thing as a mistake in storytelling. There have been times where I have… Read More »5 Things I Learned From Being A Script Reader At A Film Festival

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