Lexical Unravellings

Welcome to a new series on my blog! Lexical Unravellings is where I’m going to get into the nitty gritty of crafting a book that your readers will think is magical: plot, structure, characterisation, voice, writing craft… all those details that add up to create a book that will stay with the reader long after they read the last page.
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I often find myself reading published books which had the potential to be truly brilliant reads but just didn’t quite get there. My aim with this series is to unpick common areas that could be tightened up, and to offer helpful and clear advice which you can take away and apply to your own writing. It’s the sort of feedback I’d offer in a developmental edit but, of course, considerably more generalized.

Although I’m going to be unpicking issues that I’ve noticed in books I’ve read, I’m not planning to name these books or their authors (unless it’s anyone super famous – someone of J. K. Rowling’s stature is hardly going to be affected by my little blog posts). Writing is hard and finishing a novel is a significant achievement, so I am definitely not here to pull apart anyone’s work.

I’m also planning to chat about some editing stuff: how I approach edits, what to look for in an editor, do you really need to book a developmental edit – those sort of things.

I hope to finish each post with a list of resources for further reading. This might be books on the craft of writing which cover this topic, or books/authors I thought tackled it well, or blogposts on a similar topic.

I’m looking forward to diving deeper into some writing chat over the next few weeks and months! If you do have any particular topics that you’d like me to discuss, feel very free to drop me an email.