Sally Quilford's Blog

I’m only just getting my breath back after an action packed November. You’ll be able to read about some of it on the RNA blog soon as I tell Elaine Everest all that goes into arranging the RNA Parties. So to my big news regarding my writing. I had two acceptances in November. One was from exciting and well-respected publisher, Crooked Cat , who have accepted my crime novel, The Secret of Lakeham Abbey . It is an unofficial sequel to The Dark Marshes, but set about a hundred years later, just after World War II. It will be published some time in 2016 so more details when I have them. I also had another acceptance from the wonderful Maggie Swinburne at My Weekly Pocket Novels for what Maggie calls an ‘epic yarn’, Eye of the Storm , which is set in Egypt at the dawn of World War II (yes, I know I obviously have a thing about World War II...) and inspired partly by the Saturday matinees I used to watch at the pictures as a child and partly by the Indiana Jones films (with a hero c...

Hello folks. I really ought to keep this blog updated more often, so this is my attempt to do that. I don't normally write about my day to day life on my blog, as I'm mindful that I owe privacy to others in my life. But I figure I can keep everyone updated more regularly as long as I don't get too personal about others. Since 9th August I have been on a healthy eating plan as I need to lose 3 stone so that I can have an operation on my hernia. Those who have met me in the past year or so will have seen it, as it sticks out a mile (not quite literally, but it can feel like it at times). Sometimes people think I'm pregnant, which is quite flattering, considering my baby-making days are long since gone. However, as I tend not to disabuse people of the notion, it does get me a seat on the tube whenever I'm in London. For me the lump just brings to mind John Hurt in Alien, lying back on the table as his stomach explodes... It looks awful (to me) and I have to w...

This post has been inspired by the recent release of Grey, the latest blatant money-spinner, sorry, novel, from E.L. James. The novel tells the story of the original Fifty Shades of Grey, but this time from Christian’s point of view, not Ana’s. My first question when I heard this was why is Stephanie Meyer not suing? She did exactly the same with Twilight, from Edward Cullen’s point of view. That novel was stolen and leaked online, so Meyer didn’t publish it after all. Wouldn’t you know that just days before Grey was released, that too was ‘stolen’. I’ve had fun reading some of the reviews of Grey on Amazon and elsewhere. It’s definitely a Marmite type of book that people either love or hate. There’s very little middle ground. I’m not going to rubbish the book here (much…). I’m only going to talk about it from a craft point of view. One of the biggest criticisms is that the book is basically a cut and paste job of the first   novel in the series. Actually basically is ...

Originally posted on the Pocketeers blog. When I presented a workshop for the lovely Write Place Writing School at the beginning of November, I touched briefly on ‘writing in the now’ and wanted to explore that point further. As it wouldn’t be fair to share my students’ idea I have come up with a scenario to explain what I mean. Annie and James meet in university when they join the same band, with Annie as the lead singer and James as the lead guitarist/singer. They are each other’s first love, but at the end of university life they go their separate ways because James decides to move to America to pursue his musical career. Ten years later they meet up again, and James is a huge star, whilst Annie is a backing singer, working to keep a roof over her and her young son’s head. Annie is still hurt that James left her and thought his career more important than their love and she is also angry that he stole the song that they wrote together and which became his biggest hit. S...

The recent case against Harlequin for plagiarism has brought up the subject of originality in writing romance. In that case, a wannabe writer accused Mills and Boon novelist, Kate Walker of plagiarising the wannabe writer’s romance in Walker’s own work, The Proud Wife .   The case was thrown out of court, with prejudice, and quite rightly so. The court document makes very interesting reading on the subject of the tropes using in romance, and I suggest you take some time to read it. It is long, but quite accessible for a court document. As a friend said, when I mentioned the case in a private forum, the problem is that so many new writers believe they are reinventing the wheel and that every idea that comes from their head is brand new and brilliant. Well it is to them, but perhaps not to readers. One thing that occurred to me was that the writer does not appear to have researched the market, and she clearly had not read a lot (if any) of Kate Walker’s books. One of Kate’s gift...

Lighter writing is often denigrated as being insubstantial and fluffy. Those who write for the women’s magazine and light romance market are not always considered to be ‘proper’ writers amongst the more serious writers. Yet, I would argue that writing light-hearted stories is no mean feat, and actually takes just as   much skill as writing gritty, misery-lit. You may have heard it said that easy reading is hard writing. I’d also argue that light or comic reading is hard writing. Douglas Adams, who wrote the classic Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy reputedly had to be locked in a room to make him write. I don’t think it’s a generalisation to say that the majority of writers start off writing autobiographical stories or poems. They painfully record every time their parents didn’t give them what they wanted, or every time their parents turned out to be flawed human beings just like everyone else, or every school playground slight, or every time the love of their life (for t...

Mary Sue could hardly believe it. She was on her way to college when she woke up right in the middle of Middle Earth. She spied her favourite elf, Marty Stu, in the distance. “I know you,” she said, “You’re Marty Stu, the unsung hero of the Fellowship of the Ring. The one who truly did defeat Sauran in Tolkien’s unwritten fourth book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.” “Oh my goodness,” said Marty Stu, instantly struck by her beauty and forgetting to ask why she wore strange clothes and carried a mobile phone which still had Wi-Fi access so she could ring her mum. “Who are you fair maiden? I have only known you three seconds yet already you are the most beautiful, gracious and intelligent woman I have ever met.” “I am Mary Sue and we were clearly meant to be together, on account of me getting hit by a truck on the way to my myths and legends tutorial and waking up here.” “Yes, my love,” said Marty Stu, “I think you are right. It is our destiny to be together. Of course I wi...