Choosing and arranging words according to their sound can intensify meaning and create rhythm in a sentence; the degree of musicality you employ will depend on the intended mood and tone of your writing. In Geraldine Brooks’ ‘Year of Wonders’ (2001), Part 1 is called ‘Leaf-Fall, 1666’. Readers’ senses are immediately stimulated as autumnal sights, sounds and smells are richly […]
I often stand and commune with Pablo Picasso’s 1937 painting, ‘Weeping Woman’. It conveys extreme sadness, much of what is experienced by humans, near and far, today. I run my eye over it, wondering whether there’s something that I may have missed since I last stood before it. I go early, alone, with an art buddy, or with a few […]
These days, if we land on the Home page of a business website, we not only want an instant summary of the service or the product/s, we also want it presented in a personalised, eye-catching, well-written nutshell. However, what we’re often faced with is poor grammar and jargon-riddled writing that shows an obvious lack of thought and editing. The ability […]
A few years ago I wrote a thesis with its focus the mid-nineteenth-century painting by British artist Valentine Prinsep, ‘The flight of Jane Shore’. I researched Jane Shore’s life to the point of obsession and got to know this medieval royal mistress so well that I thought I could speak for her—write her story in the genre of historical fiction. […]
When I read the first few pages of a novel, or a manuscript that crosses my desk for assessment, I want my senses to be immediately engaged and on alert. There may be intrigue, which grabs my attention, but if I don’t get a visual hit that stimulates my senses, and in particular, a sense of place, then I’m often […]
It takes courage for writers to ‘go out on a limb’ in order to develop, and commit to, an individual writing style that satisfies readers. On 9 March 1895, H. G. Wells, English writer and commentator, wrote a review in the ‘Saturday Review’ of Grant Allen’s controversial novel, ‘The Woman Who Did’: “The whole book … is strenuous without strength, […]
He said, she said . . . the all-knowing, all-seeing narrator drones on . . . A few years ago, in a creative writing class focussing on autobiography, I was persuaded to use dialogue in a short memoir. It took a while to get my head around including unrecorded conversations that occurred decades ago. However, I was assured that memoirists and […]
Isabel Archer is a mesmerising character . . . her creator, Henry James, made her so by allowing the reader access to Isabel’s conscious thoughts. A paragraph in ‘The Portrait of a Lady’ (1881) is frequently longer than a page, but how can there be white space on a page if a setting needs visual detail, or if Isabel hasn’t […]
The aim of the first sentence of any written work is to motivate the reader to read on; it can be decisive and declare the theme or argument of the main body of writing, or it can be a teaser. So whether you’re writing a novel, an essay, or just an email, your aim is to arrest the reader’s attention […]
The habitual practice of writing in a notebook, a diary or a journal will refine your writing. A journal can include jottings of daily observations, lists of words and punctuation that interest or bother you, inspirational sentences you’ve read, ideas to develop, critical editing of current writing, and so on. Literary icon, Virginia Woolf, born in 1882, began writing a […]
Denise’s assessment was thorough, considered and she highlighted several important shortcomings in the plot and character development. ‘Red Can Origami’ became a much stronger manuscript for her input!
Madelaine Dickie
Denise was invaluable in getting my novel from a rough 3rd draft to publication ready. I especially liked her capacity to develop a collaborative working relationship so that all the work of editing, polishing, re-writing was held in the spirit of my writing journey.
Denise has well-honed writing skills, of course, but as well she has this unusual capacity to support and encourage. She really tuned in to my direction as a writer which was enormously helpful in moving my novel forward. Beyond the fine-tuning of my last draft, Denise then gave some timely coaching to help me negotiate the new realities of publishing. How great it was to have access to such a well-grounded and experienced mentor! Highly recommended.
Thupten Lekshe
Dear Denise, Many thanks for the way you have prepared and presented my memoir. I could not imagine at the start that it would turn out looking the way you have presented what now seems a very interesting life; in fact, I might live it again. Thank you and congratulations.
Percy Rogers