Improbable Press Blog
Interviewing Best-Selling Writers: 1 Simple Tip
Can you even make a clickable link with the number one? I don't know. Everything nowadays is "5 Cool Tips!" and "14 Impossible Ways!" But I just have one. One single tip for interviewing famous folks, and I'm not even going to tease out the answer, which is this: Go and ask them. That's what I did, I went and I asked. See, I have a book on fanfiction coming out next year, and for it I hoped to get the opinions of successful writers who'd themselves written, or spoke well of, fic. I wanted the words of writers I...
Self-identifying as a deity: The author of The Stag God, talks divine powers
ATLIN MERRICK: Do you believe in the stag god?J.O. PHAEL: Belief is a tough thing for me. I’m one of those people that very much wants to believe, but I find it difficult. I love pagan beliefs and world views, but have never been able to really connect in a meaningful way. I definitely believe that there’s something out there beyond what we know and understand, and I’d like to think Cernunnos is among that mysterious world we can’t quite see.ATLIN: Which goddesses and gods fascinate you most?J.O.: I’m a big fan of the entire Norse pantheon as well as...
What Gives a Novel Atmosphere?
By K. Caine When I think about whether or not a story has atmosphere, I think about how I felt when I experienced it. Stories with atmosphere, for me, have associated feelings with them—and not just any feelings, but the visceral kind. When I think about atmosphere, I believe immersion can be an important part.Immersion: It's About Telling Readers Where They AreWhen I was growing up in the nineties, video games had static graphics at best. Your character moved steadily over an unchanged landscape, and if you stopped and looked around, there was no telling where you had been or...
A Trick of the Eye (Writing Prompts)
Writing Challenges Writing Prompts
One thing I've learned from writing small – wonderful surprises can lurk round the corner, like linguistic sharks ready to bite with their brilliance. So it goes this week, and I've found it necessary to go to the Twitter of several of last week's writers and SHOUT AT THEM. It's a justified response to delight and surprise, I feel, and if not I have done it all the same. I hope you join the writers one of these times, I really do. I like shouting nice things and I'm anxiously wanting to shout them at you. Spoilers, Surprises, Stories That...
Whatever happened to that young girl?
By Janet Anderton One fact about me. I’m kind of old. Not “visiting a garden centre on a Tuesday to get my 10% discount” old, but old enough to have been a kid when the Beatles were still recording, old enough to remember moon landings, and old enough to fall in love with a Thunderbird. Scott Tracey - don’t judge me, he lived on an island, I was willing to ignore the strings... So, when I was at school, all the kids wanted to be pop stars, astronauts, and superheroes, me, I wanted to be an artist. I was seven....