One Monkey

4,942 reputation

426

bio	website	leostableford.blogspot.com
	location	Nottingham, United Kingdom
	age	38
visits	member for	2 years, 5 months
	seen	May 7 at 15:53
stats	profile views	51

I started out writing when I was about ten and a teacher gave me an exercise book to direct my overactive imagination and hopefully tame my awful calligraphic skills. One out of two, I suppose, isn't bad. My imagination has been directed but my handwriting remains appalling to this day nearly three decades hence.

At first I wrote what people write, genre novels, trying to make something I would be proud of, a dark fantasy novel to capture the imagination filled with relatable characters and new ideas. After producing a heap of badly written generic tripe with wooden characters, appalling dialogue and wonky plotted garbage I finally fixed the dialogue in the first novel I wrote that doesn't make me blush with shame Hidden Predators, Dangerous Prey.

After that I noodled around trying to make something a publishing house might want to publish before realising my chances of a satisfying career as a writer were about as good as my chances of winning the lottery four weeks straight.

Thereafter I got involved in the murky world of self-publishing and it was a short leap from there to the design of RPGs and other such ephemera. I designed several RPGs and had a whale of a time before Amazon's Kindle brought e-readers to the masses.

Since 2005 I have tried to complete 50k in National Novel Writing Month and have only failed in 2007. In 2012 I have begun to rewrite, ressurrect, polish and produce some solid genre work that I have been proud to publish through KDP Select.

Check out my work (and the artistic stylings of my artist friend Justin on one of the RPGs) at my creative blog: leostableford.blogspot.com

	4,942 reputation	bio	website	leostableford.blogspot.com	visits	member for	2 years, 5 months
426 badges		location	Nottingham, United Kingdom		seen	May 7 at 15:53

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Feb 3	revised	Do most novels not get published? Updated link to find materials.
Jan 3	comment	Quality examples of 'in medias res' starting sequences in SF literature @standback You are correct in medias res just means start in action as opposed to ramping up into the action. The beginning of the story should still, conceptually, be "the beginning" starting literally in the middle and then flashing back to a seemingly far calmer opening sequence is something else. I think its overuse in television is to do with the enforced structure and perceived need for "beats" dictated by creative control in that medium. It's not necessary, or shouldn't be, in an actual novel, unless of course, it is, which is rarely.
Dec 19	answered	How to write realistic female dialogue
Dec 1	awarded	Yearling
Oct 30	awarded	Nice Answer
Oct 23	revised	Cheap ways a young person can get paper books printed/bound from their manuscript? (Please incl sample costs) Added some costings.
Oct 22	answered	Cheap ways a young person can get paper books printed/bound from their manuscript? (Please incl sample costs)
Oct 17	answered	Any documentaries or other inspirational movies about creative writing?
Oct 16	comment	Write multiple trilogies or make a saga? @Shan: Yeah. I'm a pretty fast typist... ;)
Oct 15	answered	Write multiple trilogies or make a saga?
Oct 14	answered	Am I too prepared to do NaNoWriMo?
Oct 13	awarded	Nice Answer
Oct 11	awarded	Talkative
Oct 11	answered	What are useful resources for a beginner whose eventual goal is to write a novel?
Oct 8	comment	How to cover different perspectives/levels of thinking in one story? @Hauser: My advice, FWIW, study the hero's journey deeply, try to understand why it exists. What Campbell wrote about suffers from being true but having no obvious corollary or use that's apparent to his peers. Also there is this problem of sticking to the recipe not always doing the job. Sentiment is the biggest enemy of success. The Wachowski's included Neo/Trinity for mostly cynical reasons, Rowling was working for her child and for her love of children's fiction. Which one was really the winner?
Oct 7	comment	Italicize part of a word in fiction? I believe I have seen this done by gasp actual published authors. So yeah, use as applicable. As with anything, don't overuse, terms and conditions apply, may cause drowsiness and contents occasionally settle in transit. ;)
Oct 7	answered	How do I round out a powerful character?
Oct 7	comment	How do you make a character quintessential, but not cliched or cartoony? Just to clarify, the Woody example is about the quintessential part, not the other part. :P
Oct 7	answered	How to cover different perspectives/levels of thinking in one story?
Oct 7	comment	How to cover different perspectives/levels of thinking in one story? I have never heard of a project that attempted to make novel writing more like writing for television etc. where there have been salaried writers and focus groups and all that stuff. Has anyone else heard of this? And if not, who says it wouldn't work? I'd be fascinated to read the autopsy of any failed experiments in this area. Also, yeah, writing for critics is stupid.