Write to 'The End' of your novel
Aliventures Summer Break 2026 – Eight Posts to Catch Up On Summer’s here in the UK and I’ll be taking some time off from blogging. I’ll still be sending the Aliventures newsletter on and off over the summer. To get that, plus my free Make Time to Write worksheet, just pop your name & email in here: While I’m taking a break, here are eight posts from the first half of 2026 that you might want to…
Writing Progress in Q2, 2026: What Worked, What Didn’t, and Why At the start of January, I set out my writing goals for 2026 , and wrote about how these were going at the end of Q1 . We’re now halfway through the year … so here’s what’s been happening. The 2026 goals I set in January (and slightly modified since!) are: Big Fiction Project: Finish My Rom Com Novel and Send Out to Agents Other…
What is a Scene vs a Chapter – and How Should You Structure Each? Are you writing in scenes or in chapters? That might sound like a weird question. Maybe you feel like it doesn’t matter, or that they’re basically the same thing, or that it doesn’t matter either way. But whether you think in scenes or chapters can make a big difference to how well your story works. Let’s start with a couple of…
Your Writing Matters (Even When it Doesn’t Feel Like It) Do you ever feel like your writing just doesn’t matter? Unless you’ve got some kind of deadline, writing is pretty much never urgent. It’s also not something that needs a lot of space or time: it’s tempting to think that writing could – or even should – fit into the little nooks and crannies of your life. And if your family and friends…
Why Accountability is the Key to Reaching Your Writing Goals (and How to Find It) In some areas of life, “accountability” might seem a negative or at least serious thing: we might talk about workplace or government leaders being held accountable when things go wrong. In writing, it’s helpful to see accountability as something much more supportive. Feeling a sense of accountability can help push…
Idea to Novel: How Can You Start Developing a Strong Novel Idea? You’ve got a novel idea … but where do you even start with turning it into a novel? That idea could be an image in your mind, a compelling character, or a “what if” question. So many writers carry a novel idea for years, even decades, before they start writing their first draft. (The record I’ve heard from writers I work with, so…
Maybe you’ve heard that your characters “should” have flaws. Or maybe you’ve come across terms like “tragic flaw” or “fatal flaw” in literature. So what exactly is a character flaw … and why’s it important to your story? The post Character Flaws: Why They’re So Important to Your Story [With Examples] first appeared on Aliventures .
Developmental Editing, Copy Editing and Proofreading: What s the Difference? You’ve been working hard on your novel and you’ve got a good second (or even third) draft … but what should you do next? This is the stage where a lot of novelists, particularly those considering self-publishing, think about getting an editor. Once you start looking at what editors offer, you’ll see things like:…
Thinking of writing a novel? You might be wondering about how best to plan it … but before you figure that out, you need to decide how much planning you’ll want to do in advance. Some novelists like to plan out every chapter before they begin. Others pick up a blank... The post Plotting vs Pantsing: How Much Should You Plan and Outline Before Starting a Novel? first appeared on Aliventures .
What is Worldbuilding … and How Detailed Do You Need to Be? Wonderland. Narnia. Hogwarts. Middle-Earth. Westeros. These are all famous story worlds … and if you ve read any of the books they feature in, they probably instantly conjure up a sense of escaping into that place. If you re writing science-fiction or fantasy, part of the prewriting (ideas, planning and research) stage of your process…