End of Year Report

I started this blog in February of this year and in that time have made over 100 posts and gained over 500 followers. I'd just like to thank all of you who have dropped in to read posts, make comments and start arguments. I very much appreciate all of you for sparing the time to interact with me, and I've tried to respond in kind as much as possible.

This blog has had a very specific agenda, dealing as it does with my personal obsession with becoming a writer. It's been very gratifying to meet so many like-minded  souls out there.

Most Visited Posts of 2011:


1.Chapter One: The Hunger Games
MAY: A breakdown of the first chapter of this YA blockbuster. More genres given the Chapter One treatment (including: fantasy, MG, crime, thrillers) can be found here.


2.Writers Who Know Everything 
DEC: Just because you know what's going on in your story, doesn't mean the reader does.


3.Make the most of it
 AUG: How to use setting, objects and secondary characters to enrich your story.


4.Interesting Characters: You are what you eat
DEC: It's a writer's job to convey who characters are through what they do.


5.Trying Too Hard To Impress
NOV: In the end it isn't other people who will make you a better writer, it's writing. The more you write, the better you will get.


6.Your Dialogue Is Showing 
DEC: Why dialogue is always considered showing and not telling.


7.Dead Story Walking
 DEC: Doesn't matter how great your technical ability, in the end you need a good story.


8.Don't love me for fun, girl 
AUG: Romance novels are often looked down on. In this post I try to figure out why, and what can be done about it.


9.Story vs Plot 
JUL: Are they the same thing? And if not, what's the difference.

10.Books and the Art of Piracy

JUN: My personal view of online piracy, and why the old business model doesn't help in understanding the new one.

My series on first chapter dissections in an attempt to see how debut novelists managed to hook their readers in the opening of their book proved ver popular. I covered many genres but the post The Hunger Games was by far the most visited post on this site, scoring nearly three times as any hits as anything else I posted this year. Shows you the power of getting on the bandwagon at just the right time.

Next year I plan to carry on posting about the craft of writing. There's a lot of advice out there, but most of it is generic and presented in a one-size-fits-all manner. The beauty of blogging is the chance to follow up preliminary suggestions with an ongoing dialogue using specific examples. I hope to develop this blog as a place where people stuck on a scene that isn't quiet working, can discuss their ideas, and maybe pickup one or two new ones.

Here's to a productive 2012 (assuming the world doesn't end).