Amy Baker of The Riff Raff chats to debut author, Stephanie Scott, about her beautiful novel, What's Left of Me is Yours. They discuss how to effectively write about people falling in love, how to take inspiration from real life and craft it into your own narrative, and how to effectively combine extensive research with letting your novel guide you. Stephanie's novel is out now! Music: www.bensound.com.
Debut author and Founder of The Riff Raff, Amy Baker chats to Alex Allison, author of The Art of the Body - a novel about the relationship between a young artist and his carer. They discuss how to approach writing about disability, how theme informs plot and character informs theme, and how Alex used SMART targets to get his novel written around a hectic day job. They also touch on how to use events to drive a novel forwards, whether you need to define the 'wants' of your characters and how writing to make people think you're clever is a huge error. Music by www.bensound.com.
Amy Baker of The Riff Raff chats to Kiley Reid, author of Such a Fun Age - a novel that tells the story of a young black girl wrongly accused of kidnapping a white child and the events that follow. Amy and Kiley discuss writing a book that makes people question their perceptions, the multiple layers of effective dialogue, and why you must always think about what a scene needs to achieve before writing it. They also discuss taking on the subject of race with humour, how scrapped scenes are still forward progress and the importance of writing to the truth of your characters' experience. Music: bensound.com.
Amy Baker of The Riff Raff chats to Elle Nash, author of 'Animals Eat Each Other' - a complex and impressive psychological exploration of obsession and desire. Amy and Elle chat about writing without judgement of your characters, giving yourself the necessary space for magical epiphanies to occur and using universal experiences to convey feelings and emotions that your reader may not be familiar with. Music by www.bensound.com.
Amy Baker of The Riff Raff chats to Richard Roper, author of Something to Live For, about how on Earth you write something 'life-affirming', the art of receiving and applying feedback and how writing chronologically helped him to stay motivated. Music: bensound.com
Amy Baker of The Riff Raff chats to Richard Roper, author of Something to Live For, about how on Earth you write something 'life-affirming', the art of receiving and applying feedback and how writing chronologically helped him to stay motivated. Music: bensound.com
Amy Baker of The Riff Raff chats to debut author Daniel James about his novel, The Unauthorised Biography of Ezra Maas. They discuss his genre-busting novel, which combines multiple disciplines, questioning the concept of truth, and playing with your readers expectations. Music by www.bensound.com
Amy Baker of The Riff Raff chats to Lara Prescott, author of instant New York Times Bestseller, The Secrets We Kept - a book inspired by the CIA plot to infiltrate Soviet Russia, not via propaganda, but via the novel, Doctor Zhivago. Amy and Lara discuss how books can change the world, writing historical fiction based on real life events and using visual exercises to understand the rhythm and balance of your novel. Music: www.bensound.com.
Amy Baker of The Riff Raff writers' community chats to Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, author of Sarong Party Girls, about inhabiting your characters to create a believable first person narrative, revelling in your story's details & conveying perspective shifts in your characters. They also discuss writing to tight deadlines, using humour to provide levity to dark subject matter and finding inspiration in the world around you. Music: bensound.com
Amy Baker, author and Founder of The Riff Raff, chats to Ashley Hickson-Lovence about his debut novel, The 392. We discuss those special moments that spark book ideas, writing about one event from multiple perspectives, the challenges of taking on 11 different voices, and the art of editing a finale. Music: www.bensound.com/
Amy Baker of The Riff Raff chats to Catherine Kirwan, author of Darkest Truth about the art of the cliffhanger, showing your characters through the choices they make and how taking yourself to your setting can eliminate writers block. Music: bensound.com
Amy Baker chats to Wayétu Moore, author of She Would Be King about writing flawed characters, finding the balance between writing as an art and writing as a craft and how vital it is to get away from your desk in pursuit of inspiration. Music: www.bensound.com
Amy Baker chats to Joanne Ramos, author of The Farm. They discuss how Joanne's experience of straddling two worlds helped her to write her novel, training yourself in the habit of writing and choosing your characters to best convey the issues you want to cover. Music: www.bensound.com
Amy Baker of The Riff Raff chats to Elizabeth Macneal, author of Sunday Times Bestseller, The Doll Factory, about perfecting the slang of a time period, using objects to link your characters and resisting the urge to write within the parameters of genre. Music: www.bensound.com
Amy Baker chats to Nicole Flattery, author of Show Them a Good Time, about how themes reveal themselves in the writing, getting to know your characters through redrafting and giving yourself space to be funny. Music: www.bensound.com
Amy Baker of The Riff Raff chats to Sara Collins, author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton. We discuss Sara's early obsession with books and drive to write the type of narrative she hadn't found before, the role of female anger in her novel, and the mess and magic of the writing process. Music: www.bensound.com.
The Riff Raff chat to Alex Michaelides, author of The Silent Patient. We discuss how to make every scene of your book iconic, summarising the beats of your story via props and the importance of writing from the heart. Music: www.bensound.com
Amy Baker of The Riff Raff chats to Wendy Mitchell, author of 'Somebody I Used to Know'. We discuss writing as sudoku, the importance of trust in a collaboration, and how detail makes our stories come alive. Music: www.bensound.com.
Amy Baker of The Riff Raff chats to Mariam Khan, author of It's Not About the Burqa. We discuss finding power in writing, the process of editing an anthology & creating a platform where an important conversation can take place. Music: www.bensound.com
Amy Baker of The Riff Raff chats to Ella Risbridger about her debut cookbook, Midnight Chicken. We discuss the redemptive power of cooking (& writing), the compulsion to write and the importance of having other hobbies. Music: bensound.com