Ask us hard questions

I want to throw down a challenge to everyone who reads our blog – ask us hard questions.

What do we mean by “hard questions”?

What makes a question hard is that it is not easy to answer. So, in today’s world, an easy question is one that you can answer by doing a quick search. Five minutes later you’ve had your answer and are now looking at cat pictures, or whatever you do when relaxing on the web.

Hard questions are those topics that your struggle with. areas that you don’t have a definitive answer to or just things that you have long wondered about and would like someone, probably me, to write about for you.

What can I ask about?

This is a blog about writing and about the charity called Thanet Creative Writers. We are a relatively new blog and a very new charity so there are probably a lot of areas that we’ve not covered particularly. Some of those topics have not been covered because no one is interested in the answer but sometimes it is because it just never occoured to ust hat people could be interested.

Likewise, when it comes to writing there are some things that we writers take for granted, like “what is a story?” or “how do I construct a plot?” – we engage with these areas so frequently that sometimes we forget that once upon a time we knew nothing about them too.

So ask us anything. Ask us about us. Ask us about writing. Ask us about Thanet (it’s where we live after all).

Will you answer all questions?

In an ideal world, yes, we would love to answer all questions ever. But the truth is that there are some questions that are not going to get much priority. For example, if you were to ask about our favourite chicken noodle soup recipe that question might languish in obscurity until the end of time. Mostly because it is wildly off topic and a better answer can probably be found with a quick Google search.

For example, if you were to ask about our favourite chicken noodle soup recipe that question might languish in obscurity until the end of time. Mostly because it is wildly off topic and a better answer can probably be found with a quick Google search. But if you have a burning desire to know about our preferences for chicken noodles, don’t let us stop you. Ask away.

Give us some examples

Okay, we will. These are all topics that at least one of us (mostly me at this time) really wants to write about already. I probably have a post sketched out in a notepad file somewhere for most of these but if you want to ask them anyway, be or guest.

• How do I write interesting and engaging female characters?
• How can I get better at dialogue?
• What is the three act structure and should I worry about it?
• Where do you stand on the monomyth?
• Do I really need an author platform to sell books?
• How do I get more diversity in my stories?
• Should I plot or pants my novel?
• What is this plotting vs pantsing thing anyway?
• How do I avoid accidental plagiarism in my work?
• What is the right length for a novel?

You get the idea. There are a lot of different topics I could be covering and only a limited amount of time for each of our contributors (mostly me) to cover them.

Despite my writing style, there is a lot I don’t know and I spend much more time researching than I do writing these days. Your questions help me understand what matters to you fine people. Whatever that might be from noodles to character building, I want to try and write something that really helps you as a writer.

Ask us anything