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Author: Rachel Grosvenor

Categories
Craft

What’s the Difference Between Omniscient Point of View and Head-Hopping?

Omniscient pov: An unbiased narrative that tells a story from the perspective of various characters and the world around them.

Head-hopping: A narrative that breaks out of one character’s point of view and jumps to another without indication to the reader.

So, what’s the issue?

When writing, some people get omniscient POV and head-hopping mixed up. Head-hopping can be confusing to a reader. But, omniscient POV shouldn’t lend itself to head-hopping.

Let’s look at why…

Omniscient
Observing the mindsets of characters, but not sharing inner thoughts directly:

Rachel sighed. She was feeling hungry, her stomach starting to make the familiar sounds of a missed breakfast. Paul knew that the restaurant was just around the corner and that, despite being late, they would get a table.

Note: It is not the use of passive voice here that is creating omniscient narration. I could also have said:

Rachel sighed. Hunger gripped her stomach, and she heard it starting to make the familiar sounds of a missed breakfast.

If you are struggling with omniscient POV, it can help to use passive phrases such as this to get into it. You can always edit them into the active voice later if you want to.

Head-hopping:
Often occurs in limited third person, where inner thoughts are shared directly:

Rachel sighed. Why hadn’t he told her where they were going for breakfast? It was irritating, and her stomach was starting to rumble. Paul looked over. It was as though she were being purposefully annoying. Probably because he was late. The restaurant was right around the corner, and she would have to wait.

The difference is your choice of POV.

If you are struggling with head-hopping, you are not writing in omniscient POV.
Omniscient POV is an all-knowing narrator who does not share thoughts in the style of individual characters, but maintains a consistent voice throughout.
Limited third-person POV enables the author to use the character’s voice to share thoughts outside of dialogue. If you want to use multiple POVs, your reader will need an indication of when this is going to happen, like a chapter break.

What would you like the next newsletter to be about? Are there any areas of writing you struggle with? If so, let me know here. 

Categories
Coaching Craft Productivity

A Pyramid to Help Your Character Development and Your Writing Life

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs has been used for quite a while (since 1947, anyway), to help people figure out how to prioritise their needs. While I’ve not been using it for quite so long, I find it incredibly helpful for both my writing life and my character development, too.

Let’s dig in:

Using it for character development:

So, how can Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs teach us about and help us develop our characters? It’s all about their motivation. Motivation is the thing that drives your character and story forward.

As you can see from the pyramid, we begin at the bottom with physiological needs. So, what physiological needs could be driving your character forward?

In my novel The Birth of Ida, my main character finds herself in an inhospitable land that she has never dealt with. That means that a lot of her development takes place at the bottom rung on this pyramid. She is cold, hungry, and a little desperate. Therefore, she learns to hunt, build fires in snow, and become an all-round badass outdoorswoman. This is a part of her character development.

The next level is safety needs. Let’s look at Ida again. If I consider her motivation in this section, she is driven to protect herself and reclaim her property. That is another level of her motivation. Remember that characters, like people, are complex. They won’t just have one level of motivation because all of us have these levels. Usually, we need to satiate hunger before we can move up a level, for example.

The next level is love and belonging. Ida is a bit of a lone wolf in this category, but she does have her horse, who fulfils her need for belonging. It might be that you are writing a romance, and so your character’s motivation in this section is more substantial than Ida’s. That’s down to each character and person.

Now we’re onto esteem. This level is about respect and freedom. Ida’s motivation at this level is strong – she is striving to be respected as a woman in a patriarchal world, and after being locked up for many years, she values freedom above all else. That goes some way to explaining why her belongingness category is not so important to her – her values are different.

The highest level is self-actualisation. This level is all about achieving your highest potential – it’s the highest goal. Of course, this is most likely your main character’s most easily spotted motivation, because the big goal is what we usually consider. But remember that a character or person cannot reach this level unless the other levels have been considered. After all, one needs a full belly, some support, and at least a little respect to slay a dragon.

A well-rounded character will include all of these things, so try this with your main character and see how they develop according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Using it in your writing life:

For your writing life, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs can help you figure out when to rest and when to work. When you’re feeling like you don’t want to write, you’re struggling to prioritise your day, or even if, like me, you have ADHD, and so everything that comes across your desk feels like an urgent issue, looking at the pyramid can help.

If my physiological needs, my safety needs, and my belongingness (doesn’t sound like a real world but apparently it is) needs are met, but I still don’t want to write, or I’m struggling to do so, I check in with the next level. The esteem needs are an interesting one, because writing is actually a real mix of craft work and mindset work. If that’s where I’m falling down, I know that I’ve got some mindset work to do. If I’m struggling with imposter syndrome, for example, I’ll write down five things that I am proud of achieving. Once I’m feeling more accomplished, I often feel in a better position to create and move up a level.

However, if an alert in my diary tells me to write and I find I am struggling to because I am hungry, the answer is not writing, but flexibility. That helps me understand that, actually, not all times are correct for writing, whatever the diary says.

Any questions about this? Get in touch and ask.

If you need a hand with your writing craft, I can help. As a lecturer in Creative Writing for over six years, and with a PhD, MA and BA in the subject, I am well poised to answer any writing issues you have been facing.

Categories
Craft

Do Your Secondary Characters Deserve More than You’re Offering?

Do Your Secondary Characters Deserve More than You’re Offering?

Ah, the secondary character (or deuteragonist). Sometimes I feel for them, pushed aside for the protagonist, but the main character of their own lives. Hang on…they are the main characters of their own lives, aren’t they? If you’re thinking about your secondary character(s) now and answering ‘Well, I don’t know…’ then we have some work to do.

Your protagonist needs to have a supportive team of characters around them. In this context, I don’t mean supportive emotionally, but rather, characters who seem just as real and well thought through. There are some wonderful examples of this in fiction. The most obvious? Probably Samwise Gamgee. Tolkien even considered Samwise the hero of the story, and if we’re talking about well fleshed out deuteragonists, you can’t get better praise than that.

But how do we do this? Let’s see.

1) As I’ve said, consider each of your secondary characters as the main character in their story. After all, we are all the main characters in our lives, aren’t we? Take Samwise, for example, who wants different things than Frodo (a good meal, for starters), or Lizzie’s sisters in Pride & Prejudice. Lydia’s desires are so different from Lizzie’s, her life goals so at odds, that she drives herself right into a rushed wedding to a soldier and changes the plot of the story. Your secondary characters need their own goals in life. Make a list, and consider what they each want, and how that impacts the journey your protagonist is on.

2) To help you do this, consider making them a character arc. A character arc is like a plotline for an individual character, and it focuses on how they develop as a person. Let’s look at Lizzie and Lydia again for this. Lydia runs off and marries Mr Wickham. This brings to light everything from Wickham’s history to Mr Darcy’s generosity. It allows Darcy to step into the role of hero. Lydia’s character arc, therefore, impacts the story, and her development as a person impacts our protagonist, Lizzie.

3) Focus on something unique to your secondary characters. For example, in Witchborne, Saskia smells so strongly of honey to the main character, Agnes, that everything becomes poisoned with the scent. As the story develops, Agnes even begins to taste honey and bans it from the house. This means that whenever Saskia is near, the reader only needs a faint whiff to pass their nose to know what is happening. In fact, we humans even process scents we associate with danger earlier than those that have a positive connection with! If that isn’t a sign to tie a scent to an antagonist or secondary character in your work, I don’t know what is.So, as you see, it’s not just the characters that will benefit from having their own lives, but your plotline and story, too.

Found this useful?

Check these similar reads out for more craft help:

What Does It Mean to Edit for Genre?
Plot-Driven Novels vs Character-Driven Novels: Which Is Right For You?
Categories
Craft

Is Your Novel Suffering from a Soggy Middle?

Have you ever baked a cake, removed it from the oven, and found that the middle is undercooked, even if the outside is brown? I won’t lie to you, this happens pretty much every time I bake a cake, and the reason isn’t just because my oven is a mystery. It’s because I’m impatient with cooking. I want to turn up the temperature and have the slice now, and I can’t wait for it to cool down before trying, either.

However, when it comes to writing a novel, I ensure the middle doesn’t fall flat. If you’re writing the middle of your novel currently, or perhaps editing your full draft, and you’ve found that the middle is bowing, don’t panic. We’re going to fix it right now.

When we’re looking at a classic novel structure like Freytag’s Pyramid, the rising action moves swiftly up to the climax, and sometimes, in writing that rising action, our story feels predictable and a little boring. That’s what we mean when we say the middle of a novel is falling flat. 

So, what do we need to do? We need to add some excitement to your narrative.

Here are some things to consider:

1) Your midpoint.

A new direction. Your midpoint is a new obstacle, a banana peel in the road that doesn’t just increase tension, it adds an entirely new element to your story. Let’s think about a classic midpoint from popular literature to illustrate the point. In Pride and Prejudice, the midpoint is Darcy’s proposal. This shifts everything. Suddenly, the impossible is possible, the unbelievable believable. Lizzie’s life is thrown in disarray, for if this could be true, what else could be real? She can never look upon Darcy, or the way she views the world, in the same way again.

2) A new deadline.

If you’re looking to raise tension in your novel, add in a new ticking clock, a deadline. Push your protagonist to make a decision, to drive toward their goal, with the threat looming over their shoulder. If you’ve already done this and the middle is still falling flat, ask yourself whether you have made the deadline clear enough, or whether the stakes the deadline introduces are high enough. For example, if in Cinderella the deadline of midnight was looming, but nothing would change except for the colour of her dress, we wouldn’t worry so much for her. However, she understands that at midnight her horses will turn into mice, which, as a horsewoman myself, sounds like a nightmare. Forget the prince, I don’t know how I’m supposed to remove a saddle from a mouse.

3) A shifted dynamic.

Add something in to make your protagonist change, an event that will impact not only their goal, but also how they reach it. What we’re talking about here is making sure your main character is developing properly and enough to be interesting. Perhaps they take a class in sword fighting, or maybe they realise the amulet they wore around their neck is magic, after all.

If you’re struggling with a flat middle, an undercooked centre, or a soggy bottom, try these three things to add some dynamism back into your narrative!

Found this helpful? Send it to a friend!

Check these similar reads out for more craft help:

What’s the Difference Between External Plot and Internal Plot?
What Is ‘The Sacred Flaw’ In Writing?

Categories
Publishing

Surviving Rejection in Querying

Hands writing and signing a contract

Struggling with rejection in the querying trenches?
Let’s talk about it.

Querying is a tough process for most. You’ve written your novel, edited, created a query package, and found the agents and publishers you would love to work with. Now what? The waiting, the ongoing research, and, more often than not, the rejection.

So, how can you survive this? It’s time to talk about what is in your control and what is out of it.

Here’s what’s out of your control:

The stats: First of all, let’s chat about that 1-2% industry average figure of accepted manuscripts. This is a generally agreed-upon figure by agents and publishers. However, we must bear in mind the equality of this, as not all manuscripts sent in are ready. Once the manuscripts that are ready are found, they are considered. That’s roughly 5% of the total received. 1% go on to be accepted. You cannot control this statistic or the fact that the publishing industry is highly competitive. Worrying about how you can control this is not going to move you forward, but taking advantage of what is in your control, will.

The unknown: Sending off your work and waiting to hear can be tough. It’s hard not to allow your brain to fill in those gaps of the unknown, whether you’re thinking ‘It’s been six months, they hated it,’ or ‘It’s been six months, maybe they will still say yes.’ Neither thought is helpful, as both are relying on an imagined outcome. Instead, focus on what you do know. You know that you have control over some elements of this.

Subjective opinion: If someone rejects your work, that’s up to them. It’s the same with reader reviews! Not all books are for all people, and not all stories are for this season. Separate yourself from your work, because the opinion is not about you personally.

Other authors’ success: You will see that other authors are signing with agents or publishers online. Remember that you aren’t seeing the wobbles, the late nights, the hard work. Their success is not related to your journey, aside from being proof that it is possible. Celebrating them will not remove anything from your effort or story. If anything, it will make others shout louder for you if your time comes.

Here’s what’s in your control:

The quality of your work: You are 100% in charge of the quality of your writing. You can hire an editor and a coach, but your work is still your own, and you are responsible for rewrites, making your words shine, and ensuring that your best stuff is being put forward. If you feel like you’re not getting anywhere with querying, be bold: Review your work. Question your word choices. Sharpen and tweak.

Taking a break: There is no deadline on getting your work out there. Take me as an example! I’ve had my third novel out this year, but I began my first creative writing degree twenty years ago. And even then, it took over eight years of querying, tweaking, coaching, editing, and working on the craft to get my debut out there. You are not in a race. If you need a break, take one.

Self-talk: How you speak to yourself matters. Treat yourself as you would treat a loved one. Be kind, enthusiastic, and supportive.

Craft education: It never ends! Read craft books and ask yourself how your work can be improved. Keep writing new novels, ideas, stories, while you are querying. Don’t wait around for a positive response, work on the next novel. Not only will you improve your writing, but you’ll find the distraction is exactly what gets you through a querying slump.

Found this helpful? I hope so! Check out similar reads here:

Categories
Productivity Publishing

Writing Competitions for 2026

Welcome to the most popular blog post I offer! It’s your chance to review all the competitions I could find for 2026. Whether you’re a novelist, a poet, or a short story writer, there should be something for you here.

Why enter competitions? 

It helps you get seen and gives you a headstart in building a writing portfolio.

What does it mean to build a writing portfolio? 

You might be familiar with this term if you have queried. Often, a publishing house will ask for an example of your portfolio or a ‘writing CV’. So, if you’re writing your debut novel…how do you build a writing portfolio?

Answer: By writing short stories, articles, and poetry and submitting them to anthologies, reviews, competitions, and opportunities. This shows that you are already putting yourself out there and connecting with a readership. This makes you more marketable!

Below, you will find the months corellate with the closing dates of the competitions, so look ahead, and plan your entries!

January

Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize

Bristol Short Story Prize 2026

Fiction Factory First Chapter of a Novel + Synopsis

New Writers Flash Fiction Competition 2026

February 

Writers’ & Artists’ Short Story Competition 2026

The Next Generation Indie Book Awards

Next Generation Short Story Awards

March

The L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest – Quarterly deadlines throughout the year

Edinburgh Novel Award

The 2026 Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize

Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest

April

Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest

The Adrienne Rich Award for Poetry

Swaledale Festival – The Four Seasons Poetry

Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition

May

The Bath Novel Award 

The Bridport Prize 

Frogmore Poetry Prize

June

Short Story Competition – Anthology

North Street Book Prize

July

The HG Wells Short Story Competition

Manchester Writing Competition

Not Quite Write Prize for Flash Fiction

August 

Aesthetica Creative Writing Award 

The Pen to Print Award’s Book Challenge

September

The Lit Paul Cave Prize for Literature

The 2027 Commonwealth Short Story Prize

Betty Trask Prize

October

Marlow and Christie Unpublished Novel Prize

Aurora Prize for Writing

Not Quite Write Prize for Flash Fiction

November

Kurt Vonnegut Speculative Fiction Prize 

The Moth Poetry Prize

December

To be updated.

Do you want to talk about what you can enter or what to write? Get in touch today! 

Note: It is up to the entering author to check any and all competitions before they enter, and to read the terms and conditions. 

Categories
Craft

5 Questions to Ask Your Chapter

When it comes to writing and editing chapters, we need to be in two different mind frames. Writing chapters is the art of creation, where we get the story out and take our character from A-B-C (most likely). But, when it comes to editing, we need to be asking ‘Is this a good chapter?’ and ‘Does this chapter work?’. Here are five questions to help you check that your chapter is doing what it needs to do:

1) Have you set the reader in time and space?

If so, the reader can come to your chapter after a break and understand where and when they are in the character’s journey. You don’t need to write a huge introduction that covers this, but rather to add a sentence or two to encapsulate your character’s journey.

2) Does your character try to make progress in their physical or personal journey?

They might not achieve it, but there should be something driving the narrative forward, a desire or act to reach that overarching goal. If there isn’t, the reader will finish the chapter feeling untethered and unsure of what the purpose was.

3) Does something change in the chapter?

It might be a character relationship, a thought, a decision, or something bigger, like a world event. Remember that every chapter needs to drive that narrative, so even if it’s something like a world event getting in your character’s way and actually pushing their journey backwards, something needs to change or solidify to make a satisfying addition.

4) Does the reader have a clear image of the scene?

Read your chapter from the point of view of your reader and try to imagine what you have described. If you’re finding it difficult, consider what you might change to make the image clearer (setting detail, for example).

5) Is there cause and effect in your chapter?

In life and fiction, one thing leads to another. So, if in your last chapter, your main character stole a loaf of bread, show us the effect in this chapter. This is also a great way of making sure that you aren’t dropping any threads in your novel.

I hope this helps you when editing your chapters!
Want to read something similar? Check these out:

What Should You Include in Act 1 of Your Novel?
An Easy Way to Characterise Your Setting

I’m now booking for 2026, so if you’re looking for a qualified editor and writing coach with over thirteen years’ experience, get in touch for a free, obligation-free thirty-minute chat.

Categories
Craft

Why Does a Live Developmental Edit Work?

Why Does a Live Developmental Edit Work?

My developmental editing package ‘The End’ is a live package for those who have finished the first draft of their novel.

But why choose a live developmental edit over a report?

To limit overwhelm. It can be overwhelming to receive a 100-page document on your novel. After listening to the needs of my clients, I realised that we would be able to get more done without the overwhelm by combining coaching and editing, working through changes together.

To give you the opportunity to talk through changes ahead of making them. This alone is worth its weight in gold – you should always feel free to push against your editor, and this will provide opportunity for discussion at every stage – far beyond the usual post edit chat.

To collaboratively create solutions that you’re comfortable with. No guessing, no altering to something you’re unsure of without discussion – together, we will make your novel stronger through live collaboration.

To give you support and hold you accountable. Instead of being given a report to deal with in your own time, you’ll be set up with supportive calls to help you through the process. This also increases the likelihood of you finishing the edits within a specific timeframe too!

So, what’s included in ‘The End’ package?

9 hours of Zoom calls broken into 1 hour pre-edit, so I can understand the aims of the novel. Flexible editing and coaching sessions moving forward, giving you the opportunity to work on your edits in between.

A 125-page workbook to help you understand how you have answered your intentions and goals for the novel.

A live developmental edit, with the opportunity to work through your novel in manageable chunks alongside an experienced coach and editor.

The chance to get your edits checked as you work on them, so that you know you’re left with a strong novel.

Accountability so that you can edit your novel on your own timescale.

In-text feedback for the entire novel.

Detailed summaries of coaching calls so that you revisit the discussions as needed, and optional recordings.

Weekly email check-ins.

A detailed overview of our planned work together, taking into account narrative, characterisation, dialogue, consistency, target audience, reader expectations, structure and plot, magic systems, tense and point of view, pacing, setting, themes (internal and external), tension, line editing considerations, and plot notes and recommendations.

If this sounds like something that would work for you, get in touch today. I’m now booking for 2026!

Categories
Craft

What Should You Include in Act 1 of Your Novel?

What Should You Include in Act 1 of Your Novel?

So, you’re writing a novel!

It’s a bit like baking a cake, in a roundabout, not very much but I’m going to run with the metaphor for this post, way. You need to make sure you add in your ingredients before you put it in the oven. Otherwise, the cake won’t rise. But what are the correct ingredients? Let’s see…

Your main character / protagonist:

The person/creature/individual we are going to follow for the rest of this book. Who are they, what is ‘life as normal’ for them, what do we need to know, what do they want, why can’t they have it, and why are we joining them to read about their amazing story?

Your world:

What is home to your protagonist, or where are they, and why are they there? Who do they live with?

Tone: 

Think about the difference between Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and Soul Music by Terry Pratchett. Or even, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, and Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. You may not have read the books, but you may be aware from promotional material that they have a distinct tone from one another. The first act is where you set this up. Are we reading something that’s amusing, with wry wit, in the style of Pratchett? Or, something serious and literary, in the style of Mantel?

An inciting incident:

Something is needed in your first act that pushes your protagonist out of their ‘life as normal’ and into a new decision/life/world. This is the thing that galvanises your character to act, the thing that forces your reader to want to read on. This is the moment that sets the stakes for the novel.

Now you can put your cake in the oven, and watch it rise! Or, you know, write the first act of your novel successfully.

Looking for an editor and writing coach for next year? Get in touch now, and see how I can help you.

Categories
Craft

What’s the Difference Between External Plot and Internal Plot?

What’s the Difference Between External Plot and Internal Plot?

When we think about writing, we often think about plotting action to drive a narrative forward. However, taking an extra step and separating the external plot from the internal plot can deliver not just momentum to your novel, but character development.

Let’s think about this by following the plot of a tale we all know: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (I often choose this story, and you might ask why. It’s because it’s a tale we’re pretty much all aware of, even if we haven’t read it!)

External:                        

Scrooge is introduced, refuses to go to his nephew’s house, and refuses to give to those collecting for charity.

Internal:

Scrooge is a lonely, bitter man who cannot value the true meaning of wealth.

External:            

Scrooge is visited by his old business partner’s ghost, Marley, who tells him there will be three more hauntings.

Internal:

Scrooge is met by Marley, someone he respected and cared for, who helps him see that there is more to his behaviour than he might suspect.

External:            

The Ghost of Christmas Past visits and takes Scrooge back to his memories of childhood.

Internal:

Scrooge’s heart is opened by what he sees. He remembers the joy of playing with friends and his love for his sister.

I’m sure you see where I’m going with this! When you’re writing, think about your plot points, and for each plot point, consider: What is the story here? What internal journey will your external plot take your character on, and how will that develop them?

I can’t wait to see where your story goes! If you want to talk about this further, click here.