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Artwork Copyediting Writing

The story via the style sheet

I’ve often looked at the style sheet I’ve created for a book I’m working on and thought that the words listed could be used as writing prompts. ‘Pick any three consecutive words and write 1,000 words based on them’, sort of thing. I even tweeted about making the executive decision that ‘asshat’ is one word but ‘fuck-head’ takes a hyphen. I think you can guess the tone of the book just from that! Shortly afterwards, I saw a discussion on Twitter about how a style sheet is a microcosm of the book as a whole. ‘How true!’ I thought.

So here you go. Some selections from recent pieces of work. I think these all give a good flavour of the piece without giving away any spoilers – and if you want to use them as writing prompts, that’s even better!

Horror:

  • shape-shifter
  • side-step
  • son of a bitch
  • soulmate
  • spread-eagled
  • street lamp
  • strigoi

Fantasy:

  • camp site
  • cannons
  • chain mail
  • crewmen

Mystery:

  • sidetracked
  • skullcap
  • smarty-pants
  • socioeconomic
  • store owner

Erotic romance/fantasy:

  • artifact
  • baobh
  • Black Fire
  • bloodcurdling
  • breadcrumbs
  • breastplate

Science fiction:

  • hide and seek
  • hlyk
  • ice cubes
  • ice-field
  • image-thought

The featured image is my latest artwork, just because I didn’t have anything else to illustrate this with and I’m trying not to use stock images. You can see more of my artwork here.