Writing Tips – Nicola Harris

04/05/202604/05/2026

Avoiding Indie Author Scams – What to watch out for:

Scammers are getting smarter, but indie authors can stay one step ahead by spotting the red flags early. Let’s talk about how to keep your inbox—and your creative energy—safe from people who want to rip you off.

Why Indie Authors Are Targeted:

Indie authors like us are often juggling writing, marketing, social media and publishing all on our own. That makes us prime targets for scammers who know we’re hungry for visibility, reviews, and opportunities. They swoop in with offers that sound too good to take up, and it’s easy to be fooled if you are overworked and busy.

Here are Common Scams to Watch Out For:

• Over-the-top flattery: “Your book is perfect for our award!” or “We hand-selected your novel for our club.” If you never applied or submitted, it’s a scam.

• Fake famous author outreach: A “big name” author emails you saying they love your book. Spoiler: they don’t. Real authors don’t cold-email strangers.

• Pay-to-play podcasts or interviews: Invitations to appear, but only if you pay a hefty fee.

• Bogus review packages: Offers to flood your book with glowing reviews. Amazon and Goodreads don’t allow this, and you’ll risk your account.

• High-priced event invites: “Exclusive industry conference” tickets that cost hundreds. Often, these events don’t exist.

• Metadata audits and visibility reports: Scammers send confusing “diagnostics” claiming your book is at risk unless you pay for fixes.

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Emotional Tricks They Use:

Scammers know authors are emotionally invested in their work. They exploit that by:

• Hope: Promising awards, recognition, or significant exposure.

• Urgency: “Act now or lose readers!”

• Fear: “Your account is at risk.”

• Confusion: Overloading you with jargon-filled reports.

If you feel your emotions spiking while reading an email, pause. That’s often the scammer’s hook.

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How to Protect Yourself

• Check credentials: Google the company or person. If they don’t exist online, that’s your answer.

• Be sceptical of unsolicited offers: Real opportunities usually come through channels you’ve applied to and are trusted.

• Don’t pay upfront: Legitimate services are transparent about costs and contracts.

• Lean on trusted communities: Groups like the Society of Authors or the Authors Guild regularly post scam alerts.

• Remember the golden rule: If it feels too good to be true, it probably is.

Final Thoughts:

Being indie means wearing many hats, but it doesn’t mean you have to face scammers alone. Stay sharp, trust your instincts, and keep your focus on what really matters—your writing. The best defence is a mix of scepticism, community support and blocking.

Community Support:

https://writerbeware.blog This is a website that lists the latest author scams and shows screenshots of the messages and approaches that scammers are using and how to avoid them. I have found this site extremely useful.

STOP PRESS! One of the latest scams is where someone contacts you to request a PDF of your book, which they then post on a pirate book site. Thanks to historical fiction author Elizabeth Kelly for this warning.

Sources:

Author Beware: latest scam updates

oOo

04/05/202604/05/2026

Why It’s So Hard to Edit Your Own Work? And the Tricks That Actually Help.

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When I hired an actress to record the audiobook of my first novel, For Now I Die, she spotted a couple of typos. I can’t tell you how many times I’d edited that book. That’s the point: I can be intimately so familiar with a text and still so completely blind to what’s actually on the page.

Writers like me don’t struggle to edit their own work because they’re careless.

They struggle because their brain is doing exactly what it’s designed to do to predict, fill in gaps, and conserve effort. And let’s face it, writing a novel is a huge undertaking.

By the time you reach the editing stage, your brain has already built a complete internal version of the piece: the meaning, the intention and the emotional logic. When you read your own writing, you’re not reading the words on the page. You’re reading the version in your head.

That’s why we can easily miss typos, clumsy phrasing, repeated words, and missing steps in our argument.

Your brain is “helping” you, but just not in the way you need.

So the real challenge isn’t editing. It’s breaking your own familiarity.

Here are the techniques that actually do work, the ones that force your brain to see the text as if it’s new:

Change the Colour of the Text:

This sounds trivial, but it’s one of the most effective tricks you can use.

When you change the colour, black to blue, blue to green, anything, your brain stops recognising the text as the same piece you drafted. It disrupts the visual pattern your mind has memorised.

Suddenly, the sentences look different, the spacing looks different, the rhythm feels different, and hopefully, the errors stand out.

It’s the closest you’ll get to reading your own work with fresh eyes.

Writers who do this swear by it, and for good reason.

It works because it forces your brain out of autopilot.

Change the Font (Dramatically).

Not a polite shift from Times New Roman to Garamond.

A dramatic shift.

Try a heavy serif, a thin sans‑serif, a typewriter font or something slightly ugly.

The uglier the font, the more your brain pays attention.

Your mind can’t rely on its internal map when the text looks unfamiliar.

It has to read what’s actually there.

Print It Out

Paper breaks the spell.

On a screen, your brain knows the terrain too well.

On paper, the text becomes an object, something external, something you can mark, fold and scribble on.

Writers consistently catch more errors on paper than on a screen.

Read It Out Loud.

When you read aloud, your brain is forced to process every word in sequence.

You’ll hear any awkward rhythms, missing words and any repetitions you didn’t notice

If you stumble, the sentence is wrong.

If you run out of breath, the sentence is too long.

Your voice will reveal what your eyes ignore.

Change the Layout, shift the margins, increase the spacing, turn paragraphs into single lines and put the whole thing into a narrow column.

Anything that changes the shape of the text forces your brain to stop predicting and start noticing.

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Leave It Alone Long Enough to Forget It.

Distance is the closest thing you’ll ever get to objectivity.

A day helps, a week is better, and a month is ideal.

The longer the gap, the more the internal version fades and the more you can see the actual words.

Read It on a Different Device

Your brain associates each device with a different reading mode.

· Laptop = drafting

· Phone = scanning

· Tablet = reading

· Paper = editing

Use that to your advantage.

A piece you’ve stared at for days on a laptop will look and feel completely different on your phone.

Ask a Different Question.

Instead of asking, “Is this good?”

Ask:

· “Where does this drag?”

· “Where am I feeling bored?”

· “Where would my reader get lost?”

· “What sentence is doing nothing?”

· “What am I assuming the reader knows?”

The Truth about editing:

It’s difficult when you are managing such a huge body of work to sometimes see the woods for the trees, but there are programmes such as Scrivener that can help authors move chapters around. I am not affiliated with Scrivener in any way, but my point is that there are tools for authors that can help you jump between chapters and easily move them around without the fear of accidentally deleting some of your hard work.

Editing your own work is hard because your brain is doing its job of protecting meaning, filling gaps, and smoothing over imperfections. It is the part of my writing life that I personally dislike the most. I tend to write a chapter, then edit it as much as I can, but something always slips through.

Every writer has a trick for seeing their work with fresh eyes. What’s yours? Mine is all of the above, and a teacher friend.

oOo

04/05/202604/05/2026

Free Resources Every Writer Should Know About

Most writers are overwhelmed by ‘free’ advice and tools online. There is far too much advertising that claims to offer ‘free’ services that are, at best, just trials in disguise.

I have found a few reliable, reputable resources that are safe, respected, and genuinely free. They are suitable for writers anywhere in the world and do not impose any regional conventions on spelling or punctuation.

OneLook Reverse Dictionary:

Every writer has moments when the right word refuses to appear. You know the meaning, you can feel the shape of the word, but your brain will not deliver it. OneLook Reverse Dictionary solves that problem.

You type a concept, a description, or even a vague idea, and it produces a list of words that match what you are trying to express. It is fast, accurate, and used by editors, journalists, and academics. It is one of the few writing tools that is both simple and genuinely helpful.

Reedsy Free Courses:

Reedsy offers a library of short, focused courses on writing, editing, publishing, and marketing. They are written by professionals, and they are genuinely free. No trial, no credit card, and no hidden upgrade.

The courses cover topics such as character development, plotting, worldbuilding, revision, and the realities of publishing. Each lesson is concise and practical. For new writers who want structure without being overwhelmed, this is one of the best free resources available. Anyone with an email address can sign up and receive the full course material. They work the same whether you are in the UK, Europe, Australia, or anywhere else. Reedsy’s courses are designed for a global audience.

They are one of the few writing‑education resources that are genuinely international and genuinely free.

British Library Digitised Manuscripts:

For writers who work with history, this is a treasure chest. The British Library has digitised a vast collection of manuscripts, letters, maps, and early printed books. All of it is free to view.

This resource allows writers to see primary sources directly rather than relying on secondhand summaries or low-quality images. Whether you write historical fiction, nonfiction, or simply want to understand how people wrote and thought in earlier centuries, this collection is invaluable.

The British Library’s Digitised Manuscripts site is full of amazing material, but it is not laid out like a modern browsing platform. It works best if you know how to approach it.

The search bar needs specific terms. It will not respond well to broad searches, so it helps to look up the name of a manuscript, a historical figure, or a date before you begin. Once you find an item, the catalogue page gives you a short description and a link to the images.

The real value is in the image viewer. You can zoom in very closely, move through the pages, and use thumbnails to jump around quickly. The quality is excellent and lets you see details you would never get from a printed reproduction.

It takes a little getting used to, but once you understand how the search and viewer work, the site becomes easy to handle and incredibly useful for anyone writing about the past.

Final Thoughts

You do not need a complicated toolkit to become a better writer. You need clarity, practice, structure, and access to trustworthy information. These resources provide exactly that. They are safe, reputable, and genuinely free.

oOo

04/05/202604/05/2026

A new book launch: Master Secretary: Robert Cecil, A Life in Fiction, by Richard Woulfe.

Buy link: https://chiselbury.co.uk/shop/

Richard Woulfe has just published Master Secretary: Robert Cecil, A Life in Fiction, a new collection of stories centred on one of England’s most intriguing historical figures. It’s an exciting release, and I’m delighted to share the news with you.

“Statesman, strategist, survivor: Robert Cecil stood at the very heart of England’s transition from Tudor to Stuart rule. Hunched-backed and underestimated in an age hostile to disability, he rose to become Master Secretary to Elizabeth I and James I, suppressing the Essex Rebellion, foiling the Gunpowder Plot, and negotiating peace with Spain.

In this richly imagined sequence of eighteen interlinked stories, Cecil’s voice is joined by those of his family, allies, and adversaries—Elizabeth I, Anthony and Francis Bacon, Walter Raleigh, Ben Jonson, Arbella Stuart, and nameless spies and commoners whose lives brushed against his. From court intrigue to tavern gossip, from the grandeur of the Somerset House Peace Conference to a humble Limerick shop, these tales weave fact and fiction into a vivid portrait of one of history’s most remarkable political survivors.

Spanning his birth to his final conversation with the sculptor designing his tomb, Master Secretary opens a window onto the world Shakespeare inhabited—a world of politics and diplomacy, comedy and tragedy, faith and betrayal. Grounded in historical record yet alive with imagination, this is a compelling re-telling of the life of Robert Cecil: underestimated by many, unforgotten by all.”

Tell us about your book:

This is a cradle to almost-grave collection of stories relating to Robert Cecil, Secretary of State from 1586 to 1612, a role his father William Cecil had previously occupied. It begins on the day he was born, when William Cecil is trying to get home for news of the birth but is delayed by Queen Elizabeth and others, and ends with Robert discussing the design of his tomb with its sculptor. It covers the Lopez execution, the Essex Rebellion, the transfer of power from the Tudors (Elizabeth 1st) to the Stuarts (James 1st) and the Gunpowder Plot. Also included are Francis Bacon (Cecil’s first cousin), Ben Jonson, Walter Raleigh, Arabella Stuart. Other female voices include Cecil’s wife, Anne Bacon, Elizabeth Ist on her deathbed, an intelligencer, as well as the wife of a Limerick shop owner who had only vaguely heard of Robert Cecil.

Tell us about your research for this book. Did you discover anything unexpected?

The Lopez conspiracy was always baffling to me, as it seemed so obvious the man was innocent. Why had the Earl Of Essex persued it so doggedly? Now I realise that a motive was to discredit the Cecils and their intelligence network.

Something unexpected also related to the Earl of Essex, specifically his rebellion. The play Richard II was performed by supporters of Essex as a way of bolstering support, but when the rebellion failed Shakespeare’s company had to explain to the Privy Council why they allowed the play to be staged in the first place. I had always assumed Shakespeare himself needed to be at his imaginative best with his excuses but then found out he wasn’t actually there. No, it was an actor/manager who convinced Cecil of their innocence in that matter. Shakespeare was present though when Elizabeth ordered that a production of the play be performed one day before Essex’s execution.

What made you choose Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, as a subject?

I come from a drama background and knew Cecil to be Master Secretary when Marlowe, Shakespeare and Ben Jonson were writing. But there is a lot more; for example, Cecil was chiefly responsible for Walter Raleigh’s incarceration in the Tower, but visited Raleigh there just before his own death. What did they say to each other? This is where historical fiction excels; nobody knows what was said but I imagine Cecil not apologising but accusing Raleigh of being responsible for his own misfortune.
And what was Elizabeth I thinking on her deathbed – all those whom she was convivial with dead, the succession already being orchestrated by her Master Secretary?

Or Francis Bacon, two years his senior. Francis Bacon went to Cambridge at 12, and it is reasonable to assume they two met when Francis was home. Two highly ambitious children, what did they talk about? And who get the better of who? Francis Bacon also sought the Queen’s patronage, but did their rivalry start from a younger age?

I have an admiration for Cecil – though his father helped him to rise in government, he still had to overcome so many difficulties, not least that his back was hunched. He was Secretary of State for 16 years (Thomas Cromwell by contrast only lasted 6), managed the transfer to the Stuarts despite his own father being instrumental in the death of James I’s mother (Mary Queen of Scots).

I also feel that telling his life via linked stories allows room for his defenders and critics to make their case. Cecil divided opinion in his own time, and still does.

What advice would you give new writers?
Persevere. Writing and rewriting takes a hell of a lot of time, but you’ll get there if you’re confident there’s a story worth telling. Oh, and that writing is also enjoyable (most of the time).

What are you planning to write next?

The life of King Richard II, specifically from his coronation at the age of 10 to his deposition and death 22 years later. Now, there is somebody with no shortage of detractors.

Author Richard Woulfe

Richard has had two radio plays produced: one by RTE Radio based on James Joyce’s/Nora Barnacle’s time in Trieste, the other a Victorian drama by the Wireless Theatre Company. Stage plays of his have also been performed, and short stories published. Richard is from Limerick, and now lives in London.

oOo

04/05/202604/05/2026

When to Stop Researching and Start Drafting Your Novel.

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My process:

I find that I have to totally immerse myself in my research when I write historical fiction. I like to read history books about the characters, and I study primary sources such as the letters and papers of Henry VIII. I find that I often fall asleep listening to history books on Audible as I try to see and understand the shape of my story.

I think about who the people are who changed the protagonist’s life and how they might see those people. Is this a thriller? Is this a tragedy? These are the sort of choices I like to think about in the early stages. How much do I tell my reader, and how much could I hide in plain sight? For me, this part is all about uncovering the bones of the story. I used to be a total pantster but the more I write, the easier I have found structure. I have ADHD, and so I can become pretty obsessive and hyperfocused. I have to set timers to make sure that I am eating and drinking properly and to rest my eyes.

The next stage is writing down each year and the important events that took place. I make so many messy notes, charts, and I travel to sites that inspire me to write. I take lots of photos to remind me of the atmosphere.

As much as I love to research, I know when it’s done. For me, it’s when I understand what happened, know where the best place to begin, and when I know what the characters mean to each other. Then I write about each character and what their motivation might be. At the moment, I am deep into the research of Catherine Howard, and for so long, I just could not see her motivation, let alone Lady Rochford’s. Then one day, it just came to me.

The next stage is rest. I just have a break and think about other things. It’s really important to be lazy because my unconscious mind is working hard behind the scenes. I go to my craft club and walk my dog on my mobility scooter. I will have sudden epiphanies out of nowhere. Such as the time I realised a character could have all the signs and symptoms of a clinical narcissist, and my reader might not recognise them, but they would know having such a cold husband did not make a happy marriage. I find that everyday events and conversations give me ideas, and I write them all down. Then, when I feel fired up to work off, I go to my writing/craft room.

For me, writing is for pleasure. I have no intention of wanting to be on TV or appear in my local newspaper. I am an introvert, and I really dislike social media too. I am too much of a private person for all of that nonsense. Only a select few friends even know that I write. Historical fiction is not a very profitable genre, but it’s where my heart has always been. Although I did write two cosy mysteries back in the days of NaNoWriMo. (National writing month).

How to know when to stop researching and start writing.

Writers who work use history, psychology, or write in any field that demands intellectual rigour know that research is not optional. It’s the foundation of their work. But there is a point at which researching stops serving the work and begins to smother it. It’s so easy to end up with immaculate notes and no book.

Many writers don’t recognise that moment when the drafting must begin because research can feel virtuous. It feels like diligence. It feels like “doing the job properly.” And if they are anything like me, they love to read about a particular era, visit all the sights, and if I’m not careful, it could be the moment my real work quietly dies.

The question is not how much research is enough. The real question is: when does research stop being research and start being avoidance?

Research is the opening argument, not the final word:

Wayne C. Booth’s ‘The Craft of Research’ makes a point many writers conveniently ignore: research is meant to sharpen your questions, not deliver a perfect, airtight understanding before you begin.

Umberto Eco, in ‘How to Write a Thesis’, is even more direct by saying that writing must begin before you feel ready, because writing is part of the thinking process. I have to agree with him. It took years of absorbing Spanish culture before I even thought about writing Infidel, which is set in Spain. I certainly would not feel as comfortable writing a cowboy novel despite having lived in the United States because I know I have not absorbed the culture enough to understand all the nuances.

If your research has given you a working grasp of the landscape, the tensions, the contradictions and the unanswered questions, then you have enough to begin shaping a narrative.

Writers who wait for total mastery and perfection often never start.

Repetition of research means that you’ve reached saturation:

Historians and researchers use the term saturation to describe the moment when new sources stop adding new insight.

If you’re encountering the same facts, the same anecdotes, the same interpretations, you’re not deepening your understanding, you’re circling it.

At that point, it’s time to start drafting.

When research becomes avoidance:

It can become so easy to choose a task that feels productive to avoid the one that actually matters. For writers, research is the most socially acceptable form of avoidance. It looks serious. It looks intellectual. It looks like work. But if you feel a quiet relief when you decide to “research a bit more,” that’s not diligence. That’s fear wearing a scholarly coat.

The blank page is a writer’s real work.

Research is only useful if it leads you back to it.

If you can explain it, you can write it:

If you can explain something clearly, you understand it well enough to work with it. You don’t need encyclopaedic knowledge to begin drafting. You just need functional clarity. If you can talk through your premise, your historical moment, your character’s situation, or your thematic argument without checking your notes, you have crossed the threshold.

The gaps that remain will reveal themselves naturally in the writing.

And you will research those gaps with far more precision than you can from the outside.

Drafting is part of the research process:

I have found that writing clarifies what research actually matters to my work.

If you’re still trying to “finish” your research before you begin, you’re working against the grain of how serious nonfiction and historically grounded fiction are made.

The energy is telling you to move into drafting.

Writers who ignore that signal often end up with immaculate notes and no book. I know this from experience.

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