ABCtales Critiquing Service - good reports!

Posted by tcook on Mon, 26 Mar 2012

Over the years many of you have asked for a critiquing service and it has taken a long time to find (a) someone good enough to do it well and (b) someone who will charge what we regard as a reasonable fee. Finally, we've done it! Lorraine Mace is a freelance writer, columnist and tutor for the Writers Bureau. Winner of the Petra Kenney International Poetry Competition (comic verse category), Lorraine's fiction, features and humour have appeared...

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He Loved Her With His Whole Heart

Posted by SoulFire77 on Sun, 01 Feb 2026

Mary Shelley began Frankenstein at eighteen - a novel about a man who couldn't let the dead stay dead. Her husband Percy drowned six years into their marriage, off the Italian coast. His friends burned the body on the beach, but his heart wouldn't take the flame. Physicians theorize it had calcified from tuberculosis. Turned to stone. There was a fight over it. Another poet claimed it, insisted his love outranked a widow's. Mary got it back. She...

Last Day To Guess!

Posted by SoulFire77 on Sun, 01 Feb 2026

Today is the last day to try and guess what three novels make up my Frankenplot. You can email me at SoulFire77@protonmail.com with your answers.

Confessions of a Killer (2025) BBC iPlayer, Director Chris Wilson, Narrative voice Bronagh Gallagher.

Posted by celticman on Fri, 30 Jan 2026

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002q9qq/confessions-of-a-killer https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002q9sg/confessions-of-a-killer-series-1-2-judgement-day Why would a killer admit to being a killer? Confessions of a Killer are as old as Adam and Eve, Cain and Able. Printed fiction and stage-plays such as Jekyll and Hyde , fed into a penny-dreadful need to know more. To feel more. To become involved in what happens next. True-crime...

Story and Poem of the Week, with Inspiration Point

Posted by insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Fri, 30 Jan 2026

Story and Poem of the Week, with Inspiration Point posted by di_hard What a brilliant week for writing! Perhaps it is approaching Spring stirring everyone's talents to create. This has made wonderful reading, but choosing even harder than usual. Please read all these listed if you can, and many others, too Highly recommended : This part of HarryC's fabulous work in progress, which will be published one day, and get the recognition such great...

Lollipop (2024), directed and written by Daisy-May Hudson.

Posted by celticman on Wed, 28 Jan 2026

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002pvjy/lollipop Wikipedia Lollipop is a film with a simple enough plot. Molly Brown (Posy Sterling) is a recently paroled mother. She wants to get her kids back before she does anything else, which is heart-warming. A familiar fix for the 60%-70% of the 3500 women imprisoned in England and having children under 12, mostly serving sentences of less than 12 months. Unless you’ve got money, are comfortably...

The Kindness of Strangers (2019) written and directed by Lone Scherfig.

Posted by celticman on Tue, 27 Jan 2026

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kindness_of_Strangers_(film) Sometimes we don’t know what to write. I thought this film would be shite, but it was really good, sums it up. Nobody really cares. The Kindness of Strangers others that. It’s the basis of most religions. We are what we give. Not in the hope of receiving, or as a morality play (although that may be part of that thing we call being truly human) or even the anguished cry of Marlon...

Please Win Us This Money!

Posted by insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Tue, 27 Jan 2026

Soulfire77 has posted a puzzle on his blog. He's written a 'frankenplot' mash up of the plots of three novels, all by world famous authors If someone can solve it by February 1st, he's promised to donate $25 to ABCTales If you could all put your thinking caps on it would be much appreciated, and a very big thank you to SoulFire! https://www.abctales.com/blog/soulfire77/frankenplot

Frankenplot

Posted by SoulFire77 on Tue, 27 Jan 2026

Who wants to play " Frankenplot "? This is an excellent game to play with your well-read friends (if you have any). It's also a great way to stumble across new and interesting plot combinations for your own work. Here's how to play: I have mixed up the plots of THREE novels by world famous authors. All you have to do is GUESS which three novels I have used to create this new "Frankenplot". I have tried to make this first one a humorous...

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