Ian C Douglas is based in Nottingham and is building a career in fantasy/sci-fi and his next book will be published on 3 November.
Ian gave out worksheets to attendees of the workshop including printouts of the slides, Fill in and Expand checklists (e.g. Do all of your primary characters have at least a minimal background story?), Templates list (e.g. artefact template) and a character profile template.
In his workshop Ian recommended several books for helping with writing including Jamie Buckley - 5 Steps, American method for constructing fantasy world and explained why working backwards can be easier than working forwards, for example in The Avengers the battle is the climax and you would work back from that. Start with your BIG EVENT and work back to the core, i.e. the flavour of your world, but start with the characters, so now write the end of your novel then work back to the beginning.
Jamie's book has a lot of templates in it to help plan it out, e.g. The Why: who's, where's, when's and how's, The Question: What does/n't your reader need to know (do not info dump, e.g. too much information) and Fill and Expand (a check list of ideas to ask yourself).
Tools:
Timelines (for history)
Microsoft project, excel, databases to cross reference
Post-it's or whiteboard
SCRIVENER
Short-potted biographies (to give inner/outer conflict and family tree)
Maps
Character biographies
British Science Fiction Association
British Fantasy Association
A network
Conventions
Critique group
Online group (e.g. mythic scribe)
Good reads (all writers)
SCBWI Conferences (e.g. Winchester)
SOA - once published, Society of Authors help with taxes, London conferences, training etc.
NWS - Nottingham Writers Studio
WEM - East Midlands
Anime characters - free website for visualising what your characters look like
Portrait illustration maker
For more information on Ian and has writing:
http://zekehailey.com/citizens-of-mars
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