In honour of this being the Year of the Snake, I thought we could talk about snakes. They are a common phobia, and culturally they have had quite an impact on human society. From the Garden of Eden to Cleopatra’s death, snakes are often thought of as evil or dangerous. Yet other people love them…
Survival Strategies Using Colour Animals use colour strategies in all kinds of ways to avoid being detected, eaten or to express themselves in some way. Some creatures can see colours we can’t, like infra-red and ultraviolet, which are not on the ‘visible spectrum’ of light. The visible spectrum is defined as what we can see…
Reproduction Strategies So, we discussed last time the difference between prey and predator, and how this impacts animal behaviour and physiology. Different species employ different strategies to ensure their species survives, and nowhere is that more apparent than in reproduction. I know in school, lots of people spent this part of biology making crude jokes…
Prey vs Predators I’m back with another creature feature for writers. Today we are looking at prey vs predators. I will discuss the difference between prey and predatory animals, and how this affects their behaviours and physiology. There’s a lot of interesting biology going on here, so let’s get into it. Predators Predators are defined…
Creating Creatures? Here’s a Few Tips Creating your own creatures? Flora and fauna are an essential part of worldbuilding for any writer creating their own universe. There’s a lot to consider, and of course you need that suspension of disbelief to keep your reader invested. Things that make no sense will be jarring, so you…
Adverbs are sometimes overused but are they essential? Some people say that adverbs are redundant and that they weaken the verbs impact. Some say adverbs lead to messy prose and indicate lazy and cluttered writing. Is this true? To a degree, it is, but adverbs still have their place in my opinion. What is an…
There’s always someone telling you how you should write, that you must follow these steps and this routine to succeed as a writer. Then you find other people who tell you that these rules are utter nonsense. It can be difficult to know who to believe. As with any creative pursuit, writing has lots of…
Part 3 Of Understanding Verbs In the first part we discussed verbs, what they are and the different kinds of verbs you might come across. In part 2 we covered the different tenses and forms of verbs., In this part we are going to cover the use of verbs within the sentence. Subject-verb agreement is…
Part 2 of Understanding Verbs Welcome back to understanding verbs. This is part two, where we will be covering irregular verbs, reflexive verbs, linking verbs and helping verbs. There are a lot of different kinds of verbs. So hopefully I can make this more straightforward to understand. Last time, we covered what verbs are, how…
Verb Tenses – Conjugation How to understand verb tenses and verb conjugation. I know, I know. The word ‘conjugation’ brings up memories from school, especially if you ever studied a language other than your native language. I remember memorising verb conjugations in French in high school. I don’t remember any of the verb conjugations from…
