Aliventures
Making the most of your writing time
Best of the Blog (Start Here)
Check out my best posts to get started with: they’re packed with encouragement, ideas, and advice for all types of writers.
Get Writing
Get Writing is a great way to dip into four big areas of writing: short stories, novels, blogging, and freelancing.
How to Write Faster
This short course helps you speed up your writing, without sacrificing quality or enjoyment. For all writers.
Latest Blog Posts
The Ten Best Free Writing Tools to Help You Write More and Earn More
There are so many different useful tools out there for writers, it can be tricky to figure out which ones you need … and which ones are just a distraction. After 15+ years of freelancing (and even more years of fiction writing and blogging)…
Five Different Approaches to Developing Characters
This post was first published in April 2019 and last updated in May 2025. Whether you consider plot to be more important than character or you believe they’re just two sides of the same coin, it’s clear that character matters. Readers want characters who are engaging...
How to Write a Flashback: Five Tips and Four Examples
One challenge that you’re likely to face when writing a novel is how to fill the reader in about important events in your main character’s past. There are various techniques you can use for this—one of which is a flashback. Flashbacks can be fun to write, but they can...
About Ali
I’m an author (of both fiction and non-fiction) and a freelancer. Aliventures is my homebase online where I share articles on the art, craft and business of writing.
I live in Leeds (UK) with my husband and two kids, and I have degrees in English (MA Cantab, Cambridge University) and Creative & Life Writing (MA, Goldsmiths College, University of London).
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