If you want to be a novelist … learn to write short stories Every year I have at least one student arrive for class who ‘doesn’t want to bother’ with short stories because they’re working on a novel. Phooey. Yes, there are writers who manage to get a book published without working through the apprentice […]
Memory Palaces I’ve been having a discussion with other writers about memory palaces recently. This technique, credited to Cicero, was a device favoured by rhetoricians of the ancient world who had to speak for long periods without notes. The process is to pick a place you know well, and attach notes to objects and views […]
The reader is not in the writer’s head One of the biggest weaknesses I see in memoir and creative non-fiction is that the writer assumes every detail that is important to them is also important to the reader. It’s not. Salient detail is what counts. To understand why you mention your primary teacher Miss Oliphant’s […]
Tales of the DeCongested – Brighton Reading Last night was wonderful! I’d like to thank everyone who came along – the room was packed, and all the readers who gave us such a fantastic evening. I haven’t got permission to post anybody else’s photographs yet, so you’ll have to make do with this one of […]
Found Stories I’m always a bit surprised when writers tell me they can’t think of anything to write about. My problem is that there just aren’t enough hours in the day! Yesterday, for example, standing in the post office queue with my little pile of sample chapters to send to agents (cross your fingers please, […]
Submission call This one has me fascinated – I’ve never been published by Gray Friar Press, so I’m not promoting my chums or anything here, but this is a book I would be keen to read, let alone appear in. PAGING MR HITCHCOCK – an anthology of dark stories inspired by the cinema Whatever differences […]
Dealing with Acceptance Groucho Marx famously said ‘I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.’ It’s amazing how often writers share this prejudice. You’d think dealing with rejection would be bad enough, but many writers make heavy weather of getting a story accepted too. ‘Perhaps I should wait […]
Creative non-fiction This relatively new hybrid of fiction and reportage is becoming increasingly popular. What is it exactly? I would say that it dramatises factual events by using techniques formerly reserved for fiction. It conveys not just fact, but tries to bring to fact the immediacy and emotional power of fiction to illuminate experience. I […]
Pimp your Prose Pimping your ride means doing up your car so it looks better (or at least, more eye-catching) and pimping your prose is the same process. Most of us would need help to get beyond go-faster stripes and back-to-black for our bumpers, and we’d appeal to a specialist pimper for whitewall tyres, decals, […]
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