There’s a difference, I think, between “Literary fiction”, “literary” fiction and literature. ‘Literary fiction’ is a term to guide a market for novels. Typically that market prefers stories about the internal struggles of characters. Typically the story will allow significant… Continue Reading →
What is this mysterious ‘second person’ point of view? Right, you’ve been in a few classes – the usual thing you find when going through a quick review of “person” is to skip quickly over second person – a brief… Continue Reading →
Shawn Coyne and Tim Grahl of the Storygrid universe have been doing a more useful job than pretty much anyone else in the world for the past three years. The job? Teaching us that story is vital, is a learnable… Continue Reading →
Take heart. Take a big slice of heart. It’s actually easy to get published. It’s obviously a lot less easy to publish exactly what you want to write, or exactly what you’ve managed to write, and it’s pretty damned hard… Continue Reading →
I’m not sure I’ll read Ronnie O’Sullivan’s novel. I might. I didn’t read his autobiography, but I have an interest in snooker and in the plight of those who’ve reached enviable levels of excellence and struggled to cope. I may… Continue Reading →
Check listers – the life-saving nerds A check list. Not the most flamboyantly creative solution to a writer’s journey, but a pretty useful base camp. Masters of a craft of course have an auto-checklist – just as any experienced traveller… Continue Reading →
I’ve been taking the scenic route again. One thing I’ve found more helpful than it ought to be is to accept that ‘scenes’ can be meaningful in the novel as well as the play and screenplay – whatever ‘scene’ is… Continue Reading →
The kindest rejection letter I ever got was from a literary agent in the US. He gave me a few pretty solid reasons why he thought the MS wasn’t going to suit his lists and why he had doubts on its saleability…. Continue Reading →
So what’s a blog? A question to answer as we go along, maybe. Is it tone, is it format, is it regularity?…hmm. This one might be a blog or not, but, whatever it is, has its beginnings in a hodgepodge… Continue Reading →
A couple of sobering thoughts this week along with home truths and lessons from the mouths of pre-teen upstarts. So, why wasn’t my son able to finish that manuscript I was testing on him… Story not quite exciting enough? Characters… Continue Reading →
If you’re reading up on how to write, you’ll have been sieged, bombarded, pelted and shelled all in the name of conflict. It comes up in every “how to do” and you’ll be told and told to the point of haemorrhage itself… Continue Reading →
Improvement. Like many would-be writers, I’ve been through a few periods where advice, information, tuition, critique were all doing their job well and I really felt that I was improving. Thrilling times. There’s no better feeling than a sense of… Continue Reading →
5th April is Swinburne day – if you think you may have read some once and liked it, today’s the day to go and look him up again. New to Swinburne or wondering what he might offer? Today you can… Continue Reading →
“‘Fuck the prose, no one’s going to read your book for the writing, all they want to do is find out what happens in the story next.’” So says Hanif Kureishi on the broad subject of creative writing courses. Is he right?… Continue Reading →
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