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Characters may be the most important part of a narrative, but they’re not all you need to hold us. Last week I made the point that startling events are not all we need if we’re to be drawn into a [...]

Last night we went to a performance of Bizet’s Carmen staged under the stars in Verona’s Roman amphitheatre – the city’s famed Arena. I love opera, but I’m no buff. Chat amongst aficionados [...]

Exciting events don’t make a story. I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but it’s a point that struck me forcibly when assessing a manuscript recently. You might have the greatest premise for a [...]

‘He might be dead. ‘It’s dreadful but it’s true. Bobby, my younger brother, pulls at my hand and asks again, “Where’s Dr. Congo-man?”’ So starts Inessa Rajah’s essay that won her first prize in [...]

How do you go about developing a character? I think every major character must have certain aspects to their personality in order for them to become real in my mind, and hopefully the minds of my [...]

Three little questions from David Mamet, the American playwright and screenplay writer (think Glengarry Glen Ross, The Untouchables, The Verdict, Wag the dog). He’s addressing writers of film but [...]

The August Competition celebrates both our brand-new Scriptwriting Course and the upcoming Venetian retreat: Write a scene of no more than 250 words in which two people meet for the first time in [...]

Angela Meadon, a past creative writing participant launches her book on 25 August. To celebrate we  asked her some questions about her writing and publishing process. How long did this book [...]

Like love, drama can’t be hurried. As she walked into the apartment, a bomb exploded in the lounge, killing its three occupants and causing carnage. Okay, as I showed a couple of weeks ago, the [...]

John Banville is the author of fifteen critically acclaimed novels one of which –  The Sea – won the Man Booker prize in 2005. Until he turned to writing novels fulltime, he was a journalist. But [...]