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I’m a great believer in the power of detail in creative writing. Carefully observed specific details can transform a manuscript and bring it vividly to life. That’s why I was fascinated by this [...]

Paul O’Rourke is a New York dentist, and the eccentric hero of Joshua Ferris’s Man Booker short-listed novel To Rise Again at a Decent Hour. Ferris is a dazzling young writer who announced [...]

Without conflict, there is no story, right? It’s a truism, and one we should all know. Something disturbs the balance of life, which is where a story begins. What new writers often forget, [...]

“Nobody knows anything…… Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work. Every time out it’s a guess and, if you’re [...]

I just wanted to check in with you to see if you’ve had a chance to think about joining Michele Rowe and me for our Guide to Creative Screenwriting course. If you have a dream of writing for film [...]

Welcome to this month’s newsletter Many of our community, it seems, have earmarked 2018 as their year for writing. We’ve had so many requests for help and support, we’ve decided to dedicate [...]

  For the past week or so I’ve feasted on a memoir called Educated by Tara Westover, a Cambridge PhD history graduate who began life as the youngest daughter of a religious and political [...]

If we read like writers, we’ll find lessons – on what to do and what not to do – in everything we read. I recently found this lesson in the power of not spelling things out in a recent novel by [...]

Our fresh-out-of-the-box Guide to Creative Screenwriting is a ten-week on-line course starting on 15 March. The course runs you through the essential skills required by anyone who wishes to write [...]

I’ve been wondering why conflict is that absolutely essential element of drama that we’ve always argued it is. We’ve said that conflict creates uncertainty, uncertainty creates suspense – will he [...]

What would our fourth annual Venice Writing Retreat give you? That’s easy, if we quote one of our past participants, who called it “a life-changing experience”. It will certainly provide [...]

What do you need in order to write well? Think of your life: a constant round of tasks and duties. Too many things to fit in the day. And demands? Oh my goodness, let’s not even start. Everyone [...]