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    Monthly Archive for: "March, 2026"
     How to Write a Short Story: Key Insights from Joanne Hichens, David Mann and Kamva Majo
    By All About Writing
    In Tips for Writers, Writing Craft
    Posted March 18, 2026

    How to Write a Short Story: Key Insights from Joanne Hichens, David Mann and Kamva Majo

    Want to know how to write a short story that truly resonates — and gets it published? In this candid and practical conversation, short story editor Joanne Hichens sits down with award-winning [...]

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    🔍 Observation Challenge 🔍 This week's writi 🔍 Observation Challenge 🔍 This week's writing motivation newsletter involves a challenge. We invite you to join in, and then send us your creative piece. Maybe we should put together a blog of some of the submissions? What do you think? So here is your challenge: Take a break from your writing and go on a walk you do often: to the shops, round the park, the same route with the dog. This time, go looking for what has changed since you last did it. A new crack in the pavement. A tree that's started to turn. A shop sign that's faded. Write a paragraph about them and post it in the comments. We'd love to read what you found. #creativewriting #writingcommunity #writingchallenge
    It’s the final step on our conversation on James It’s the final step on our conversation on James Webb Young’s ‘A Technique for Producing Ideas.’ Step 5: Very cunningly, I’ve foreshadowed this final step. Fix it, dear Henry, fix it. Or, as James Clear, (author of Atomic Habits) in a blog on creativity had it: 'Put your idea out into the world, submit it to criticism, and adapt it as needed.' It's worth saying plainly: none of this is mystical. Young wasn't describing inspiration, he was describing digestion – you feed the mind raw material, let it marinate, and it comes back rearranged. The gap most writers get wrong is Step 3. We treat the walk, the weeding, the washing-up as time stolen from the work, when it's actually where the work is quietly getting done without the apparent involvement of our conscious minds. So if you're stuck on a plot that won't cohere or a character who refuses to breathe, try trusting the method rather than the muse: load up on facts, worry them for a while, then go and do something that has nothing to do with writing at all. The idea that turns up afterwards won't arrive polished. That's fine. Fixing it was always Step 5, not Step 4. #WritingCraft #WritingTips #AllAboutWriting #WritersOfInstagram #AmWriting #WritingMotivation #FictionWriting #WritingCommunity #CreativeWriting #WritingAdvice
    We continue our conversation on James Webb Young’s ‘A Technique for Producing Ideas.’ His system involves five steps. Let’s look at number four. Step 4: Now allow your mind to reconsider the problem – the story that needs a great inciting incident; the character that simply isn’t gelling; the ending that is unsatisfactory – and you’ll find, nine times out of ten, that you do now have an idea. It might not be perfect, in fact it might feel quite rickety – but what you’ll do in Step 5, is fix it. Stay tuned for the last step! #WritingCraft #WritingTips #AllAboutWriting #WritersOfInstagram #AmWriting #WritingMotivation #FictionWriting #WritingCommunity #CreativeWriting #WritingAdvice
    We continue our conversation on James Webb Young’s ‘A Technique for Producing Ideas.’ His system involves five steps. Let’s look at number three. Step 3: Go and work in the garden, or spend an hour or two pottering about in your workshop, or go for a long walk in an area you’ve not visited before. In short, put the problem you’re trying to solve completely out of your mind and do something entirely different that fascinates and energises you. #WritingCraft #WritingTips #AllAboutWriting #WritersOfInstagram #AmWriting #WritingMotivation #FictionWriting #WritingCommunity #CreativeWriting #WritingAdvice
    We continue our conversation on James Webb Young’s ‘A Technique for Producing Ideas.’ His system involves five steps. Let’s look at number two. Step 2: Now massage all these facts, look at them from different angles. What surprises lurk in territory that might seem utterly familiar but contains shadowy corners? See what links exist between one fact and another. Whales and oil derricks? Balance sheets and the collapse of traditional shops? Astronomy and glass blowing? See what facts seem to resonate with each other. #WritingCraft #WritingTips #AllAboutWriting #WritersOfInstagram #AmWriting #WritingMotivation #FictionWriting #WritingCommunity #CreativeWriting #WritingAdvice
    Ever wondered where ideas come from – or how you Ever wondered where ideas come from – or how you can tap into a source of ideas around which to build your stories? I’m not sure whether you’ve come across references to a man – James Webb Young – and his book, published in 1939 and only recently rediscovered by a self-help industry. It’s called A Technique for Producing Ideas. Why mention it? Because its 'system' was designed for application initially by young admen (Young was a copywriter for an advertising agency). And, browsing through the little book, it seemed to me very obvious that it is possible to apply his method to the generation of ideas for stories. Here are his five steps, with a little of my commentary woven round them: Step 1: First, gather material. This might sound odd if you’re writing fiction, but actually even the most outrageously fictional confection is full of factual material. You might have chosen to set your story in a specific location. Even if you think you know it well, you’d be well-served to dig out a map of the place, find out why the church is called St Clements, whether any controversy attaches to the demolition of the old brewery … If your story concerns a particular subject – weaving, say; or fishing; or accountancy; or astronomy – then, naturally, your research will focus on it. But don’t forget that a very much wider focus can also help enormously. Your character might work on an off-shore oil derrick – but you might, when investigating deep sea oil drilling, find yourself reading material about marine fossils, or the Gulf Stream, or famous wrecks … Don’t curb your curiosity. #WritingCraft #WritingTips #AllAboutWriting #WritersOfInstagram #AmWriting #WritingMotivation #FictionWriting #WritingCommunity #CreativeWriting #WritingAdvice
    ✍️✍️What exactly is the Power of Writing c ✍️✍️What exactly is the Power of Writing course? ✍️✍️ The Power of Writing takes you to the heart of creative writing. Over just four online modules, the course introduces you to a handful of creative writing’s essential skills. The Power of Writing course is designed to introduce you to the key skills of creative writing – and help you use these skills in your own writing. We’ve wrapped the theory around a series of practical writing exercises in four modules. The course will: ✍️Help you to write confidently without constantly censoring yourself. ✍️Give you tools to develop your unique writing voice. ✍️Introduce you to disciplines that will continue to help you to write fluently long after the course is done. ✍️Give you tools that will help you write more vividly. ✍️Show you how to think more creatively and communicate this in your writing. ✍️Help you get more out of books by reading actively. ‘I have been writing for a number of years but every so often, I like to sharpen the saw. Your course is so valuable in this regard.’ – Hendie Grobbelaar ‘I thoroughly enjoyed the modules… I loved the fact that the modules are balanced. The first two do not require specific writing techniques, but exposes thoughts and observations. The last two modules start exploring the how of transforming ideas/happenings into something that works on paper.’ – Melanie du Plessis, Centurion ‘I enjoyed the introduction to each assignment, explaining what is needed with examples, especially for an online course.’ –Alma van As, Welobie ‘My experience was positive. I enjoyed the challenge… It was great focusing on writing rather than the content that one does in the daily drudge of communicating. I liked writing for the pleasure rather than rushing through the normal communications of the day – bit like “stopping to smell the roses”.’ – Charles Nesbitt, Somerset West Sign up online: https://allaboutwritingcourses.com/product/power-of-writing-course/
    In this week's writing motivation, Richard invites In this week's writing motivation, Richard invites us to just write three good sentences. Can you avoid the trappings of being a writer and put pen to paper, or fingertips to keyboard? Read the full piece in our Link in Bio and if you don't subscribe already, sign up via the same links. #AllAboutWriting #allaboutwritingcourses
    "I do try to make Tannie Maria different from myse "I do try to make Tannie Maria different from myself. However, as I have become softer and plumper, I guess I’m becoming more like her. But that wasn’t my plan. Where we do overlap is in our love for the Karoo." - Sally Andrew, author of the Tannie Maria mysteries. It was a real pleasure to host the unassuming author of the Tannie Maria mysteries, Sally Andrew, on our monthly webinar. She had much advice for would-be writers, imparted in her generous, down-to-earth style, always infused with her quirky humour. We chatted about place, about characters and about planning and writing practice. She finds it important to keep her characters as different from herself as possible. I guess I’m the same. It’s not something I’ve ever particularly striven for, yet most of my adult characters are quite different from me, in personality, preoccupations and the way they present to the world. Yet, nonetheless, I always draw on myself to some extent. I try to embody them and, for that brief period of writing, become them. In that way, I draw on what is different from me, yet still to be found, real or imagined, somewhere within me. - Jo-Anne Richards, All About Writing Watch the replay now available at www.allaboutwritingcourses.com or visit our link in bio #allaboutwriting #writingwebinar
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