Jo-Anne Richard’s blog

One of the participants in our Creative Writing Course responded to a dialogue exercise recently with a scene containing a domestic argument between newlyweds. It was riveting – and raw. One half [...]

When new writers are “using all their senses” to show us a person or landscape, they often neglect smell. And yet, it’s the most evocative of our sensory experiences. Emotions and memories are [...]

There’s been a great deal of discord about showing and telling in recent years. It’s a truism of good writing that we should always show, rather than tell. Recently, though, there’s been a [...]

Specific details are magical. That was the gist of my blogs over the past couple of weeks: give us just one or two specific details, and we’ll be transported to another time and place. That [...]

Reading fiction is good for us – and that’s not one writer’s opinion, but the conclusion of neuroscientific research. Studies have shown that the language of fiction: imaginative metaphors, [...]

“Wow, that was like watching a movie.” This was the response of a participant in my Creative Writing Course to the writing of a fellow – and it came as a revelation to her. They all wrote [...]

Use specifics to draw us in. That’s the key to writing well. Give us the particular, we’ll expand it, if necessary, to visualise the whole. I find this type of paragraph in a great many [...]

Develop a character’s voice well and we’ll immediately understand more about their world view and their place in the world. Last week, I spoke about the importance of voice for showing age, [...]

Develop your character’s voice if you want us to share in their highs and lows, get to know them and care about them. But what does that really mean? Sure, people sometimes have speech quirks. [...]

I was asked this again just the other day, and my heart always sinks: “How can I get my book published?” I understand, I really do. I know the feeling of desperation to have a manuscript noticed. [...]

A character is running through a crowd. She elbows passers-by, bumps into someone, shoves aside a group… Okay, we know what she’s doing, but we’re not there with her. Not unless we see (and [...]

Here’s a conundrum. One of our mentoring participants tried to solve one problem and, in the process, created another. As I mentioned last week, you should try to avoid long, static [...]