Jo-Anne Richard’s blog

Every now and again, we come across people who are hesitant about learning the craft, thinking that it will interfere with their joy in writing. It will make them feel stilted, they believe, halt [...]

No matter where you are or what your circumstances, you can find a way to write. It can seem daunting at times, and that’s where we come in. We undertake always to be there to help in whatever [...]

Are you old enough to remember that old Robert Altman move, Nashville? There’s a poignant scene in which Keith Carradine takes the stage to sing the haunting, I’m Easy, for his married bandmate, [...]

I recently gave a workshop at which I was called upon to introduce a young writer to the idea of darlings – and particularly, how to murder them. She wrote a lyrical passage with much to [...]

When I was a very young student, a lecturer of mine – something of a Svengali, if I think about him now – asked me why I wanted to write. I burbled something about my passion for expressing [...]

Could your writing be better? Of course. Same goes for all of us. Here are links to ten pieces of sage writing advice. Since we are celebrating story this month they’re all about aspects of [...]

It’s Tuesday afternoon. Jo-Anne is in her study, working on her blogs. Imagine that as the start of a scene. Okay, it tells you what I’m doing, and when. It’s clear enough, isn’t it? But does it [...]

It’s hard to achieve your writing goals alone. It’s easy to get stuck, easy to procrastinate, easy to give up. That’s why All About Writing exists. To give everyone the chance to be the best [...]

We don’t need to follow your character into the bathroom. Her brushing and flossing routine don’t do it for us – or even for your story. If, however, she enters the bathroom to eye the razor [...]

Verbs, we were taught at school, are doing words. We began to think of all verbs as busy little words, virtuous and strong. We never learnt that some verbs are busier than others, and some just [...]

My name is Jo-Anne and I’m a dash-aholic. When you mentor a number of manuscripts each month, you begin to notice that every writer has certain habits – little tics which begin to irritate the [...]

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 [...]