Tips for Writers

We’re well into the second week of our annual Venice Writing Retreat, and it has struck me again, as it does every year, how creative it is to gather together a group of writers and allow them to [...]

So here we are in Venice, for our annual All About Writing retreat. Everywhere we turn, there is another vista: the quiet canal, which runs down one side of our palazzo. The cobbled square into [...]

I once read about a study which compared the happiness levels of those who had children to those who were childless. The general levels of happiness were higher, apparently, among the childless. [...]

A friend of mine once found herself seated beside a doctor on a flight. “And what do you do?” he asked expansively, after treating her to a half-hour discourse on his many achievements. “I’m a [...]

We all know (or we should) that no story can exist without conflict. But not everyone recognises why this is so. Discussing the elements of story recently, we were asked: “But how does that work [...]

“I’m just so happy,” one of our mentoring participants told us recently. “I can’t tell you how happy I am. The writing’s flowing and … it just feels right.” We told her that we were happy to see [...]

“The last paragraph, in which you tell what the story is about, is almost always best left out.” This was Irwin Shaw’s advice to young writers, and I think of it often. We are always tempted to [...]

We recently had the unenviable task of advising someone that a manuscript needed to be rethought. It’s devastating advice. Believe me, I know. I’ve had to face that level of criticism in the [...]

I tend to advise new writers against using the god-like omniscient point of view when they start writing. Using a distant narrator who comments on all the characters, and can see and understand [...]

When you become a writer, every sentence should be sacred to you. I give this advice a great deal in our mentoring programme. Pay attention to each word you use: does it say exactly what you wish [...]

We don’t always have another willing eye to judge our writing dispassionately. It’s a big ask. Your friends will hate you for it, and your partner is usually the wrong person altogether. A [...]

So you’re writing the first pages of your novel and want to set up the fact that Linda is as happy as she could ever hope to be with her new boyfriend Marvin. It’s important to your story because [...]