Tips for Writers

It’s a perennial problem for writers – the long conversation which reveals essential information. The solution? Well, the short answer is: try to avoid them if you possibly can, [...]

Be aware of your connection to your character – that silver thread that attaches you to them – and you’ll write better. I believe this and I’ve seen it again and again. Consider this paragraph, [...]

Each scene in a story is linked to one that came before it – even if not directly before it. Something happens in one scene, which causes a development in one that comes after. That gives a [...]

  If we read like writers, we find constant lessons – both good and bad – which will aid our writing. Here’s a lovely one from one of my favourites, Maggie O’Farrell. In This Must Be the [...]

We don’t need to follow your characters into the bathroom to brush their teeth, unless something significant happens there. Likewise, we don’t need to know every step they take to the kitchen or [...]

Memoir writers often start out with less trepidation than their fiction-scribbling peers. They already know the story, right? They’re familiar with the characters, and they can picture the scenes [...]

I read a manuscript recently in which the protagonist gazed out at the sun-filled park. Okay, fair enough, perhaps it gives us some sense of his world … but not much, let’s be honest. There was [...]

All About Writing’s latest writing challenge offers the winner a place on our creative writing ​Coaching Programme: Focus on scenes.  It’s a fourteen step programme with your own personal [...]

I am approached all the time by people who tell me they’re keen to write a book, and when I ask what it’s about, they say … the Indian uprising of 1857, or the Irish troubles, or the Great War… [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]