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“I’m in London in a hotel listening to a couple behind me about to embark on an affair. It’s very exciting. I noted him putting his wedding ring in his pocket in the elevator on the way back from [...]

For obvious reasons, we usually spend a great deal of time thinking about the protagonist of our stories. He or she is unambiguously our Hero. But we don’t spend as much time as we should on the [...]

Writers observe. Their observations serve as the foundations on which characters are built and stories developed. We’re in Venice at the moment on our annual retreat – rudely interrupted by Covid [...]

Once in a while, when I have the time, I allow myself the luxury of writing an extremely abbreviated Monday Motivation. I was trawling through old notes of mine and came across a short and [...]

Whatever creative narrative you’re writing, the challenge is to establish a balance between character and story. Readers are happy if the writer uses story simply as the washing line on which to [...]

The significant detail can usually nail a description, or pierce to the essence of a character. Think of the sentence from a Guy de Maupassant story: “He was a gentleman with red whiskers [...]

I bet you’re a kind and compassionate person. You might not be an animal lover, but you’d never be wantonly cruel to a mutt.  You don’t taunt homeless people as losers. If you were confronted [...]