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We like to say that the best beginning – of a book or short story – should contain a hook and a promise. Hook your reader, and promise them more. That’s fine in theory, posed one of our [...]

The Retreat, Venice, 2019 All About Writing’s 2019 Venice Retreat, which ran for two full weeks for the first time, attracted participants from around the world: Canada, the US, the UK and [...]

“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 [...]

If I were to give you a writing exercise challenging you to describe yourself, how would you go about it? What sort of information would you give? Well, of course I have no idea whatsoever what [...]

How to fight your way out of a writer’s block: Free, live webinar  Douglas Adams, whose star shines brighter today than ever, is famous among writing and publishing communities for [...]

In 1953, a writer submitted a dog-eared manuscript to Faber and Faber. It was the seventh publisher he’d approached and he was not optimistic that it would be taken up. The writer was by all [...]

Remember just this one magical point, and you’ll be an infinitely better writer for it. There’s great power in specific details. I was recently asked: “But surely some specific details, about [...]

Let’s look beyond the obvious in the old tenets of writing advice. We all know that “showing” is supposed to be better than “telling”. We know, for instance, that we should use all our senses [...]

Mishaps happen all the time in writing. Most of them are little niggles, easily erased during a light edit. In one chapter the stable boy has a shock of blond hair; in the next he’s a girl with a [...]

I recently read a book called Moneyland, in which Oliver Bullough explores the many and ingenious ways in which the world’s superrich hide their wealth and avoid paying taxes. It’s as if the [...]

The instant we meet people, we start computing. We take in cues, without even realising it, and come to conclusions. Some of these we’ll adjust with time. Others we’ll confirm. It’s the same with [...]

Common threads run through many of humanity’s endeavours. Analysis in one field turns out to be startlingly appropriate in another. Artists seize on some of the more bizarre findings of quantum [...]