Monday Motivation: Buttons and hypodermic needles
On Page 382 of Colm Toibin’s The Magician, a biographical novel which takes as its subject the life of one of the twentieth century’s most revered writers, the German Thomas […]
Monday Motivation: Devilishly convincing details
Creative writing is not, as some suppose, an arcane art over which only the select few are ever granted mastery, or to which there is access via a magic key, a secret skill available only to the [...]
Monday Motivation: How to lie convincingly
We sometimes throw around words like “truthful” and “honest” when we’ve been particularly impressed by a novel or short story we’ve read. We say of James Joyce’s Ulysses that it […]
Writing Secrets: What do reading and magic carpets have in common?
Specific details are magical. That was the gist of my blogs over the past couple of weeks: give us just one or two specific details, and we’ll be transported to […]
Writing Secrets: Tips for making reading an immersive experience
A character is running through a crowd. She elbows passers-by, bumps into someone, shoves aside a group… Okay, we know what she’s doing, but we’re not there with her. Not […]
Writing Secrets: Long conversations can be boring – in life and story
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, [...]
Monday Motivation: Make details do double-duty
Consider for a moment the four-dimensional world you live in. You might well be sitting at your computer at this very moment, reading these words… But a few minutes ago, […]
