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In this, the fourth of four blogs – the 400th in the sequence – takes us back to the water, in this case, the River Great Ouse on which Trish and I frequently kayak, and in which I occasionally [...]

Frequently when we’re asked to assess someone’s manuscript, or help a writer brainstorm a story idea, we have to begin by stating a fundamental principle of fiction. It is, we say, a really bad [...]

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 Mann, he has Mann say [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Life is a narrative composed of multiple overlapping stories. This is true for every one of the eight billion or so there are of us. Each of those stories can be told in terms of a series of [...]

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 faithfully [...]

I’ve sometimes stressed how important it is, in creating the world of story, to use accurate details. Accuracy is really important because it lends credibility even to situations that are, on the [...]

Start every morning with a little strenuous exercise. Well, of course it would be good for you to walk around the park, or swim twenty lengths, but I’m actually not talking about that kind [...]

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 [...]