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I’ve been dabbling in a little mystery writing inspired by life in the marina – and it’s denizens. This exercise has given me renewed faith in many of the writing topics I [...]

Writers of all stripes and levels of experience have something in common. It’s not necessarily a particular love of words. Some writers, after all, are moved more by a love of the rewards they [...]

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 [...]

People always talk about stand-up comedians and their timing – but you seldom hear people comment on the excellent timing of writers. And yet timing is essential to making a piece of writing [...]

I’ve been researching film structure. Perhaps because there’s so much money at stake in every movie – and unthinkable fortunes at risk in many movies – a great deal of thought has been devoted to [...]

Last night we went to a performance of Bizet’s Carmen staged under the stars in Verona’s Roman amphitheatre – the city’s famed Arena. I love opera, but I’m no buff. Chat amongst aficionados [...]

Three little questions from David Mamet, the American playwright and screenplay writer (think Glengarry Glen Ross, The Untouchables, The Verdict, Wag the dog). He’s addressing writers of film but [...]