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What is it that makes a character come across as a caricature, rather than a finely drawn person we can believe in? Well, clearly, two-dimensionality plays its part. If you draw your world in [...]

I’ve spoken before about the implicit contract a writer strikes with her reader – a contract that includes such clauses as: I promise to tell a full story, paying proper attention to my [...]

In a thoughtful article recently in The New York Times, Dara Horn took a few well-aimed swipes at billionaires who devote significant fractions of their fortunes to research into… immortality. [...]

Even seasoned writers sometimes forget about what characters want. The more we work with writers and their stories, the more I’ve come to realise that “wanting” is the very essence of narrative. [...]

What is fiction best at? Opening up other worlds? Introducing us to people beyond our usual circle? Enabling us to escape the quotidian into landscapes in which love, justice and truth finally [...]

One of our mentoring participants is busy writing a charming memoir about settling in a small community – trying to make friends and build a meaningful life among the sometimes eccentric people [...]

Being a writer sometimes demands that you put on the mask and the costume of a moral philosopher. I’ve just heard three writers doing just that in a conversation they held about the ways in which [...]

I attended the Kingsmead Book Fair this weekend, until the knives of a stiff winter breeze drove me home. But I was there long enough to note down a phrase that the moderator of a session I [...]

In life, people do sometimes behave out of character – but there’s usually a reason. If you’ve ever done one of our courses, you’ll know the store we set by developing characters before you begin [...]

I’ve written about lies and liars before because writers (of fiction, at least) are, looked at from the right angle, professional liars. But there’s another way in which lies and lying permeates [...]

Here’s the premise of your story: your character has been travelling around India in search of the meaning of life. One day, she awakes and realises the answer she seeks is not here. It was at [...]

Let’s examine how a master story-teller whips a little literary confection into existence. Stephen King is the dude I’m thinking of – and the confection in question is a feature that appeared in [...]