Archives

Writing fiction requires that you deliberately trigger out-of-body experiences. You create characters whose consciousness you attempt to inhabit, so that you might the better be able to describe, [...]

Should you allow your characters to run off with the story? I was asked this again recently while teaching a Summer School course on fiction writing at a local university. […]

What books does your character read, if any? We all know, or we should, that one of the most crucial parts of writing fiction involves developing your characters. Build them, […]

For 40 years the New York artist Cindy Sherman has been photographing herself in a huge variety of disguises, playing a remarkable number of dramatic roles, pretending to be, oh, […]

Let me make a quite unremarkable observation that writing a story is, in its own right, a Hero’s Journey. Join me as I trace the Writer’s Journey over the course […]

It’s called “argument by authority” and all the best rhetoricians frown on it. A bad argument, they say, is not improved by quoting an authoritative voice in support of it. […]

I’ve been wondering why conflict is that absolutely essential element of drama that we’ve always argued it is. We’ve said that conflict creates uncertainty, uncertainty creates suspense – will he [...]

We’ve had someone on our mentoring programme who has been struggling for months with a story, which just hasn’t been coming together. The main character didn’t ring true. We couldn’t […]

I had a chat with a television production designer recently. This is the person who’s responsible for the look of a production, which includes the set design, and the dressing […]

How has your name affected your life? I used to have a photographer friend who believed you could judge people on their names. “Their parents named them and then socialised […]

Characters need to be active participants in their own fate. This might sound like obvious advice but I’ve been reading a number of manuscripts recently in which events simply overtake […]