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However grand your story idea, however vivacious your characters, the success of any writing project always boils down to the sentences you write, and the words you use to do […]

We met at La Piazza in St Paul’s Square, just a stone’s throw from the river, for coffee. The sun was shining. The crowds of people browsing for vegetables at […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 [...]

I sometimes feel that I’m like Spronkie – one of our cats – who spends those portions of each day that he isn’t sleeping, circling our house. I’m not sure […]

It’s become a trope of popular philosophy: take care of the little things (pennies, broken windows, chores) and the big things will take care of themselves (pounds, violent crimes, your […]

Scratch a science fiction fan and you’ll find someone inordinately ready to suspend his disbelief.  We’re willing to throw ourselves into alternative universes in which intelligent gas clouds [...]

Today we crossed London from Paddington Basin in the heart of the West End to Limehouse Basin in the east. It’s a journey of nine miles, and descends through twelve […]

I’m falling in love – with long sentences. I have come across a number in a novel called The Nix by Nathan Hill. (The New York Times said of Hill […]