Right, the first thing that a story needs is a thing – a material object of some sort that can be picked up or otherwise moved around. Mr But (we’re going to hear a bit from him – unless I cut him entirely as being too annoying) says: It is quite easy to imagine an […]
Okay. Often what you will have written for the first sentence is something like: ‘A story is… a personal journey of growth and discovery involving struggle and eventual triumph or defeat’ or: ‘..is about a character who faces a dilemma that forces them to define more clearly who they are through their choices.’ All these […]
We’re going to put together three basic things without which a story can’t exist (without, that is, great and sometimes gloriously perverse efforts by the writer). These things will, when I first describe them, almost certainly seem to you very oversimplified. (And perhaps familiar, if you have looked at the Starting to Write course. […]
Either/Or/Or I am guessing you are one of three sorts of writer. Does this sound like you? You have hundreds of ideas. You have dozens of opening sentences. You have lots and lots of half-stories. You have a few stories that have even reached what you once hoped was the end, but which turned out merely […]
Lots of writing manuals (yes, this is a writing manual) begin by addressing a virgin subject – a person who has always wanted to write and now has found the time to commit.This is not you – you are not this.
I’ve written a writing manual, and I’m going to serialise it here. It’s called Writing and Shit by Toby Litt. It’ll be weekly. It’ll be free. It’ll include exercises. And you can help me a lot – if you think you can learn something from it – by commenting on what you found useful and […]
If you can’t do Step 9 immediately, go back to Step 8. If you can’t do that, go back to Step 7, and so on. 9. Get a Publisher Your typescript is ready to go. It’s just great. You can do nothing more to improve it. Your Agent (see 8) agrees. Send it out in full […]
Today, some good news – a short story of mine, ‘Impatience,’ has been longlisted for the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award. It’s the impatient version of my novel, Patience, which will come out in August 2019. The story is very similar, in both, but also – I hope – radically different. Readers who are curious about […]
I wrote this a few years ago, for the Guardian, shortly after Hanif Kureishi had dismissed Creative Writing courses as ‘a waste of time’. This, in my mind, is why they might not be: Although we give classes on the technical aspects of writing, one of the most basic things we give is more basic. […]
