We’re now going to look at some ways you can work on making the people you write about feel real and, if it’s what you need, likeable. PEOPLE? It might be easier to start referring to them as characters, but I’m going to stick with people, so as to keep them on the same level […]
STORIES VS TALES Warning: The picture I am about to draw is in crayon rather than in single hair brushstrokes. However, the overall picture is the important thing, and even more so where you appear in it. (And Mr But will have plenty of opportunities to speak up.) When I say ‘story’, in this context, […]
Most of the examples I have given so far have been quite straightforward, unsubtle. The idea of the runaway bride, although something you might be happy to gossip about, may be the kind of on-the-surface, twisty story that you would never allow yourself to write. But I think that the idea of Story-Time, and of […]
I’d like to move on from my two definitions of a story, but do keep your marked up story-start because we’ll be going back to it. I have tried very hard to find another way to talk about this next bit that avoids the phrase ‘Story-Time’. It has associations – not bad associations – of […]
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 […]
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. […]
