A way to drop description

Of course, you can’t. Description gives a situation context. It locates your characters and story in a time and place. If you want it can describe the mood, what those characters are wearing, how they feel. It’s the typical scenario...

Off to church

‘I do I dooooo Iiiiiiii doo Mmmmmm I Arthur James Smethwick do take, hrmmmmm. I whatever do take Molly Rose Bimble. God I mustn’t laugh. Molly Rose Bimble as my lawful wedded wife.’ ‘Art, are you ready, what are you...

Bird sport

And welcome to the 45th Bird Olympics being held here in Hawk Bay where we are at the poolside for the water polo. Normally thought to be a shoe-in for the Gannets. This year the Starlings, seen here in the...

If at first you don’t succeed, don’t throw it away!

Unless you have the most massive ego, you will inevitably be displeased by some things you write, especially early in your apprenticeship. The first law of ‘Write Club’ (I honestly can’t believe I wrote that, hohum) is never throw anything...

Nodding candles – an exercise in pace

The table was narrow. Two dinner plates would almost touch in its width. It was littered. A few bread crumbs, an ashtray, wine glasses, a box of wine, shreds of tobacco, rizlas, a lighter – the residue, the remainders, the...

Titanic – something from nothing

Would you mind?…. This is my raft Oh don’t try and play that everlasting romance trick on me, and it’s not Rose, it’s Miss DeWitt Bukater The water might be cold, that’s what you get when there are icebergs around...

Pick the words to suit the mood

While we are encouraged to ‘show, don’t tell’ and build pace and mood into our dialogue, sometimes there is just insufficient action and dialogue to satisfy the requirements. The narrator is then called upon to fulfil the obligation of creating...

Thud

It was fog. It was a very, very dense fog. London had not experienced such a pea-souper since the 1950s when coal fires spewed forth their hearths into the lower atmosphere for it only to sink to street level and...

Where to begin

There’s an easy answer – anywhere you like. Sadly inspiration doesn’t come to us neatly packaged. We can’t open a box and find a set of instructions that will turn out to be a perfect, flat-pack novel. We must be...

Sentence length helps with pace

Listen to the people around you and watch television. When we argue aggressively we tend to use short sentences. The words are thrown together in outbursts without a huge amount of consideration. When we are having a discussion, we build...

The circle conundrum

‘What are you doing?’ said Pooh. ‘I’m drawing a circle,’ said Eeyore. ‘I need to work out the diameter. What’s twice plus?’ ‘Plusplus,’ said Tigger and in a single boing found himself in a rose bush. ‘Ooh and OOWWWW.’ ‘It...

Anger – another exercise in pace

‘Fuck off, you bastard.’ She screamed the words at him. She spat them. If they’d been bullets he would be dead. The Saturday traffic sped past. An island in the middle of a High Street thronged with shoppers wasn’t where...

Retirement

Well, that’s that then. It’s all over. At last. Tomorrow life begins again. Every minute of every test match as it happens, uninterrupted. Day after day. Every ball, every wicket, every run. Lunch at lunch, tea at tea. Supper at...

Standing

Five hours he’d stood there, five. He’d moved around nonchalantly at first. Made tea for them both, albeit awkwardly. He’d successfully emptied the shopping bag after he’d decided bending down to remove the contents wasn’t going to work and he...

Something from nothing

Write, write, write, write, write. If you’re alone, write while the kettle boils. On a bus or train, write some more. Coffee, lunch or tea break, write something else. The only way to become a fluent write is to do...

Welcome to the World of pure dolor ipsum tortor pretium.

Egestas gravida erat enim ac morbi at malesuada arcu habitant blandit pulvinar tellus consectetur mi at suscipit sit sit pulvinar amet convallis imperdiet pretium, egestas scelerisque imperdiet duis aenean turpis dui scelerisque sit massa semper risus, vitae volutpat sodales eget.

Best selling books

Est proin massa

Ultrices aliquam

Scroll to Top