I started work as a journalist when I left school to avoid university. It was an amazing education that taught me how to gather information, sort it into order and produce the required number of words against the clock. Court cases, council meetings, diamond weddings, football matches, elections, factory closures – on a local paper you do everything.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...