How to Write a Page-turner using a flatulent donkey
My man-servant Igor stands at the door of the lab holding a tray of bread and water. ‘You must eat, Doktor!’ ‘No, dear Igor,’ I cry. ‘There is no time. I’m almost there. The secret formula that has eluded and tormented writers for so long is within my grasp. How to...
To Understand the Meaning of ‘Show Don’t Tell’, Try This Simple Trick: Reincarnation.
Writing tutors are forever exhorting us to ‘show don’t tell’.It’s a bit like being told to eat your greens when you were a child. One man even returned from the grave to remind us of its importance. His name was Sonny Graham. He became, for a while, a tabloid...
What My Job in the 15th-Century Plague Hospital Taught Me About Writing a Bestseller
The big wooden door of Santa Maria della Scala hospital creaked open. The Blessed Saint Bernadine of Siena peered through the gap. ‘Yes?’ he said, inspecting me through rheum-filled eyes. ‘I’ve come about the job.’ ‘Job?’ ‘The Corpse-washer.’ I held up the...
Try the World’s Cheapest Novel-Writing Course
A round-Oxford bus ticket. £4.30. That’s all. For the price of two cups of coffee, you can lay the ghost that wanders through the labyrinth of your heart. You can finally get started on that novel. Begin your pilgrimage in London at that railway station named after...
How to get an agent to read your first novel, using the vacuum cleaner trick.
As a first time novelist trying to break in, what’s the worst thing that can happen to you? This: You spend years of your life pursuing your dream of writing a novel. Years of pain, sacrifice, denial, tears, agonising self-doubt,...
To Succeed as a Novelist, you Don’t Need Chekhov’s Gun
You need his time machine. Pick up a few creative writing textbooks, and sooner or later, you will come across a reference to the famous adage coined by Anton Chekhov, called Chekhov’s Gun. It goes like this: If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle...