35 Years of Devil in a Blue Dress
Devil in a Blue Dress is celebrating its 35th anniversary. Walter Mosley’s bestseller broke new ground and was snapped up by Hollywood. It opened up whole new possibilities for Black writers. But do either book…
Breaking bad? Review of Graham Greene’s Travels with My Aunt
I’m very into re-reading at the moment (if you’re interested there’s a great article on the subject by novelist Richard Bradbury) but this week’s review is of a book I re-read by accident. To be…
How to create a character that lives
This week I talked to Bonnie D Graham on her radio programme Read My Lips. (You can listen to the recording here) As often happens, she wanted to know how I create the characters for…
Wants and Needs in writing
Wants and Needs in Writing A few weeks ago I wrote about my GOATS method for writing fiction and screenplays. Anna Mönnich wrote in response from Germany. Her email brings up an issue that often…
The GOATS method for writing and editing
How to write powerful stories using the GOATS method. Great stories possess great power. Whether fiction, movies, TV or theatre, they have the power to move, to change people’s lives (and even to earn their…
14 ways to develop characters your readers will love
Or develop characters they’ll hate… envy… admire… care about… Character is at the heart of every story – whether for stage, screen or printed page. A film, book or play can be brilliantly written, exquisitely…
Darkness in the Pacific: Review – Black Water by Louise Doughty
Agents, publishers, books on writing tell you to write about nice characters who grow and learn. Louise Doughty clearly missed that memo. Her characters are troubled, rarely nice, placed in dark situations. Nazi mass killing…
How to avoid the crime fiction trap
Crime is the post popular genre in fiction and on screen today, but many writers fall into the crime fiction trap. Understanding the crime fiction trap The big trap in crime movies and novels is that the…
How to weave research into a screenplay
Jacob Berry writes: I am writing a documentary screenplay on witchcraft in the American Pentecostal church, which occurred back in the 1980s. I have a problem. I have quoted from books on the subject to…
How not to write a dark story – The Judge
The new Robert Downey Jnr, Robert Duvall movie The Judge brilliantly shows how to write a dark story of bitter relationships. Unfortunately, that’s not all it shows. Someone decided at some point in the script’s development to…
Writing a gripping thriller
I’m delighted to be talking about Writing a Gripping Thriller for Hayley McKenzie’s blog ScriptAngel. You can read the full article below. Hayley is a great person and script consultant, who’s based in the Midlands. So…
Review: Straight White Male
Straight White Male by John Niven My rating: 4 of 5 stars How do you succeed in creating a difficult central character, indeed a quite obnoxious one, and yet persuade your readers to fall in…
Use the Bake Off rule to improve your scripts
Bake Off is back. But is there something we can learn from the series’ success? Aside from how to bake a better cup-cake. What is it that makes Bake Off so successful? It’s clearly not complexity of plot.…
How do writers come up with character names for their scripts?
Could you do more when it comes to naming characters in your scripts? Top of my list of faults are names that are bland, cliché, too similar, or just plain wrong. But how do the top writers do it?
How to express yourself without killing your screenwriting career
There’s a phrase that’s popular among writing courses at the moment – we’re all expected to “express ourselves”. Self-expression is the thing. And it certainly is, if you want to kill your career stone dead. This article tells you how to deal with big issues and get away with it.
8 ways to make your characters come vividly to life
To create living, interesting characters, you need to draw on your experience of life, and add to it. Or to put it another way, bring us your unique take on people. Here are 8 ways to help you do exactly that.
Fire Up Your Writing Career
Here’s a psychological tool to help with focusing your writer’s mind – dealing with issues such as procrastination and self-sabotage, and staying creative.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Screenwriter
I have a soft spot for Le Carré and I went to see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with certain trepidation. The reviews were good, but not universally so, and adaptations can be dire – especially…