How to start a novel – holiday or chaos?
I’m at that wonderful, scary, exciting, fearful point of starting to plan a new novel. The first glimmerings of ideas are beginning to come. The romantic view would be that they are like whispers in…
7 steps that make a satisfying ending
In 2000 the movie What Lies Beneath opened to mixed reviews. Despite a strong opening, cast (Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer) and director (Robert Zemeckis), reviewers talked of its “decomposing script” and said it “ran off…
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…
How to write visually for cinema and TV
The pressure to write visually can feel frightening, especially if you’re new to writing or have written for other media, such as novels and plays. What generally happens is that the writer overcompensates, filling the…
How to make your script editor-friendly
A big welcome to experienced producer, script-editor and writer Yvonne Grace, who drops in from Scriptadvice.com to talk about the best way to work with a script editor. I am often asked by my writers…
6 techniques for making your writing visual
Good visual writing puts pictures in the head of the reader without them realising you’re doing it. Here are 8 ways of doing exactly that.
What if your story is unconvincing?
Here’s a very nice blog post about what to do if you suddenly lose faith in what you’re writing
What do you do next? Procrastinate?
Last Monday I talked about finishing. So after you’ve finished – what do you do next? Do you push on straight to your next project, or what? I once invited psychologist Andrea Perry to come…
Are we there yet?
There must be something in the air: I’m in the mood for finishing things. I just finished writing a novel after a mammoth three years – and just finished the latest Euroscript Screen-PLAY Summer School…