The roller-coaster ride of publishing a novel
It’s not often that a writer gets to blow his own trumpet, but it’s the second anniversary of the publication of The Breaking of Liam Glass and much to celebrate and be grateful for. My…
Openings
It was like they weren’t there. This is the opening sentence of my novel The Breaking of Liam Glass. Why did I write the opening as I did and not in one of a million…
What makes good writing great?
What sorts the Austens from the Dan Browns? The Truffauts from the Ed Woods? It’s not using clever words. It’s not making a political statement. It’s not even necessarily creating a dazzling plot. This is…
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…
Till the trumpets crack – going beyond
In the second movement of Beethoven’s masterful symphony the ‘Eroica’ the music takes the form of a funeral march, building to a dramatic climax where the two trumpets have to play an almost impossible phrase.…
Has Amazon deleted your reviews?
A few weeks ago I wrote a blog in which I said how important reviews were to authors and readers. Imagine my shock, then, when I discovered that Amazon has developed an algorithm to delete…
How to write a riveting review
This week, an art that is both very new and almost as old as writing itself – writing reviews. First, a thank you to everyone who’s written reviews of my books. The number of Amazon…
Rules for novelists writing rules for novelists
Many writers have handed down their golden rules for novelists. There seems to come a moment in every writer’s life when he or she feels it’s time to share what made them a success. This…
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 two myths about keeping and breaking the rules
There are two myths that go around about keeping and breaking the rules. I’m not only talking about writing – the same myths apply to just about anything in the arts, and in fact anything…
Living on the edge
It was one of these special places on the edge of things. Where you place a novel or screenplay is one of the most important decisions a writer makes. As I started planning the novel…
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 find new ideas? The blank page is your friend
Don’t know how to find new ideas? Your mind blank? We say we’re afraid of the blank page, but in fact the empty page is exactly what you need. As long as you start to…
Small things can be important too
Small things can be important too. Sometimes, I sweat for an hour over a paragraph, a line of dialogue, a single word. I’ve known comedy writers argue for ages over whether the number 35 is…
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…
The challenge of finding subtext in interrogations
Unusual dialogue: subtext in interrogations:I’ve written a number of articles on dialogue and subtext but this week playwright Sarah Hamilton came up with a problem about subtext in interrogations that I’d not covered before. Sarah…
What book blurbs really mean
When the Man Booker shortlist was announced earlier this year, Andrew Holgate of the Sunday Times noted how the judges slagged off the while industry of creative book blurbs along with the celebrity quotes that…