This week I’m talking to bestselling author Sam Blake. Originally from St. Albans in Hertfordshire, Sam has two teenagers, three cats and lives in a 200-year-old cottage at the foot of the Wicklow mountains with…
I’m delighted this week to host a question and answer session with the successful crime author and screenwriter Adam Hamdy. Adam is the author of the acclaimed Pendulum trilogy, an epic series of conspiracy thriller novels, nominated…
Louise Doughty is one of the most interesting authors today. Refusing to be pigeon-holed, every book breaks new ground. Her novels have been shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and longlisted for the Orange Prize…
The panto season has started early this year. Everyone loves live entertainment. (I’m even doing a live appearance myself on December 6th – more on this to the right and below). Here in the UK…
The other day I came across a Bono quote that made me stop and think. I’d been looking for material to help research my next novel, which happens to feature a politicised rock star, and I stumbled on…
If things have been a bit quiet here, I’ve been off on a writer’s holiday for a week – on a river cruise down the Danube. We’d seen the ads on TV, half believed them…
It’s a truism that writing is a lonely business, but much as we want a writers community to connect with, us writers also want time alone. We’re cussed bastards really. Not happy if we’re left…
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.
Last night I learned a great deal that I wasn’t expecting to – both about war and about writing.
The writers and filmmakers who work with determined conviction are the ones who will succeed in this industry.
This may sound strange, but did you know that writing a good scene may not be right for your script – sometimes only a bad scene will do. This week I reached a climactic point…
Here’s a deceptively simple method for literally getting your work to move forwards – but don’t be fooled. Like many simple ideas it can be profoundly useful. It works for all kinds of screenwriting, and other creative work, and also for problems in directing and producing.
Most people hate writing treatments. Not me, I love them. This is how I used a treatment to hook a top star comedian and the BBC in just five pages – and how you can too.
How can the most successful video on YouTube help you find screenwriting success?
IS YOUR SCRIPT STUCK ON THE BRIDGE? Back from holiday, I’ve been thinking about a massive underpublicised reason why far too many writers don’t sell. If you’re a writer, then you want to sell your…
What is the key question you need to ask to sell your script? The right question follows soon. First here’s the wrong question.
Want your script to stand out from the crowd? Want it to be read from cover to cover and passed from hand to hand? It’s time to discover your inner playfulness. Playfulness is not the…
Most people understand if a few typos or stylistic solecisms slip through in an email or (perish the thought) in a blog post. These are informal media. But a treatment or script is different. Unlike other forms of writing, they can easily contain hidden traps.