A well-conveyed setting can transport readers into the world of your story like a magic carpet. In this article, writer and NCW Academy tutor Melissa Fu shares five things to consider when ‘setting' the setting.
They're the bogeymen of publishing. Along with prologues, adverbs, and semicolons, flashbacks may be the most vilified-and most misunderstood-of storytelling devices, ones that work only if they don't seem like devices.
'No two imaginations work in the same way. As I travel alongside each new student, I discover more about the myriad ways a mind can work, and where it can go'
Ken Follett's The Armor of Light is now available from Viking, so we asked him a few questions about his writing practice, his favorite books, and more.
I am not the kind of writer who finds every plot twist, detail of setting, and character description in my imagination. I am like a magpie when it comes to developing a story, shamelessly borrowing from and building on whatever I see and hear. Here's an example. Read more
Ruth Ware's new novel Zero Days was published yesterday by Simon & Schuster. It tells the story of Jack, a hacker who arrives home after an assignment goes horribly wrong, to find her husband dead. It soon becomes clear that the police have only one suspect in mind: her.
A solid story, compelling characters, and strong writing are a great start (especially when you combine that with an accurate understanding of the business of publishing).
But if you want your novel to stand out from the competition, in my experience, it has to have something extra.
What do you think is the most important element of a story? Some people say the plot. Others say the characters. They're both wrong. The most important element you need to develop for your story is a theme! So, today we'll learn how to write a strong theme. Read more
‘My success, I believe, stems from a combination of factors. Firstly, the freedom of self-publishing allowed me to explore and cater to my niche without being constrained by traditional publishing expectations. This direct connexion to readers, without intermediaries, provided invaluable feedback, enabling me to refine and better my work.
For the second in our profiles of bestselling authors, this week we're delighted to speak to Mark Billingham, who was recently presented with three Nielsen Bestseller Awards: gold for selling half a million copies of Sleepyhead, and silver for selling a quarter of a million copies of both Scaredy Cat and Buried, all published by Little, Brown.
My name has always felt, somehow, apart from me. But names, like all words, are approximations. From the day of my birth, I was called Christie, though it wasn't really my name. My real name was Christine. Well, my middle name was Christine. My first name - Miriam - I heard only at the receptionist's window of the dentist's office or on the first day of school. Read more
For the last two years, I've had unexpected success in experimenting with my "chipmunk research method." I was inspired to try this technique after hearing an intriguing comment made by my friend Oriano Belusic, past president of the Canadian Federation of the Blind (CFB).
When book sales spiked in 2020 and 2021, publishers believed one reason for the increase was that more people had turned to reading during the pandemic, and they were hopeful that some of those people would continue to read when things returned to normal. However, a new report from the National Endowment for the Arts seems to dash those hopes.
In early August, after Andrew Lipstein published The Vegan, his sophomore novel, a handful of loved ones asked if he planned to quit his day job in product design at a large financial technology company. Read more
‘I've always liked journeys, journeys where people meet sea monsters, or human monsters. There's something about people leaving everything they know and going into what they don't know where you actually learn a lot about people.'