Writing

How to write dialogue is one of the first things a budding storyteller can master with just a bit of practice and effort. That's not to say that writing dialogue is easy- it's not. But, once you realize the purpose of dialogue in a story and hone in on all those pesky formatting rules, it can become intuitive.  Read more

Imagine the first writer's block: perhaps a caveman with a rudimentary stick staring at a large, blank rock. Today's equivalent of the blank rock may be a computer screen, and your process may seem like the pie chart below.

The novel has died again. I've been baited into reading yet another obituary, this time written by the Secret Author (a "former professor of English and creative writing at a leading British university") who laments, in the Critic magazine, the decline of serious novels about middle-class morals and God, in favour of those focusing on "identity politics".  Read more

For most of my life, I didn't want to call myself a writer. Not when I was a kid, scribbling at night in my notebook, writing stories about dogs with wings, or changing the endings of Disney films (what if Princess Jasmine just ran off with her tiger?). Not when I was a teenager, trying my hand at thinly-veiled satires of my parents and friends.  Read more

Writing about the people you are closest to can be one of the most rewarding experiences a writer can have-but also the scariest. This is a big topic, so I will cover it in two parts. First: what to put on the page. And second: how to deal with your subjects' reactions to what you write about them.