It’s almost that time of year again. Get your pens and keyboards ready because NaNoWriMo is just around the corner! Whether this is your first time or you’ve already published a book, November is a ...

This novel started with a knock at the window. I was sitting in a train about to leave London for Glasgow when my girlfriend tapped on the glass, her face fallen, eyes brimming with tears. She had ...

Have you ever thought about what it takes to become a bestselling writer? If so, The Truth About Lisa Jewell is the book for you. It is the story of how a novel is written, from before the start to ...

Writing a crime series. In some ways, writing a standalone crime novel is easy. You don’t have to worry about continuity.

What to Put in a Suitcase is a collection of sixteen short stories of various lengths, some as short as four or five pages, but none more than eleven. As the back cover blurb states, these stories, ‘… ...

Launched by author Vikki Patis, Book Fuel is an online auction to raise money for National Energy Action, a charity which works to end fuel poverty in the UK. It is estimated that around 4 million ...

Sam Blake has been writing fiction since her husband set sail across the Atlantic for eight weeks and she had an idea for a book. Her debut novel, Little Bones, was No 1 in Ireland for four weeks, and ...

Literary and book festivals are a great way to learn more about your craft and access experts in the field. At the forthcoming Red Line Book Festival, Tramp Press founder and editor Sarah Davis-Goff ...

It started – as many momentous things do – with a throwaway remark. Helen Norton and myself – friends for 20 years – frequently bemoaned the shortsightedness of theatre companies in failing to cast us ...

In this week’s Really Useful Links column, I thought I would turn the focus towards podcasts and take a look at some of the wonderful writing related series available. There are thousands of writing ...

Paul Anthony Shortt believes in magic and monsters; in ghosts and fairies, the creatures that lurk under the bed and inside the closet. The things that live in the dark, and the heroes who stand ...

Another truism is that genre fiction emphasises plot more than literary fiction. But plot is always there, even if the reader can’t see it. What you might find is that in literary fiction, plot always ...