Character development: writing characters over time

Novels, for me, have come from somewhere I wasn’t looking. In my twenties I was carrying an idea about a woman wandering around Ireland on a quest she didn’t understand and I sat in the Reading Room o

We have wandered many months through this land of Building Blocks. It is time for a break. Learning is a weary trek. And writing is not all about learning. Writing is about, well, writing. The doing o

FRANCE, October 1918. The chocolate bar in her apron pocket had been calling to her for hours before Priscilla Pickard was able to sneak out of the tent and have a moment’s peace. She wandered several

Life has a bad habit of mirroring art. Sometimes, this can be in a deeply sad way. A while after I wrote about the assumption of guilt in a traumatised young woman with poor social skills, I watched a

No one can edit for everything all at once. My systematic approach to editing breaks down the revision process into manageable activities. You focus on and improve one aspect of your novel at a time.

THERE’S a nice new girl working at the Post Office,” I said casually, as I unpacked my shopping on to the kitchen table. “Oh?” my daughter Debra answered, without looking up from her book. “Yes,” I co