Tense and point of view: part two first person

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

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

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.

This month’s story, ‘A School Story’ by M.R. James, is a ghost story within a frame narrative. It offers a number of interesting features, and, as always, you will get the most out of this masterclass

L If they’re ever looking to recruit spies, forget handsome, fit, blue-eyed Bonds. Forget gym-buffed Daniel, impossibly good-looking Tom and danger magnet Matt. Look instead for a middle-aged woman in

The lyric essay is a relatively new form of creative non-fiction, and it’s often considered the most challenging to write because it is hard to describe and define. In fact, the key is blurring bounda