The story goes that Samuel Taylor Coleridge was inspired to write Kubla Khan from an opium dream. On awakening he claimed to have "a distinct recollection of the whole," and set about to write it down. Before he'd managed much more than a handful of lines, he was...
Pick up a book, start to read it and you'll meet a variety of characters. This is why so many of us read. Fiction is not just there for the pleasures of an escapist plot or evocative and descriptive passages. It's a chance to meet heroes and villains, dark brooding...
Accurate spelling is a necessity for those who wish to impart a clear and concise message. It's true that everyone makes mistakes and typos are easy to overlook. But the glaring anomaly of a spelling mistake comes with a hidden subtext. Each published and printed typo...
An awful lot of bullshit has been written about fictional dialogue. Here is my contribution. Dialogue is included in a story for three reasons. 1) Dialogue establishes character. 2) Dialogue moves the plot forward. 3) Dialogue imparts important information. Anything...
Snyder: "there's some things I can just smell. It's like a sixth sense." Giles: "No, actually that would be one of the five." — Buffy the Vampire Slayer It's easy to forget that we have five senses. Touch, taste, sight, sound and smell. (I've listed them so none of us...
I do everything I can to avoid frustration. I carry three cigarette lighters. The Zippo stays in my jeans pockets and it's the one I will use nine times out of ten. It's silver coloured and looks sleek, masculine and cool. There's a Bic disposable that perpetually...
Lao Tzu, the Chinese Taoist philosopher famously said: The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. This is bullshit. And don't let any sanctimonious pseudo writing instructor use this analogy as an argument encouraging you to put pen to paper. The...