Award winning writer & short story glutton.
Writing tips
Four short story writers who put place at the heart of their stories This week, as we continue the elusive pursuit of the ‘magic recipe’ for short stories, we look at four short story writers whose sense of place transports the reader so firmly into the story’s setting that the setting becomes, in …
Character: I’ve put a question mark after the title this week, since I wouldn’t want anyone to believe that I think there’s actually such a thing as a ‘magic recipe’ for writing a short story. It’s a mighty subtle form, and no list of ingredients and mixing instructions will guarantee success. But looking at how …
Voice The next few posts will be about great short stories and what makes them so good. There is, naturally enough, no single magic recipe. But it seems to me that there are three main types of recipe, or perhaps three distinct types of ‘short story cookbook’, each as different in style as, say, Delia …
Writing is remorselessly, pitilessly, ruthlessly solitary. Yet, for all that, the act can be performed perfectly well in a busy café, or surrounded by noisy kids or – my favourite place of all – on a train. But the process itself demands something meditative: the capacity to take your whole self into that part of …