There are many versions of The Handless Maiden from around the world. It’s a fairy tale that was collected by the Brothers Grimm in 1812, but its roots are much older. This telling is my adaptation of the tale with gratitude to Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Read the introduction to this series here or follow the… Continue reading The Handless Maiden (complete story)
Here’s a randomly generated short story I created using Plot Generator – a site that lets you input various details and then creates a random story with your settings. You can use it to get inspiration or just to mess about and have a laugh. The results are proof that creative writing involves a little… Continue reading Proof that robots will never be authors
This exercise uses a newspaper headline as a starting point for a piece of writing. It’s not about trying to write something perfect or even interesting, just take a headline from a newspaper or online and see what ideas it triggers. Allow your pen to go with the flow of whatever comes up and write… Continue reading Writing Exercise: Newspaper Headline
This writing exercise is a way to challenge yourself and have fun at the same time. The idea is to pick three random words, the more disconnected from each other the better, and then add an emotion. Then you write for ten minutes and incorporate all the words in a way that conveys the emotion… Continue reading Writing Exercise: Random Story Generator
The Newcastle Writing Conference included various break-out sessions, such as websites and blogging, how to edit your work, vlogging, and meet the agent with Mark Stanton. But I chose the pitching session, because I already have a blog, I didn’t have a piece of work I was willing to share in the editing session, I… Continue reading Writing Conference Notes: Part 2 – Pitching
“One does not become conscious by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” – CG Jung There’s a demonic creature that stalks us through our nightmares. He targets the innocent and the hopeful. He squats in the dark, hidden until he attacks. He wants to destroy us, to stop us from growing… Continue reading Going Dark: Stalking the Predator
Learn the rules of your craft. Only break the rules when you understand why not breaking them would ruin your story. >Writer’s Manifesto (pdf)
The Euroscript development process was coming to an end and I received my final report from Fenella Greenfield in March 2009. So far in this series I’ve been focusing on the problems I had with the screenplay, but it’s important to mention the positive feedback too. Alongside the notes written into the script were brief… Continue reading How to Develop a Screenplay: Part 4 – Final Notes
The Euroscript development process was going well and the second report from Fenella Greenfield arrived in November 2008. This was when things started to get tricky. Second Rewrite Many of the problems of the previous draft had been addressed. Calum’s character arc was now clearer, well written and more intriguing; the central relationship between the… Continue reading How to Develop a Screenplay: Part 3 – Tone and Theme
Winning the Euroscript Competition was the easy part. Next came a string of rewrites and learning how to deal with an intensive development process which made me feel challenged, elated, baffled, and conflicted by turns. The first script report from Fenella Greenfield arrived in August 2008 and was a shattering experience. It consisted of a… Continue reading How to Develop a Screenplay: Part 2 – Deconstruction
In 2008 I had a stroke of beginner’s luck when I won a screenwriting competition. The prize involved developing three drafts with a script editor, and this short series explores that process. First posted on my old blog in 2010, this rewritten version now includes extracts to illustrate the development of the script as I… Continue reading How to Develop a Screenplay: Part 1 – Idea
Creating dialogue is one of the most enjoyable and the most challenging parts of writing. Dialogue isn’t like real speech. If you write dialogue to resemble real speech you’ll end up with something unreadable. If you don’t believe me, record a conversation between your friends or family, then transcribe it word for word. It’s a… Continue reading How to Write Dialogue
