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In Search of Gawain's Green Chapel
Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century Middle English Arthurian romance. It draws on Welsh, Irish and English stories, as...
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Writing and Other Arts
'The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the...
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Why Protagonists Get Thinner
As you can read much more about in How Stories Really Work , protagonists are meant to be interesting. In fact, being interesting is both...
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The Attributes of Antagonists
Antagonists don’t often get the attention that they deserve. Or rather, that they feel they deserve. And that’s the root of their...
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Characters and Commitment
Being a writer is about all kinds of rules -rules about subject/verb agreement, punctuation, grammar, spelling- which you did actually...
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Two Poems in Different Keys
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker who is now considered to be a key figure...
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The Secrets of Creativity
I have been approached repeatedly about the so-called ‘secrets’ of creativity for as long as I can remember. The subject of creativity is...
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'War and Peace': A Few Comments about the Novel
I imagine that if a British author were to sit down today and write a comprehensive epic novel about Britain’s battle against fascism in...