CLARENDON HOUSE PUBLICATIONS

Picture successful fiction as a kind of solar system: around a central star which is the theme or governing idea of a piece of work orbit...

Writing fiction tends to begin with images. Writers pick up images from other books, from films, from life, and these manifest themselves...

Often a question arises on writers’ forums: ‘How should I use the backstory of a character?’ This goes along with questions about whether...

Learn: • what a story really is • what it is actually doing to and for you and other readers ​ • the magnetic power that attracts readers...

As writers, we have probably heard the advice ‘Show, don’t tell’. It’s worth closely examining why this advice is prevalent and why it is...

In How Stories Really Work, the term ‘Irony’ is used to describe a whole genre of fiction. It has very particular characteristics in...

If you are independently publishing a book - that is, doing it yourself rather than depending upon someone else to do it - the first...

Learn: • what a story really is • what it is actually doing to and for you and other readers ​ • the magnetic power that attracts readers...

Independently publishing your book can be a daunting process, but there is hope. Of all the data and requirements you’re bombarded with,...

In finishing your story, you are trying to do two basic things: 1. Make the ending seem like the consequence of everything that has...