Making a Living as a Writer
When you’re trying to make a living as a writer, it can seem at times that you live in a pretty merciless world. Being a writer is not...
The Two Hearts of the Doctor
Let me confess immediately that I don’t like River Song as a character (though Alex Kingston does an excellent job with her as an...
What Can Clarendon House Publications Do For Your Fiction?
If you're really serious about writing, you need to know something about the secret language of fiction -how stories really work. We're...
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...
Why Protagonists Get Thinner
As you can read much more about in How Stories Really Work, and as has been written about earlier on this blog, protagonists are meant to...
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...
How to Improve Your Essay Writing Skills In Minutes
For many years I was the Head of the English Department in a small independent school in Sussex. I’ve also tutored private students of...
Characters and Commitment
Being a writer is about all kinds of things -rules about subject/verb agreement, punctuation, grammar, spelling- which you did actually...
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...
Getting Into Print For Real
There are a lot of obstacles in the way for a writer who wants to be published, many of them before a first draft is completed. You need...