A Writer's Life: 9th March 2009

I've completed the final draft of my current novel. I shall rejoice for a heartbeat and then I will plunge back into its dark deep depths. To polish it. Over the last few months I've read an enormous amount about the craft of forging fiction. I've learned some hard lessons along the way and I pause for a moment to tell you where I'm at so that it might help you too. I hit a wall in December. The novel, T.S., is technically a difficult one and I was unhappy with the draft. I withdrew for a period and read as much as I could about fiction. I scrutinised...

The Aim of a Story

ALL writers must create what John Gardner termed the 'uninterrupted fictional dream'. What does this mean? When you pen a story you must aim to ensnare the reader in a waking dream so evocative that the reader cannot even break their gaze for a single second. The toast will burn, the kettle will boil and all the water evaporate, the final minute goal by Manchester United will be missed, the tile will fall from the roof and smash the window and...