How JoJo Moyes writes
“I’ve been in lots of airports over the last couple of years, but everybody knows someone who is having to deal with that kind of crap. The management structures, the targets, the endless upselling of...
View ArticleWriting Rules #8
Cut all clichés. If you don’t know what a cliché is, Google it. The post Writing Rules #8 appeared first on sandra danby.
View ArticleStuck: Sandra Danby is stuck, are you?
All three main characters in Rhoda Baxter’s new novel Please Release Me [published today] are stuck in some way. Sally, the heroine, is stuck in a coma but able to hear the world around her. Have you...
View ArticleGreat opening paragraph…77
“I was six years old the first time I disappeared. My father was working on a magic act for the annual Christmas show at the senior centre, and his assistant, the receptionist who had a real gold tooth...
View ArticleHow Paula Hawkins writes
“[she is interested in the ways in which]… our perfectly ordinary lives go horribly wrong… not the violence itself but the psychology that leads up to the violence and how things break down.” [in an...
View ArticleI agree with… Frederick Forsyth
“… [all authors are only half in the room] the other half is detached, watching, taking notes… I’ve always preferred not to join in, so I joined nothing… I used my separateness.” [in an interview with...
View ArticleWriting Rules #9
Work on a computer which is not connected to the internet. [tip: Zadie Smith] The post Writing Rules #9 appeared first on sandra danby.
View ArticleHow Jill Alexander Essbaum writes
“I use a lot of puns and rhyme and wonky meter. When I was writing this book, whenever I sort of hit a wall I stopped trying to think with my head, I tried to think with my ears and tried to figure out...
View ArticleGreat opening paragraph…78
“By our grandfather’s cabin, on the high ridge, opposite a slope of buckeye trees, Claire sits on her horse, wrapped in a thick blanket. She has camped all night and lit a fire in the hearth of that...
View ArticleI agree with… Benjamin Wood
“The only time I’ve ever been blocked on Twitter was because I was defending creative writing teaching. You cannot teach someone to have talent but what you can do, if you’re a good teacher, is to take...
View ArticleFlashPIC #9: Nothing of Value Left Overnight
As part of the Writers’ BLOCKbuster series, here is a picture to kickstart a short story. Use the photo as the starting point for a short story. Imagine a situation featuring this location and one of...
View ArticleBeware: the cost of quoting song lyrics
I think all writers do it. We try to put words into a character’s mouth, and a familiar, much-loved song lyric leaps to mind. DON’T. USE. IT. The expense of paying a royalty fee for using song lyrics...
View ArticleWriting Rules #10
When re-drafting, print the m/s and read it on the page. Write your corrections in coloured pen so they are easy to spot, and tick them once you’ve made the correction. I date things too, but that’s...
View ArticleGreat opening paragraph…79
“My name is Herbert Badgery. I am a hundred and thirty-nine years old and something of a celebrity. They come and look at me and wonder how I do it. There are weeks when I wonder the same, whole...
View ArticleWriting Rules #11
Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for [tip: Kurt Vonnegut] The post Writing Rules #11 appeared first on sandra danby.
View ArticleFlash fiction: Left or right
The tall dark figure stood behind the small pink one, at the open door of the coffee shop. They looked out at the wet pavement, the December squall pushing the rain horizontally into their faces....
View ArticleGreat Opening Paragraph…80
“For a temporary shorthand-typist to be present at the discovery of a corpse on the first day of a new assignment, if not unique, is sufficiently rare to prevent its being regarded as an occupational...
View ArticleWriting Rules #12
Writing Rules: Know your grammar; and if you don’t, check it. Buy yourself a grammar book, dictionary and thesaurus, and use them. If you don’t, copy-editing will be a long, painful and costly process....
View ArticleFlashPIC #10: Looking Over the Parapet
As part of the Writers’ BLOCKbuster series, here is a picture to kickstart a short story. Examine the photo, and then use one of these phrases as the starting point for a short story:- Down, down, so...
View ArticleGreat Opening Paragraph…81
“In her youth Louise Daudry, née Geuze, had committed a wicked and unusual crime. At that time, autumn 1792, she wanted money very badly, so she put aside her knowledge that what she was doing was...
View Article
