Category Archives: Writing Practice

A good friend needed help facing the blank page. I found this quote for him. Now I present it too you. (It’s often attributed to Goethe, but in fact the authorship is unknown.) Please share with anyone you think might love it. “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back –Continue reading “Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it.”

Regular readers will know that I’m more that a little bit passionate about the power of storytelling. Over the summer I’ve been creating a course in The Rhetoric of Story, filming a series of seven video lectures in locations including Bali, France and Italy. The full course is almost complete, with just one more lectureContinue reading “What is the most important skill any writer can master?”

My experience, during 6 years teaching creative writing to university students, is that most writers don’t want to do this exercise. To be fair, it’s hard work. But it’s also the single best way I know to develop your skills as a writer, or any other kind of storyteller. “But Damo,” I hear some folksContinue reading “This exercise will make you a stronger writer (WARNING: it’s hard.)”

The reality of life as a jobbing writer is that, like anybody running their own business, you have to do a lot of negotiating. Which for writers, all too often, means getting walked over. The Society highlighted the case of Horrid Henry author Francesca Simon, who has not received any royalties from the television andContinue reading “The first rule of contract negotiation for writers”

To make sense of the world we tell ourselves a story. That’s the starting point of the Rhetoric of Story. As storytellers we imitate the kind of story the human mind tells naturally, which makes our stories seem real to the audience. It’s a conjuring trick, but one with some truly wonderful uses. The first personContinue reading “Non-Aristotelian storytelling is a thing. Just don’t expect it to box office.”