On Writing

Why Stories? We're going to explore stories together. We'll talk a bit about how we tell them, and what it's like if you want to make a career of telling them.  But first we're going to think about why they're so important to us.  Let's start with a little quiz......

Let's go back to that first film:  Here it is.  (You might have to skip an ad or two, but the film itself lasts only a couple of seconds).  Is it a story? Not really - you get a glimpse of several people walking around, and that's all.  Nothing else happens. There's...

Let’s take the story of the Good Samaritan.  It’s two thousand years old, nice and short, and most of us know it. It’s a good example of both why and how you tell a story.  We’ll come back to How.  For the moment we’re thinking about Why. Imagine the situation: a...

On a family outing to a seaside town, my niece pointed out a house.  ‘That place has Christmas decorations up all the year round,’ she said. This was high summer, the sea was blue and the beach to our right was covered with bathers and sunbathers.  And here, to our...

We like stories about falling in love, being heroic, overcoming danger or climbing to power and riches.  It’s easy to see why.  We want things like that to happen for us, and the stories let us share these experiences in our imagination. But we also like sad stories. ...

A fellow author(i) asks you to send him a picture of yourself with a sponge on your head. Just in case you haven’t understood the request, he sends you a picture of a third author(ii) who is indeed balancing a large yellow sponge on their head.  And one of himself,...

So you think you’re in control? Think again!