BACKSTORY Our next online Craft and Technique session is BACKSTORY. Here are some images to get you thinking. Think of each photograph as...

Write a story using the elements below, but let some of them come into the story through memory, daydream, plans....

BIRDLAND If a bird dropped into your story, would message would it bring? What would its presence do in the story or allow your...

The lights may have gone out on Ramsay Street but neighbours and neighbourhoods will always fascinate and be a source of material for...

SEEING IN COLOUR. Take a paragraph from a draft you're working on and add some colour somewhere. What effect does your choice of colour...

On creating space. Writers I work with are sometimes frustrated with their writing because, although they know what they want to say,...

Heatwave. The music of an ice cream van, the sight of a disintegrating sandcastle on the beach... the sensation of a wet cagoule against...

In-person classes have now finished for the summer and will start again in September. Courses in Brighton will include NOVEL WRITING and...

Sounds like... When setting a scene or the tone of a scene we tend to reach for visual details first. All the senses are important, of...

Jubilee Weekend: points of view. Write the story of this picture from the point of view of... - an ardent royalist who once saw the Queen...

Bookworms. A book picked from your own shelves can be a simple but thrilling way into finding about the interior life of a character....

Strange visitor. A visitor arrives. Who is it? Why have they come and what have they brought with them? How does the visitor change or...

Interruptions. Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. Sometimes this quote (attributed to Napoleon) will apply very well...

The water is wide, I cannot get o'er And neither have I wings to fly The water's surface is is the threshold. What lies beyond or...

All around my hat... Pick a hat and use it to find your way into a character and a story. What's the story of how this person got the...

It just seemed topical this week for some reason. Anyway, someone in each of these pictures isn't telling the truth. What's the lie and...

Easter bunny? Hm. We're not sure either but there's definitely a story behind this moment and something still to come. Who is inside the...

Play. Sometimes it's good to turn off the word count, lock your inner editor in a dark cupboard and start to play. Pick a photo or two to...

We have two new courses starting in Brighton in May. Susanna will be teaching Writing from Life, a six-week course, and Friday Writing...

Look up. We often forget to pay attention to what's going on above us but you can find whole worlds and new stories up there to draw down...