Should Fiction Writers Use a Thesaurus?

Should Fiction Writers Use a Thesaurus?

Monday, November 15, 2021

The Synonym Debate At secondary school, teachers often encourage students to use a thesaurus to find more interesting options for their creative writing and expand their vocabulary. If you study the craft at university level, though, most tutors will tell you not to...
Why Specificity is so Important

Why Specificity is so Important

Friday, October 29, 2021

Master of the craft George Saunders said, ‘As text is revised, it becomes more specific and embodied in the particular. It becomes more sane. It becomes less hyperbolic, sentimental, and misleading.’ It’s natural when crafting to think big picture,...
10 Ways to ‘Show Rather than Tell’

10 Ways to ‘Show Rather than Tell’

Thursday, September 16, 2021

Show, don’t tell – what does it mean? You don’t have to be a writer long to get the classic writing advice, ‘Show, don’t tell,’ lodged in your psyche. It’s normal to write first drafts packed with telling sentences like, ‘she...