The Truth About Pride and Prejudice
Form in fiction is a specific and conscious decision, but your final decision may take several drafts and unsuccessful trials before you find that which suits the material best.
The Palettes for Fiction
Although the marketplace for short stories is difficult, many new writers choose to begin with writing them, almost as a right of passage, a place for honing language, testing their narrative nerve over a shortish distance, and organising a palette.
Dreaming a Fictional Continuum
So, after all, it was a dream... A fiction writer depends on the dream or fantasy of scenes that are true to life or, at least, carry verisimilitude however fantastic the setting or story.
Character is Story
Character is the heart and mind of your story - it is what makes it live.
Points of view in fiction
Where do you, the writer, stand in relation to your characters and readers?
Beginning at the Beginning
How do I begin?
Conflict and Crisis
When reading novels as a writer, you will immediately notice the importance of conflict as the engine of fiction.
Murdering your darlings
All writing is rewriting. With fiction the best test is to read your story aloud, and read it to somebody.
Jim Crace
Jim Crace discusses his 'Work In Progress', his approach to writing, the role of literature and the challenges of the past tense.
Jacqueline Wilson - 2007
Jacqueline Wilson talks about how she started writing, the origins of Tracy Beaker and the adaptation of her book The Suitcase Kid.
Zoe Brigley reads from The Secret
Poet Zoe Brigley reads from her debut anthology, The Secret.
David Morley reads from The Invisible Kings
Poet David Morley reads from his latest collection The Invisible Kings.
Michael Frayn, 2008
Michael Frayn talks about his work, experience of the theatre and latest book 'Stage Directions'
Michael Billington, 2008
Margaret Shewring interviews Guardian theatre critic and author Michael Billington
Alain de Botton - 2004
Alain de Botton discusses status anxiety, how it operates today and how the notion of status has changed historically with Christianity and Western Philosophy.
Allen Fisher - Unpolished Mirrors, 1982
Allen Fisher reads a selection of his poetry.
David Morley - New Voices, 1991
David Morley reads a selection of his poetry and discusses his transliterations of the poems of Osip Mandelstam.
David Morley - Invisible Kings, 2005
David Morley reads poems from his collection The Invisible Kings
George Szirtes - Reel, 2005
George Szirtes reads poems from his collection Reel and talks about the relationship between the covers of his books (paintings by his wife Clarissa Upchurch) and his poetry, taking inspiration from Greek myth and how he plans his books.
Alan Jenkins - Harm, 1999
Alan Jenkins reads a selection of his poetry and discusses practitioners of form in the 20th century such as Auden and Eliot, how the formal aspects of poetry are a way of bringing order to life and whether happiness can inspire poetry.
