The Creative Writer's Toolbelt

The scene is a key building block of a story, so how can we make sure that the scenes in our writing work? In this episode we explore the three key questions that every writer needs to ask about each scene they write:what is the objective of the scene? How does the scene begin and end? And what gives the scene energy and direction?

This episode is a round up of everything we've been talking about concerning the sound of writing over the last few episodes. We look at tone, style, and voice, the importance of clarity, brevity, and precision and then go on to think about the problems and solutions related to sentence structure.

In this episode I'm excited to announce the launch of the Creative Writer's Toolbelt Handbook, a project to gather the very best advice and insight from all of the podcasts into book form. Development of the book is being crowdfunded through Indiegogo, please check out 'The Creative Writer's Toolbelt Handbook' at indiegogo.com. The main part of the podcast is a wonderful conversation I had with the authors Becky Chambers and Nisi Shawl. We talk about physicality and writing, the difference between a romance scene and a sex scene, the nature of joy and compassion in their work, and then each of them reads a passage from their respective new novels.

In this episode we are going to look at a number of very different examples of writing that excel in the area of how the writing sounds. They are deliberately different in terms of style, and authorial voice, but each of them can teach us something. And because they are very different the benefits that they bring to their respective stories is very different.

There's a lot of truth in the old adage: "it's not what you say, it's the way that you say it". We all want to tell a great story, but part of that is how we tell our story. Some authors seem to have a captivating and beguiling sound to their work. How do they do it? What are the problems that can occur with the sound of writing, and how can we avoid them? In this episode we look at some of the problems that can make your work sound stuttering or clunky or dull - and then we go on to discuss the key to making your writing sound good: it's all in the editing.

What is excellent writing style? And how can we develop that style without simply mimicking the writers we admire? In this episode we apply some of the ideas presented in episode 73 by looking at the way in which clarity, brevity, and precision can help us to develop our writing style. These, together with knowing who you are writing for, and working with the story, are the keys that unlock the secrets of great writing style.

The UK’s most prestigious Science Fiction literature prize, the Arthur C Clarke award, is 30 this year. In this episode I talk to Award Director Tom Hunter about the history of the award, plans for its future, and the state of contemporary Science Fiction writing. Tom gives us some tips for using social media effectively, and we find out what’s most likely to excite a literary agent.

This episode marks the start of a new series for the Creative Writer's Toolbelt, looking at the sound of our writing. We're going to cover a whole range of confusing, and sometimes overlapping terms; establishing what they mean, and working out how to use them to improve our work. In this introductory episode we are going to look at tone, style, and voice.

This episode wraps up our review of the dimension setting of creative writing, and building on the practical examples of episode 70 we take a whistle-stop tour of the six principles of setting, from research to credibility, from genre to sensory description, here are the principles that will help you to create a credible, immersive and compelling setting for your work

This episode is a conversation with Northern Ireland based author Ian McDonald. Ian has been a professional writer for over twenty five years, and in this episode he takes us on from the solid foundational work that we usually focus on in the Creative Writer's Toolbelt to some of the more advanced concepts. Ian has won numerous awards including the Locus, Philip K Dick, Hugo, Theodore Sturgeon and John Campbell Memorial awards, and the BSFA best novel award three times.