The Dos and Don’ts of Internal Monologuing
Look, there’s a time and place for monologuing. Most of the time we’d say err on the side of LESS, but there are moments when your protagonist really needs to…
Write Yourself Into a Pit (Then Dig Your Way Out Again)
No matter how much you plan, outline, and prepare to write, there are gonna be times when your writing ends up going off-piste in a potentially catastrophic direction – one you’re…
Writing Competitions & Opportunities – June 2018
Ermmm, we’re half way through the year already (how? HOW?), so if you want to make a real difference to your writing in 2018 it’s time to send your writing…
Writing Competitions & Opportunities – May 2018
Summer’s on the horizon, sun is shining – it’s the perfect time to shut yourself away in a dark room and get writing. Join us in our quest to send…
How Not To Write A Novel #2
Uggghhh so it turns out writing a novel is, like, super freakin’ hard? And, like, you actually spend a massive proportion of your writing time, like, NOT writing? Right? Well,…
Writing Competitions & Opportunities – April 2018
More opportunities to get your fiction published than you can shake a pen at, and then some.
10 Ways to Write Like a Kid
Over the last five years we’ve run hundreds of writing workshops for both adults and kids. The adult ones tend to be a lot more sweary and the kids’ ones…
Shiny Thing Syndrome: A Writer’s Malady
In the spirit of our ‘Beginnings‘ series, Jo Gatford tackles an all-too-familiar complaint of the garden-variety writer – when the grass is always greener… We’re here today to talk about…
Writing Competitions & Opportunities – March 2018
Spring is sproinging – ’tis the season of renewal and rebirth and all that jazz. So kick off the month of March with some shiny new story submissions. Join us…
Don’t Fear The Blank Page! How To Start Writing and Stay Writing
As part of our Beginnings series, we answer a frequently-screamed-question (FSQ) from our writing community – where the heck do you even begin? So. You have an idea for a…
Writing Competitions & Opportunities – February 2018
In the spirit of our ‘Beginnings‘ blog series, here’s a great excuse to start a new story, kick off a new submission routine, and begin your publishing journey… One month…
WRITING EXERCISE: The moment you walked into the room…
Who fancies a wee characterisation exercise? Whether you’re making up a totally brand new fictional person, or developing a cast member from an existing work-in-progress, this exercise is a quick…
How To Cope With Rejection
In the latest instalment of our Fear & Failure series, here’s a little treatise on REJECTION and how ‘no’ does NOT mean ‘you’re a terrible writer, you might as well…
Why We Find Writing So Scary (And Why That’s A Good Thing)
In keeping with our Fear & Failure series, let’s have a lil’ chat about the overwhelming terror of writing and how to get over it… What? I’m not scared of…
What to do when your work-in-progress isn’t working
As part of our Fear & Failure series, it’s time to talk about giving up… Or not giving up. Or thinking about giving up. Anywho, here’s Jo Gatford on what…
The Different Types of Writing Rejection (and how to deal with it)
Next up in our Fear & Failure series – how every rejection presents a unique opportunity to pull your gosh-darned socks up and TRY AGAIN (instead of wallowing in a…
Writing Competitions and Opportunities – January 2018
Feeling a bit ‘meh’ about your writing after the cheese-filled ennui of Christmas? Kick off the new year with a BOATLOAD of literary submissions*. (Or even take part in our…
100 Submissions in 2018
To celebrate our Fear & Failure series, let’s all make a great big commitment to REJECTION and make story submission a weekly habit… What’s this? What’s this? YOU WANT US…
The 7 Stages of Literary Submission
Stage 1: Nausea Clamp your lips tight, clench your buttocks, and click the ‘send’ button while your stomach tries to escape through your throat and your guts play Cat’s Cradle….
Editing a novel: Redrafting vs ‘surface editing’
If you haven’t already read our editing blog ‘What the Frick is a Zero Draft?’ then go and do that now. If you’ve already read it, excellent. Let us continue…
Editing a novel: What the frick is a zero draft?
First things first: if you’re here because you’ve finished your first draft and are venturing into the big bad world of editing… HUGE FUCKING CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU! No really, take a…
So you want to write a novel, huh? The casting call
Plot is character; character is plot and so on and round and round we go to infinity. Also, you know, you’re not Amit Chaudhuri, you can’t have an entire book…
So you want to write a novel, huh? What’s the BIG IDEA?
Writing 101: Before you can write, you need to have an idea. That much we know. Your idea – your starting point – can be anything: a character, a theme,…
So you want to write a novel, huh? This is why you need a PLAN…
So. Welcome. Here we are at the very beginning. You’re going to write a novel. Cool, huh? Over the course of the next few blog posts, we’re going to help…
Introduction to Short Fiction Part 5: Enter the story
Alas, we’ve reached the final part of our Intro to Short Fiction blog series. But wipe your tears. Pull up your socks. We still have work to do. Hopefully you’ve…
Introduction to Short Fiction Part 4: Project salvage
Part 4 ahoy! (Check out the rest of our Intro to Short Fiction series here…) Are you ready for a brandnew exercise? Of course you are. So, you’ve let your…
Introduction to Short Fiction Part 3: The nugget of truth
Right. Part 3. ‘Bout to smash it. (Just arrived from a random Google/link? Check out the rest of our Intro to Short Fiction series here.) Have you written down your…
Introduction to Short Fiction Part 2: So this one time, at bandcamp…
Welcome back to our Intro to Short Fiction series. Time to do some short fictioning. Before we start, have a re-read of Rebecca Makkai’s quote from the previous blog (we’ve…
Introduction to Short Fiction Part 1: How Long is a Short Story?
Welcome to the Writers’ HQ Intro to Short Fiction five-part masterclass-blog-series thing of your dreams! In which we bombard you with ideas, strap a parachute to your back, throw you…
WRITING EXERCISE: Increments of a Story
Where do story ideas come from? And how do you grab hold of those raw ideas and turn them into something more.. story-ish? How come some people are able to…
Writing about S-E-X (omg Mum please don’t read this)
Hi. Uh. How’s it going? Cool. So. You wanna pay attention for a second ’cause we need to have a chat. No you’ve not done anything wrong. It’s just, you…
Beware the overused novel opening…
If you’ve already read our blog on How to Write a Kickass Opening Chapter then you’ll know it should be full of intrigue and engaging characters and conflict and all…
Elements of a KICKASS opening chapter
The opening chapter of your book is what makes or breaks it. The rest of the story might be solid gold but if a reader or an agent gives up…
Writing Decongestant: 10 ways to unblock your writer’s block
So here’s a thing you should know: writer’s block doesn’t really exist. That’s not to say you won’t experience agonising periods of writing difficulty, but the moment you start thinking of yourself as ‘blocked’,…
5 steps to magically whipping a shitty first draft novel into shape
It’s a beautifully crafted literary masterpiece in your head, but miserable on paper. So how do you get from ‘pile of words’ to ‘book-shaped thing’ without going utterly and entirely…