Writing

The (Im)Perfect Protagonist

Since we talked about creating the perfect bad guy last week, I thought it seemed only…
The Perfect Antagonist

Originally published 08/05/2016 For me, the antagonist – what we might loosely call ‘the bad guy’…
Christmas Eve: A Short Story

It’s Christmas on Wednesday so that can only mean one thing: it’s time for a Christmas…
Christmas Clichés and How to Avoid Them

Since I’ve just come to the end of my series on genre clichés and how to…
A Fanciful Tale of Heroes and Call Centres

It’s been a while since I posted one of my own humble stories, so I’ve quickly…
Take a First Draft and Make it Better

It was still the worst story I had ever written. But that didn’t matter. It was…
Persevere With Your Idea

I never started writing with a bad idea. In fact, I’m not even entirely convinced there…
TV Review: Maigret

I do love a good detective story. I think secretly we all do. Mystery is very…
A Beginners’ Guide to Making Up Fantasy Names

How do you go about naming characters in your story? If you’re writing a sci-fi or…
PENSTRICKEN: COLLECTED STORIES – OUT NOW!

There are short stories, there are very short stories and then there is flash fiction: the…