The Creative Writing Blog

Adele Parks is the author of 21 novels, all of which have been bestsellers. She has sold over 3.5 million UK edition copies of her novels and her books have been translated into over 26...

How do you make the important decisions when it comes to casting your novel? In this article taken from one of the 100+ lessons of our Ninety Day Novel Course, our Founder and Course Director...

Whether you’re writing about tenth-century royalty, Amazonian rainforests or the family that lives next door, many writers bump up against the question of how to research for a novel. 

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Are you looking for a story idea for a thriller? Maybe you’ve got an amazing character you want to star in your novel, but you’re not sure exactly what they’ll get up to. Or you...

‘The first draft of anything is shit,’ said Ernest Hemingway. I’ve always liked this line because it’s a great equalizer: we’re all capable of writing terrible first...

Meg Rosoff is best known for the novel How I Live Now, which won the Guardian Prize, Printz Award, and Branford Boase Award and made the Whitbread Awards shortlist. Her second novel, Just in Case,...

The villains in children’s books are often what make stories come alive. Good baddies (if you will) capture the imagination – especially of a child. They’re who kids most...

Veronica Henry is the bestselling author of romance novels and a journalist whose first novel was published in 2002. Her novel A Night on the Orient Express won The Romantic Novel of the Year...

Sarah Winman is the bestselling, prize-winning author of When God Was a Rabbit,  A Year of Marvellous Ways and Tin Man. Still Life is a beautiful, big-hearted, richly...

Erin Kelly is the author of eight novels, including bestselling psychological thrillers. Her sixth novel He Said/She Said spent six weeks in the Sunday Times top 10 bestseller...

The Queen of Crime, Val McDermid has sold over 17 million books to date across the globe and is translated into more than 40 languages. She is perhaps best-known for her Wire in the Blood...

Nikesh Shukla is the author of Coconut Unlimited (shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award), Meatspace and the critically acclaimed The One Who Wrote Destiny. He is...

The end of solitude? Or a value choice? What's behind a love story? In a time in which we are all ragged, estranged, and feeling peculiarly close-to-the-edge sentimental, our blog this week...