The Creative Writing Blog

It's crucial to invest in the groundwork of story before going on to potter in prose if you mean business (i.e, to sell books.)

Our 'big story' course - the Classic course, one option in our series of online novel writing courses - is good for all writers but absolutely essential for those who are world-building - which is to say writing Fantasy, Historical, Young Adult and Children's. Pack it in your writer's kit bag, toss it behind you back and whistle all the way to the literary agency (nail that theme tune en route).

I'll be referring to the 'classics' in this blog but don't worry, I'm not being lofty and referring to works of Ancient Greece etc, I'm being low-brow. Populist! (Hoorah!) I'm referring to the golden classics of fiction, the bestsellers enjoyed by adults and kids. The genre-busting crossovers!

The course delves into the cunning plots of seven of the ten bestselling books of the last hundred years. (With apologies for the omission of...