Take a current newspaper story and use it as the basis of an opening for a story. Try writing the first paragraph of this story in the following genre styles: as a thriller; a romance; a crime novel; a children’s story; a work of science fiction; a literary novel. Which genre came easiest?BBC Get Writing: [...]

Down the left hand side of a sheet of paper, list all the types of book you can think of (such as Crime, Romance, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Biography, etc). If films or plays are what interest you, then try the same exercise with you video or DVD collection. Go through your bookshelves and make a note [...]

I was just plodging about the internet the other day, thinking about how I enjoy writing and really ought to put a bit more effort into trying to write some fiction. Obviously, once I’ve done that, the harder part is persuading someone to give me money for it, but one thing at a time, yeah? [...]

[I'll just point out this is a horror story posted for the Hallowe'en Horrors scary story meme; it is particularly dark and unpleasant; this is fictional. So don't think I've gone whacko.] I don’t recall the first time he smiled at me. I don’t recall it, because in a country of sixty million people it [...]

The people taking part in the Hallowe’en Horror story idea were: Stephen Lang, who wrote two — Lock And Key and Spells The Goldfish, who wrote Better Late Than Never Mike Cherim, for whom It happened in 1972 Jess, who asked the question Is it you? LuAn brought us Nobody. Sara, who brought us Peg [...]

It’s quite simple. Write a scary story for Hallowe’en, and publish it after sundown in whatever amounts to your local timezone. If you fancy taking part, leave a comment: I’ll keep track of everyone who does so and will produce a round-up post for the event. There’s four rules: it has to be fiction, it [...]

This is a short piece of fiction which was originally written to try and fit the rules for Marcel Cairo’s ‘Whatever Happened to David Thompson’ Competition, being titled “Whatever Happened to David Thompson?”, ending with a specific last line and being 500 words or less. The last one being the problem: it’s a smidge under [...]

I see the grey within and the grey without While from inside swells a silent shout I fear, I dread, I do confess That eternal boundless emptiness And here upon this long cold shore ‘Midst scattered people, I feel it more That all through life, through all the rain We feel the mournful aching pain [...]

This is a slight departure from the norm: this is a piece of short fiction I was working on for the Gateshead Short Story Competition 2007. Unfortunately, I never got around to finishing it in time for the competition. Or possibly fortunately, I dunno. You’ll have to make your own minds up about that. In [...]