Story News
UPDATE My short story ‘Hotel Catatonia’ was Highly Commended and a runner-up in the 2017 Victoria Literary Festival writing competition (Canada). It was published in the competition anthology which you can buy here. And ‘The Rainbow Collector’ made it to the quarter final of the 2017 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Contest.
A Story of Mine
“Tortoise had become so demoralised by other, faster, nimbler animals bullying him that he lost all his self-confidence. Instead of feeling calm and unhurried and savouring every instant of Now, he yearned to be fast like cool, streetwise Hare. It’s not good to be a tortoise, he told himself. So Tortoise went into a decline, […]
Love Your Characters
The essential element of powerful fiction is not a twisty plot, pace, tension, effective writing… you can do all those things and still not engage the reader. The absolute key thing is that your reader CARE about your characters. Period. And how do you do that? By caring about them yourself. And how do you […]
With A Rose Between Her Teeth
A story that plays with both British and Spanish stereotypes. “Whenever we Costa Brits became weary of sun, sea and sangria, tired of bright beach umbrellas, blue skies, palm trees, bead curtains, and dinner at midnight, we would go over to Debbie and David’s. Debbie’s chintzy little villa with its garden gnomes, crocheted toilet seat […]
Black Dress: The Making Of A Story
My most chilling – and successful – story (if successful means the number of times it’s been published) came straight from my unconscious mind. It’s the only story I’ve ever written that required minimal tweaking rather than driving myself crazy with endless rewrites before it felt ‘right’. I found Black Dress on my hard disc […]