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Tips & Exercises

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Exercises

Poetry and Art

An ekphrastic poem is one that uses an existing work of art as its starting point. Two well-known examples are ‘The…

Emily Berry
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Exercises

Fact Checking Your Writing

Study an example of your writing with the fact-checker part of your brain firmly in gear.   
Do you need to double-check…

Jenny Parrott
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Exercises

The Task 

“You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.” – Jodi Picoult 
Sit down and write. Don’t…

Jarred McGinnis
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Tips

Write. Good or bad. Don’t worry, just write.

This tip will be counterintuitive. You won’t believe me, because somewhere in the guts of me I don’t believe it either….

Jarred McGinnis
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Exercises

Playing with constraints 

What can we learn about our own writing when we pare it back? 
This is an exercise about self-editing, but with…

Miranda Ward
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Tips

Removing the scaffolding  

I’ve always loved Ann Lamott’s concept of the ‘shitty first draft’. In Bird by Bird she writes about this…

Miranda Ward
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Exercises

Put a Bomb Under It

The exercise is designed as a way to try and free you from the chains you’ve written for yourself. You don’t…

Joseph Wilde
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Tips

Always Write in Pencil

If you feel like the words you are writing now are the ones that everyone will read in the final draft,…

Joseph Wilde
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Tips

On Not-writing  

When I want to write but I’m stuck for inspiration, I often turn to other art forms. I try not to…

Emily Berry
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Tips

Form as the Foundation for a Piece of Theatre

“Am I choosing this form because it is the most appropriate for the theme, and my objectives, and is an…

Luke Barnes
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Exercises

Using Form as a Foundation for a Piece of Theatre 

To start building a project, you have to first understand why you are exploring a theme.  
Start by: 

Articulating…

Luke Barnes
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Exercises

Change a Word to Change a Story 

This exercise will show you the value of making precise word choices, and suggest how these choices can lead your work…

Charlie Hill
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Tips

Blurring the Distinction Between Sound and Meaning 

When you’re revising your work, one of the things you’ll notice are sentences and paragraphs that move the story along effectively…

Charlie Hill
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Exercises

Make Everyone a Superhero! 

Superheroes are popular and enduring characters because they take a central conflict and take it to a fantastical extreme. Superman, for…

Joseph Wilde
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Tips

Two-Dimensional Characters are Actually Good 

Calling a character two-dimensional is always used as a criticism but, in my experience, if a character doesn’t work effectively in…

Joseph Wilde
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Exercises

Writing Stand-Out Characters  

Constructing complex, interesting characters is the bread and butter of screenwriting. You need characters – and I’m not only talking about…

Neil Biswas