My wife Cherith and I don’t often get to go abroad for a holiday. Life as a full-time writer isn't lucrative and our finances don’t stretch to that. However...

The three-act structure is perhaps the most widely used technique for plotting stories, deriving from the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle’s view that a s...

In all my posts on this site, I have been using my Hexagon for Prosperity, a simple tool describing the six essential things you need to master if you want t...

Claire Stibbe is the prolific author of gripping crime thrillers, police procedurals and, latterly psychological thrillers. An award-winning, self-published ...

There’s long been a debate about whether having mental health issues helps or hinders the writing process. Some argue that it helps to have a touch of madnes...

Over the years, we’ve served well over 1000 clients at BookLab, nearly all of them emerging and aspiring writers. My experience is this: many budding writers...

It's 1974, and I am just thirteen. My parents have decided to take me to see Murder on the Orient Express starring Albert Finney as detective Hercule Poirot....

Some of you may remember Kit Williams' famous (some would say infamous) bestselling picture book, Masquerade. Published in 1979, it sparked a treasure hunt t...

In my first blog, I talked about the six most important things you're going to need if you're going to succeed as an author in today's ruthless publishing wo...

Over the years, I’ve been asked many times by aspiring writers, “What’s the secret of success when it comes to writing a book?" Emerging writers need to real...