50 books to read before you die!

First off I’d like to start by stating that these fifty are not my own choices. They were discovered last year when I visited a small town in the East of Scotland called Dornoch. It is a beautiful and quiet little place that I just adore and I often visit relatives there just to “get […]

How to improve your descriptive writing

Descriptive writing in a novel is like the cream filling in a cake. Too much and it is overpowering, making the whole experience a little distracting for the consumer; too little and the result is boring and tasteless. The trick is finding that happy medium. But what makes good description? 1. Keep it basic. As […]

Improving your written dialogue

The ability to write good dialogue is, quite possibly, a writer’s most important tool in his arsenal. Good dialogue breathes life into your characters, fleshes out and diversifies a world, and can tell a story better than any number of descriptive sentences. Bad dialogue will leave characters paper thin and a plot uninteresting and flat. […]

Dealing with writer’s block

To anybody who doesn’t write, whether creatively or otherwise, it may seem that being hit by writer’s block is really no big deal. It’s just a dry spell, right? So what? You can’t think of anything to write; it doesn’t matter. But to a writer, it is so much more than just “a dry spell”. […]

My thoughts on The Tattooist Of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

Lali Sokolov’s story was a heartfelt and engaging journey, though certain factual inconsistencies mean that Heather Morris’ The Tattooist of Auschwitz becomes somewhat flawed in its presentation. The novel is about Lali Sokolov (that’s right, his name is misspelled in the book) and explores how he used his wits to help his fellow prisoners and fall in […]

My Top Ten Stephen King Books

A quick look at some of Stephen King’s best work. Or at least what I consider to be his best work; this is by no means a definitive list, just a handful of his books I had the most fun with. 10. On Writing. This is probably an unusual choice for number ten (or to […]

My thoughts on Forty Lashes Less One by Elmore Leonard

Leonard proves that cowboys can still be cool. Elmore Leonard was, and still is in my opinion, unrivalled for two things: his expert mastery of dialogue, and his creation of incredibly real and flawed characters. His 1972 novel, Forty Lashes Less One, accomplishes both of these with apparent ease. Sure, this is not a new […]