Category: Writing

Imagining the future is the best way to prepare for it, and some of the best imagineers are writers. Try these five very different visions of our future. Neuromancer. A cool future. William Gibson took film noir and mashed it with computer culture and created a future that has...

Look around the bookshops and the libraries and you’ll see series all over the place. On some stretches of shelves, you could be forgiven for thinking that EVERYTHING is part of a series. And, as an aside, don’t you hate browsing in a library, spotting a book that looks...

Reader feedback time: a recent fan letter loved the Laws of Magic partly because it ‘has me looking up words very page? (which is what I absolutely love about your books)’. Finding the right language level is a crucial aspect of writing for young people, but I maintain that...

Reading and writings go hand in hand. I wanted to be a writer because I loved reading so much. I wanted to do for other people what writers were doing for me. In a presentation to a large group of teenagers, I was once asked about the connection between...

Force 10 from Westminster The Disraeli Identity Mary Shelley, Princess of Power Gilbert and Sullivan and International Domination Have Pith Helmet, Will Travel The Revenge of the Colonies Dirigibles, Digging Machines and Great Big Tanks The Funicular Network Giant Cats Destroy London via the Underground (some work needed on...

Version Control This could be the most important writing tip you’ll ever read. I’ll settle for second best, I suppose, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be in the top five. Easily. Computers are wonderful and they make a writer’s life easier in many ways. But computers can make a...

And here it is, the book trailer for ‘The Subterranean Stratagem’, the second book of ‘The Extraordinaires’ series. More magic, more mayhem, more mystery and much, much more Kingsley and Evadne!...

Tip 1: use Word’s ‘Find’ feature (or ‘Advanced Find’ in Word 2010) to highlight words you use too often. Plug in the word, click on ‘Reading Highlight’ and then skim through your ms to get a stark visual overview of often the word appears. An abundance of fluoro yellow...