Creative writing

''Not everyone knows the truth about my ‘naughty’ book.''

Sandra started writing to her pen pal, Jeannesse, when she was 13 years old. They're still friends today!

1. Go on a reading course. Nobody wants to hear this, everybody ignores it. It’s not sexy advice. But it matters. To write in a given style you must steep yourself in that style. Say you want to write a chick lit book. Before you start, pop down to your bookstore. Get the Shopaholic books, […]

Here are author Sue Williams’ top four writing tips: 1. Start The hardest thing is getting started. I’m a great believer in just picking up a pen, or firing up the computer, and making a start. Get yourself going, and write a couple of thousand words quickly to warm up. You can always go back […]

You can’t just tell the reader the emotion your character is experiencing, you have to show them. You do this by creating images using bricks of significant detail. God and the devil are in the detail. As Strunk and White wrote in The Elements Of Style, “if those who have studied the art of writing […]

Today we are going to explore one of the x factors in writing fiction, faith. Writing, like any creative endeavour, involves uncertainty and requires an act of faith. Faith in our imagination, faith in ourselves, faith in the creative process and faith in the stories we want to tell. When you sit down in front […]

One of the biggest mistakes writers make is trying to do everything perfectly, immediately. Anne Lamott, author of Bird by Bird, writes, “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. Perfectionism will ruin your writing, blocking inventiveness, playfulness and life force.” Most people discover that when they learn to turn off […]

Writing fiction is not an intellectual exercise. One of the keys to creating powerful fiction is to evoke emotion in your writing. You want your writing to create an emotional response in the reader. It is the emotion that will connect the writer and the reader to your characters and your story. So when you […]

Author Gabrielle Lord shares her top four writing tips: Read books about writing, especially screenplay writing, or better still, do some courses in this area. To develop good knowledge of structure, pace and narrative, there’s nothing better than understanding how a story works and that’s what happens with screenplay writing. Storyline your story – that […]

Many people have a lot of misconceptions about writers and the process of writing. One of them is that in order to write, you have to be in the mood and that successful writers feel wildly enthusiastic and inspired every time they sit down to write. In fact, just the opposite is true for most […]

If you want to write fiction, whether it be short stories, novels or filmscripts or plays, we recommend you start writing by following these three basic rules from Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Keep your pen moving Capture first thoughts Let yourself write junk These deceptively simple rules are designed to help you access […]

Monica McInerney’s latest and fifth book Family Baggage (Penguin Books) was selected as the Great Read by The Australian Women’s Weekly and was a bestseller. To all aspiring writers, Monica highly recommends Stephen King’s On Writing. Here are Monica’s four top writing tips: 1. Space Set aside a writing area in your house that won’t […]

The Australian Women’s Weekly is delighted to announce that publishing giant, Penguin Australia, have become our partners in what has become one of the biggest and most popular writing contests in Australia. The 2005 short story competition will be launched in August at the Byron Bay Writers Festival by the Editorial Director of The Australian […]