The Future Bookshelf Blog

You’re thinking of writing a genre novel. It could be a razor-sharp thriller, a heart-warming love story or a fantasy novel that’s out of this world. So where do you start? How do you stand […]

So, you want to write a novel but you don’t know what kind; where do you start? You’ve been looking around and you see a lot about the ‘rules of fiction’ but what are these […]

  No singer steps on a stage without warming up their voice. So, limber up, train your eye and ear and write, write, write.   ‘Voice’ is a much-used – indeed over-used – word in […]

A novelist is like a film director. It is not enough to say: in this scene such-and-such happens to so-and-so. The novelist must decide how to portray such events happening. As a writer, it is […]

Devote five minutes to writing down everything you observe with your senses – all you can see, hear, feel, smell and taste – and another minute of what’s called kinaesthesia: how your shoulder knows you’ve […]

Adapted from Complete Screenwriting Course   Ideas can come from anywhere and everywhere. They surface unexpectedly and partly formed, born out of your feelings, memories, concerns, experiences, to make themselves available for use. And one […]

How can writers motivate themselves to start writing?   As unpleasant as it is, I think that all budding writers need to adopt a sense of real responsibility towards their work. Whatever project a writer […]

When the ideas don’t come or things get tough, giving up is a drastic remedy. Try these warm up exercises first. from Write Short Stories and Get Them Published   The benefits of creating for […]

Writing wherever you can: finding a comfortable space in which to create from Complete Writing Course   Where do I write? Anywhere; wherever you can.   ‘The space can be humble, probably should be… and […]

Getting started: Apps and software that help organise your writing schedule from Write a Novel in Ten Minutes A Day   In reality, twenty-first-century writers won’t have any idea of how to use a manual […]

There is a rumour that Charles Dickens would force himself to sit down every day and write 5,000 words. But then he was writing for a newspaper and paid by the word, so it was […]

Whether you’re a plotter or a pantser, sitting down to confront a blank page and be creative to order is a hard task – even if you had an incredibly productive day yesterday, or you’re […]