Skip to main content
  • Follow Us

Hachette Logo Large Light blue Hachette logo with icon and text
Hachette Logo

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Opportunities
  • Writing Tips Arrow Icon Arrow icon
    • Bring your novel to life
    • Character
    • Create Space
    • Cultural Diversity in Fiction
    • Genre
    • Get Published
    • Get Started
    • Plot
    • Redraft
    • Setting
    • Voice
    • Writers Block
    • Writing Rules
  • News

NEWSLETTER SIGNUP

The books featured on this site are aimed primarily at readers aged 13 or above and therefore you must be 13 years or over to sign up to our newsletter. Please tick this box to indicate that you’re 13 or over.

Sign up to the The Future Bookshelf newsletter to be the first to hear our latest news!

 

The data controller is Hachette UK Limited.

 

Read about how we’ll protect and use your data in our Privacy Notices.

 

You can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Thank you. You are successfully signed up!


<!–

[wpv-post-title]

–>

Create some time and find a quiet place to sit and think. Imagine there’s a screen in your mind and you can put any image there. When you find an image, ask yourself: where, who, why, how, when? What came before? What comes next?

Then wipe the screen and try out other images until you have one that inspires you. This month’s task is to write your opening scene from this image, trying to evoke the feeling and atmosphere of the story you watched in your head.

Access this month’s task. 

 

 

 

‘Writers need to adopt a sense of real responsibility towards their work’

Lisa McInerney, author of The Glorious Heresies

 

 

‘You may not be able to have your own shed or writer’s room, but do what you can and find what works best for you’

Chris Sykes, author of Complete Writing Course

 

 

‘Altering my physical space automatically changes my state of mind and enables me to start work’

Juno Dawson, author of dark teen thrillers, and non-fiction including Being a Boy and This Book is Gay

 

 

‘Only non-writers imagine that authors sit in an effort-free trance while their story descends from the skies’

Zoe Fairbairns, author of Write Short Stories and Get Them Published



<!–

[wpv-post-title]

–>

Create some time and find a quiet place to sit and think. Imagine there’s a screen in your mind and you can put any image there. When you find an image, ask yourself: where, who, why, how, when? What came before? What comes next?

Then wipe the screen and try out other images until you have one that inspires you. This month’s task is to write your opening scene from this image, trying to evoke the feeling and atmosphere of the story you watched in your head.

Access this month’s task. 

 

 

 

‘Writers are no longer bound to the desk; they can write with the tools in their pocket’

Katharine Grubb, author of Write a Novel in Ten Minutes a Day

 

 

‘Is it better to make yourself confront the blank page or let the ‘muse’ take you?’

Nelle Andrew, literary agent at Peters Fraser and Dunlop

 

 

‘If the creative juices aren’t flowing, there are ways to trick yourself into “the zone”’

Emily Kitchin, Editor, Hodder & Stoughton

 

 

‘Focus on the chunk of work that you can do’

Mike Gayle, author of novels including Turning Thirty, My Legendary Girlfriend and Mr. Commitment

Hachette Logo Large H Initial
  • About Us + -
    • Contact Us
    • Accessibility
    • Gender and Ethnicity pay gaps
    • Statement of business ethics
    • Modern slavery statement
    • Sustainable sourcing policy
    • EU Economic Operators
    @ Hachette UK Limited
  • Useful Information + -
    • Company information
    • Privacy notices
    • Use of cookies
    • Terms and conditions
    • Pensions
    • Tax strategy