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. 

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

Nelle Andrew, literary agent at Peters Fraser and Dunlop

Emily Kitchin, Editor, Hodder & Stoughton

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

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

How should a writer plan their schedule?   There's a great joke that goes, ‘How do you eat a whale?’ and the answer is, ‘One bite at a time.’ It’s the same for writers. Novels get written one chunk of writing at a time. Too often you can get intimidated by the process by focusing…
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‘Focus on the chunk of work that you can do’

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

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

Chris Sykes, author of Complete Writing Course

Lisa McInerney, author of The Glorious Heresies