I write occasional essays about the craft of fiction and screenwriting: what the two forms can teach each other, why I keep returning to adolescent narrators, and what I’ve learned across thirty years and two BAFTAs of telling stories on the page and the screen. A few recent examples:
What novels can learn from screenplays
A close look at what literary fiction can learn from screenwriting, examining The Remains of the Day alongside Lost In Translation with a focus on elision, compression and scene structure.
Seven years, five drafts
Examining the process behind a novel: how themes change and evolve, how the book begins to determine its own form, and how characters can hijack the writing entirely.
The adolescent lens on the adult world
What teenage protagonists bring to adult literary fiction: an exploration of Never Let Me Go and Ghost Wall, and why the perspective of adolescence is central to my own writing.
You can read these and more on my Substack.
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