I keep getting asked how to use dialogue effectively. Recently one author told me that until she’d worked out how to use dialogue, she couldn’t get to grips with her memoir—nor her style. Then yesterday, at the Sydney Writer’s Festival, another writer was bemoaning the fact...
This Monday, hot off the plane from London, I attended the launch of travel memoir Growing Old Outrageously. Held in Sydney’s Belvoir Theatre it was launched by comedienne and journalist, Wendy Harmer. Both the authors, Hilary Linstead and Elisabeth Davies, are now in their seventies and...
This week I’m writing to you from the grand institution of the British Library in London. I’ve done much of the research here for my novel, trawling through records from eighteenth-century India held in the India Office Records. Now I am in the editing stages...
It’s a funny thing but when we talk to people we always adapt what we’re saying to suit the person and topic. Yet often, when we write, we don’t adjust to the same degree. This is especially true when we’re emailing. Haven’t we all sent...
For anyone who travels, it’s not just the places we visit that make an impression; it’s the people we meet. And when we read travel narratives, it’s the characters who touch us, who stay with us after we’ve put down the book. They broaden our...
Last week I wrote about creating scenes. This week I’m looking at how you can change the affect within scenes by shifting the focus. When you take photos, you automatically change camera angles. Sometimes you want a wide shot of padi fields to give an...
A question often raised in my workshops is how to find time to write when you already have a full-time job. As writing is such an insular profession, I always enjoy hearing how other writers do it. Last week I went to some inspiring sessions...
I’ve just spoken to a friend who is half way through re-writing a 5,000-word piece. ‘Every five minutes I need cake,’ she complained. The puritan in me told her: ‘You shouldn’t have cake until after you’ve done some of it. As a reward.’ She said...
Many travel memoir books borrow techniques from fiction. Paul Theroux was one of the first to make extensive use of dialogue in his 1975 bestseller The Great Railway Bazaar. This helped launch the genre of the modern first-person travel narrative. These days travel writing can...
In my workshops people often ask, ‘how much research should I do and should I do it before I travel, or when I get back?’ Some authors spend several years learning the language and reading about the place before going. Others like to know very little...