creative writing

Hello noble friends, and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. Every week we take the first page of a novice author’s novel or short story, and look at ways of making it better. If you’d like to know more, or you’d like to submit … Read more

Welcome to another Death Of 1000 Cuts, making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. The postman just knocked on the door and delivered a surprise package of new books. Basically this ‘being an author’ lark is already proving to be a sweet, sweet gravy train – and my novel isn’t even out … Read more

Hello and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. So you all know by now that my first ever novel, The Honours, is due out from Canongate next year. This week, I have been going through line edits with a copyeditor. It’s basically been like … Read more

Most of you have already heard the news – you know, the ‘big news’ I’ve been coyly touting but refusing to divulge for the last month or so. If you haven’t, here it is. Canongate have just announced they’re publishing my fiction debut, The Honours. It’s due out in the UK next year. When I … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This is a weekly blog for writers, readers, and people who love stories. Each week we look at the first page of a writer’s novel or short story and find ways of making it better. If you’d like … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This is a weekly blog for writers, readers, and people who love stories. Each week we look at the first page of a writer’s novel or short story and find ways of making it better. If you’d like … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This is a blog for writers, readers, and anyone interested in the craft of storytelling. Each week, we take the first page of a writer’s novel or short story and look at ways of making it better. If … Read more

Here at Death Of 1000 Cuts HQ I often receive emails asking how to bag an agent. I know I’ve said before that this blog isn’t about teaching you how to get published, just to how to write better, but some of you suspected – correctly – that I was holding out on you. The … Read more

Hello dear friend and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This is a blog for writers, readers, and anyone interested in the craft of storytelling. Each week we take the first page of a writer’s novel or short story (submitted via the ‘Contact Me’ … Read more

I’ve been meaning to write a post on non-fiction books all SF (I’m using that to mean writers of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, New Weird, Bizarro, crossovery Literary-but-odd and all points in-between – please darling, let’s not get into a debate on taxonomy and nomenclature, not today) authors need to read. Obviously there are … Read more

A year on since we started Death Of 1000 Cuts, it’s immensely gratifying to hear all the positive feedback from regular readers. A few people on Reddit and Twitter have called me an arrogant dick, and you know what, they’re probably right. As John Scalzi succinctly put it, the failure mode of clever is ‘asshole’. … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. Goodness – we’ve been going for a whole year! I cannot believe it. In celebration, for one week only I’m going to post about creative writing every day, including the regular Thursday Barber’s Chair and this, a bonus … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. We’re just coming up to our first birthday! A year of Death Of 1000 Cuts posts. That shit cray. Thank you for all your lovely support. I expect I’ll do something special next week to mark the occasion. … Read more

Happy 1st o’ May and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. Friends, this blog has been going for almost a year. I can’t believe it. We’ll have to do something cool for the first anniversary. Like maybe I could announce something so exciting that … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This is a blog for writers, readers, creative people and anyone nosy about how authors make the language-stuff sound real nice. Every week we take the first page of an author’s novel or short story – polished to … Read more

Hello and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This is an editing blog for fiction writers, creative people who work with words and nosy readers who want to see how the ugly gubbins under the bonnet does its business. Every Thursday I take the … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This is a blog about self-editing fiction. If you’ve just started writing or you’ve been hammering away for years, I hope that you’ll find something useful amongst my discussions of how to make bad sentences into slightly less … Read more

Hey friends, and welcome to another Death of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. Please share this blog with your friends, tweet about it, post about it on forums and on your website, make general noise. It’s a quick and easy way to spread the word and I … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. Sometimes I like to discuss one miniscule element of redrafting fiction, sometimes I interview an author or editor about the editing process, but by far our most popular feature is ‘In The Barber’s Chair’, in which I take … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. If you haven’t been here before, I’m Tim Clare – feel free to show me some love by listening to my album, Jesus Buys Me Cigarettes, on iTunes, or buying my first poetry collection, Pub Stuntman. Death Of … Read more

Salut et welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut a time. If you like this blog, please share it. Tweet about it, click the ‘Like’ button below, etc. It makes a big difference. If you want to submit your work, please read the submission guidelines. This is a … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This is a blog about self-editing for writers, readers and the nosy. Each week we take an aspiring author’s first page and put it to the knife, to see if we can’t learn something about how sentences and … Read more

Tuesday’s Guardian quotes Hanif Kureishi as saying that creative writing courses are ‘a waste of time’, that ‘99.9 per cent’ of his students are ‘not talented’ and ‘just can’t tell a story’, and that he doesn’t think the fundamentals of creative writing can be taught. I try not to respond to manifestly stupid statements from … Read more

Welcome to another Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. First time here? Read the FAQ and submission guidelines. Otherwise, you know what to do, my sweet, sweet soldiers. Read the extract below, exercise your editing muscles by deciding what you like and what you would change, … Read more

Bonsoir and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. New? Want to submit? Read the submission guidelines and FAQ. As always, read the extract below, evaluate it, then compare your thoughts with mine after ‘The Cuts’. Three Fingers (by Oscar) Eight hours after consuming a … Read more