Editor Laurel Cohn looks at the importance of narrative momentum.

When I worked for a literary agent in Sydney back in the 1980s, I spent many long hours reading manuscripts. I read both the solicited and unsolicited work that came to the agency – manuscripts by established writers such as Helen Garner, Susan Varga and Drusilla Modjeska, through to stories from people who…

QWC CEO Meg Vann reports on O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing (TOC)conference held in New York earlier in 2013.

You know that old saying “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime”? For the sake of the Show Don’t Tell course I’ll be running at QWC in June, we can paraphrase that to something more writerly like: “Tell a person something and they’ll remember it for a while, show them what you mean and they’ll remember it forever.”

As writers of fiction…

Phillipa Fioretti tells us what she learned in the QWC/Hachette Manuscript Development Program in 2008.

We're rounding up events, opportunities and competitions in a new weekly post!

My top quick writing tips of all time that I think every writer should know. They represent, of course, my opinions, but I think you'll find I'm always right. ;)

Look to your verbs. If you read a page back and it seems lifeless and flabby, find every verb on the page and see if you can improve it. Make a point of collecting great verbs every time you read or watch a movie or have a conversation.…

We're rounding up events, opportunities and competitions in a new weekly post!

Can't participate in person? Why not take part online! Try your hand writing at writing a flash fiction response to the prompt below.

 

We're rounding up events, opportunities and competitions in a new weekly post!

Later this month, I’ll be presenting my first masterclass for QWC. The Freelancer’s Handbook is a day course focussed on feature writing and the business of freelancing.

At the heart of that business is self-motivation. In my experience, the freelance lifestyle is an inherently lonely one. Without the colleagues and camaraderie you’d find in a regular workplace, you’re left to your…