Use these seven writing prompts – one each day – and give yourself a seven day writing retreat. Switch off your phone, and remember, you only need fifteen minutes per day to get you writing.

Day One: Tap into your childhood memories. This exercise will open you up to using your own experiences to get writing. Use one of the following three start points and free-write for fifteen minutes (write without stopping or thinking) –

The best day I spent with my grandparent/s

A school outing

A time when I cried

Day Two: Use these three words to sculpt a story or a poem. Remember it doesn’t have to be perfect, but do try and include all three words –

YESTERDAY WATER UNDER

Day Three: Use this fragment of a sentence to start writing – and write at least 250 words. This will help you get words on the page.

It was impossible to open…

Day Four: Read the opening of a novel from your bookshelves or from the library. Use the first paragraph as your start point and write at least 500 words more. This will remind you that reading is always a good way to inspire your writing, and teach you some of the discipline you need to get writing more seriously.

Day Five: That novel or story that’s been burning in your mind is going to see the light of day today. Start writing it – or work on one of the pieces of writing you’ve already done in the last four days and make it longer.

Day Six: Write a list of your writing goals for the next three months. Do you want to finish a short story or a series of poems? Do you want to get a draft of your novel completed?  This will help you keep focused when the challenge is over. 

Day Seven: Read over everything you’ve written this week. Tidy up spots where you think the writing could be improved; notice sentences and phrases that work really well.

Congratulations on completing a writing week – did you manage to write every day?

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People get less articulate, not more, when they’re emotionally moved. Want to write an emotional moment? Increase your quotient of stumbles and restarts.  Jane Espenson

Writing good dialogue takes practice and patience.  Here are ten tips for you to improve how you write your dialogue so your conversations crackle on the page.

1- Read dialogue aloud.  It’s meant to be heard, after all.  This will help you to listen to the voices of your characters, noticing the flow and movement of their words.

2- Don’t use dialogue to convey large chunks of information (exposition).  People don’t sound like this: “Since we arrived here at four, to watch for Martin Goodfellow, the murderer, I’ve felt hunrgy.”  It’s okay if readers don’t know exactly what’s happening at all times – trust them to understand the story because they are intrigued by the voices of your characters.

3- Dialogue should sound real, but that doesn’t mean dialogue on the page is exactly like snippets of dialogue you overhear.  You don’t need all the Hellos, Goodbyes and boring small talk of daily life.  Cut it out.

4- Good dialogue should move the story forward, convey character and feel full of life.  The best place to see great dialogue is by attending (or reading) plays, watching movies or even just switching on the TV.

5- If you want your character to say, “I need you,” think about the words they would actually use.  Perhaps they’d say, “I can’t- Do you have to catch the early bus?”  

Jane Espenson writes, “Want to write an emotional moment?  Increase your quotient of stumbles and restarts.”  She writes scripts for TV (shows like Buffy and The Gilmore Girls) and her insight into writing dialogue is helpful to think about here. 

6- Learn how to write the correct punctuation for speech.  It’ll be a useful tool for you as a writer, making it easier for you to write the dialogue you want, and it’ll help your work look professional when publishers read it.

7- Another technical dialogue tip: he said and she said read just fine.  Don’t worry about repetition, most readers glide over he said/she said as if those words were punctuation.  Too many of these: exclaimed, gasped, screeched, postulated, reasoned, argued, pondered, mouthed, etc… and your dialogue will be overwhelmed by the words around it.

8- Have people argue with people, or have people saying surprising, contrary things.  If everyone is agreeing with each other, your story will feel flat.

9- Think about how each of your characters sounds.  Make each voice distinct – this can be subtle or dramatic.  Perhaps one character likes to use a certain word or short phrase, so make sure the other characters don’t use that same word or phrase.  It’s a small distinction, but useful.  More dramatic distinctions are up to you!

10- People don’t have to answer each other directly.  Sometimes what’s not said has huge meaning.