Author / Graham Dinton

Weekly Tuesday story from a song lyric, seemed like the obvious choice this week, so I’ve tried to make it obscure..ish. It was valentine morning and Wendy jumped into the shower early. She had a nine o’clock meeting, so it was important to get off to a good start to the day, but, more importantly […]

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(Image courtesy link – I daren’t use a real Hockney ☺ ) I went to the David Hockney exhibition this week at the Royal Academy in London. It is absolutely, definitely worth the £15 entry fee if you are anywhere near London and I found the whole experience truly inspiring. Link to Royal Academy What’s […]

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A short one this week… I spend the entire week working hard, running the kind of business venture that is best not discussed in public. Somehow, I’ve ended up in this spot where I guess I am a bit of a bad person. Finally we get to Saturday and I just want to take some […]

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More learnings from the Crime Fiction book by John Scaggs that I referred to last week – I recommend this as a good research read for anyone attempting to write a crime novel. My novel is a crime thriller – a psychological thriller. He lists some findings and observations that are obvious when you state […]

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The alarm pulled Gary into the world of Tuesday. 6am and he knew there was a long day ahead. ‘A good breakfast, that’s the secret, that’ll keep me going all day long.’ He scrambled the eggs, then sat and gazed out on the Chicago skyline as he planned his route. He knew where he would […]

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I am writing a novel, working title The Home Signal. I have planned it out pretty comprehensively (I think!). It is useful to read and use ‘Nail your novel’ by Roz Morris. I also use Scrivener, which is brilliant for structure. More about all that in later posts. For research, I have started to read […]

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Another favourite song turned into a story. Can you guess the song? (I think this one is a bit too obvious really) I finished work early and got the tube home, same as usual. The lights are shining bright when I step off the escalator and emerge into Mepham Street. There are people everywhere, busying […]

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Every Friday, I am going to post something about how my writing skills are developing, or not(!). Tuesdays will be writing practice – mainly narrative from song lyrics. The purpose of this is to get into the discipline of writing and blogging regularly and to keep track of my progression. Hopefully, you’ll find it interesting […]

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Another favourite song: It was a grey day, one of those murky, miserable mornings when you just don’t want to go to work. The heavy clouds raced across the sky and James had to pull his fleece jacket close. He turned the corner into Procter Street just as the heavens opened. “Aw, come on you […]

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I live by this. I have built my Scrivener template around this structure and it really works well for short stories. I’ve also worked my novel plot through the same structure (though that’s a bit more complicated). Please refer to Daily Writing Tips: the 8 point arc , drawn from Nigel Watts ‘Teach yourself Writing […]

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