A Kiss in the Dark....

....from a stranger. What an intense, terrifying, exciting thought. It's how Stephen King describes a short story: a kiss in the dark from a stranger.

There are two things that strike me about this extraordinary image. One is its transience – think how fleeting even the longest kiss can be. The other is the sense of mystery, of the unknown, contained in the description. I am also conscious that although a kiss can be the most sought-after, longed for embrace, a kiss from a stranger, in the dark, might be nothing short of an assault.

So what is King's phase suggesting to us? That a short story is something fleeting, unknown and open to different interpretations.

Without the roomy expanse of a novel, a short story must be, by definition, brief. As a writer you don't have the time or space to paint a complete picture, you have to content yourself with conveying  just enough information to suggest everything you haven't been able to include. It's the art of inference. Yet even within the limited scope of a short story, it's still possible to cover a big subject, you just have to be more selective about how you tackle it. In Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary Tolstoy and Flaubert take hundreds of pages to describe the downfall of their heroines, in a short story you might focus on one pivotal scene, making it resonate with what has come before and what might follow. I suspect resonance is an important quality when writing in miniature.

All good fiction – short or long – should have something of the unknown at its heart, an essential mystery that the plot sets out to resolve – or not: unanswered questions pack a lot of narrative power, giving an extra bang for their buck, which might be particularly appropriate in shorter fiction when space for answers is in short supply. Don't necessarily play safe and write about what you know – write about what you don't know, instead

In a longer piece of writing, you have the luxury of exploring different themes at different points of the narrative. With fewer words, sometimes these themes have to be dealt with concurrently rather than consecutively, with several different layers operating at the same time. Although this happens in large-scale works as well, in short stories everything is a little more dense and concentrated. If you  have different themes or different notes, sounding at the same time, perhaps there is more scope for interpretation. Think of it like shot silk: if you hold the material up to the light one way it is duck egg blue, but tilt it another way and it looks crimson. The fabric is woven in such a way that both are true at the same time.

Why not take Stephen King's phrase – a kiss in the dark from a stranger  – as the starting point for a short story of your own?

The Seven Secrets of Writing Good Dialogue

I won't beat about the bush here (although realistic conversation often does) - the best way to write good dialogue is to start by listening to how people speak. Eavesdrop at every opportunity and you will quickly capture the idioms and cadences of conversation. The more you listen, the more you'll learn, and the seven secrets of writing good dialogue will soon reveal themselves to you, but just for good measure I'll jot them down below...

• People often go the long way round if they want to say something important. They sometimes reverse into big discussions, talking about irrelevancies first to break the ice.
• People often don't answer one another directly, often because they are pursuing their own train of thought, so some conversations are little more than two monologues which occasionally intersect.
• People often repeat what they are saying, to emphasise something, or out of anxiety, or perhaps because their memories aren't that sharp.
• People sometimes repeat what the person they're talking to is saying – to show agreement or to demonstrate that they are really listening, really listening, yes.
• People often have vocal mannerisms, little phrases that crop up again and again: you know, all right, the thing is and although, as a writer, you need to use these sparingly, putting one or two in can make dialogue seem more realistic.
• You should also be sparing with the use of dialect to establish where a character has come from, and archaisms to convey the period in which they lived, although the occasional hint, a word slipped in here and there, can be extremely evocative. Proceed with caution though.
• Language stays alive because people are incredibly creative with it and innovations often occur in speech before they make it to the printed page, so expressions and slang can do wonders in bringing your dialogue to life. Oiski Poiski is an exclamation I've overheard and subsequently used; is your head in the shed? is another.

What gems have you picked up and made use of?

The Waiting Game

For someone who is a control freak (just ask my husband) I find it extraordinarily difficult to loosen my grip on what matters to me. Writing a novel is fine, the whole process is a heady exercise in autocracy: you want something to happen and – hey presto – it does! It's what comes after that I struggle with, and I'm struggling now. A publisher with an extremely crowded list is currently reading two of my books and I've just this moment dispatched the screenplay adaptation of one of them to my agent and there's nothing more that I can do. Except wait. And pace up and down a bit, and sharpen my pencils, and polish my desk, and monitor the thaw, and stare meaningfully at the phone, and check my emails, and pace up and down some more.

People often say don't you have to be incredibly disciplined to be a writer? But it isn't the writing that requires discipline, it's what comes after, when other people are making things happen, not you. So if you want to play the writing game, remember that an enormous part of it, the hardest part, is the waiting game. Forget polishing perfect prose, this is when you need to be really creative, to fill your head with interesting and diverting thoughts, to plan new projects. But it's the one time in your writing life that you must steel yourself not to imagine...

The Sessions - A Miniaturist Masterpiece

When you are writing do you work as a miniaturist, or do you prefer a sweeping canvas? Do you go large at every opportunity or hone in on the detail? There are pros and cons to both approaches, but I'm rather a fan of the small scale. I worry that if you describe a major event in an overblown way, you can strip it of meaning and resonance, whereas a single moment fully and subtly explored can become something epic.

That's why I enjoyed Ben Lewin's film The Sessions so much. With tenderness and reserve the film  charts the attempts of Mark O'Brien (John Hawkes), a polio victim in an iron lung, to lose his virginity - a rite of passage so many people take for granted but which for him is the unattainable grail of human intimacy. He seeks the help of sex surrogate Cheryl Cohen Greene (Helen Hunt) who offers a rare kind of sexual service: professional, humane intercourse in a carefully managed series of therapeutic sessions.

Inevitably boundaries are blurred and emotional connections formed, and the ending is bittersweet, to say the least. It's not a sentimental film, nor is it judgemental. Based on real events it is almost, but not quite, a documentary. What stops it slipping into mere actuality is a kind of mild radiance, the small light of the human spirit going about its work.

Helen Hunt's performance is low-key and intuitive, full of unassuming generosity, but the plaudits go to Hawkes. For much of the time we only see his face, so in many ways he is working as a miniaturist too, but in that face every nuance, every flicker of experience is writ large. It's a film about aspiration and achievement, about human contact and kindness – big themes examined through a small, and infinitely touching, lens.

Deep and Crisp and Even?

I'm sitting in my little shed with a hot water bottle on my knee wrapped in a blanket and very toasty it is too.

We are shrouded in snow where I live and when I inched my way down our hill to forage for supplies I was struck by the atmosphere – it's amazing what a bit of disruption can do. People were shovelling the pavements clear, talking to each other, throwing snowballs, helping to push stranded cars, all very different from your average Friday in these parts.

I think there is – wait for it – a creative writing lesson here. It can be extremely beneficial to disrupt your story from time to time, so why not play the narrative wild card and have a protagonist die or be unmasked; or you could turn received wisdom on its head; or perhaps engineer a plot catastrophe? Anything that gives the status quo a good shake-up. You will find that this makes your characters respond differently to one another and your reader respond differently to your novel. If your prose is deep and crisp and even for too much of the time it could have a muffling effect, just like the snow outside my window...

...so don't be afraid to put the cat among the pigeons.

Creative Contradictions

Jean Cocteau once observed that, "the spirit of creation is the spirit of contradiction," an interesting avenue to explore on a Wednesday morning. You can think about this in a number of different ways. Writing fiction is often an exercise in polarity. You establish a status quo and then explore something as far removed from it as you can credibly go: taking your hero from a place of safety and normality to one of danger and uncertainty, giving yourself as much scope is possible to examine the terrain that lies between. In the course of a good story, the protagonist should move from  ignorance to knowledge, weakness to strength, emptiness to fulfilment and his state at the beginning should be as different as possible – contradictory – from his state at the end in order to give the journey resonance and meaning.

However, when you are writing creatively, contradiction needn't necessarily confine itself to exploring opposites. Cocteau was an iconoclast, out to subvert all kinds of assumptions, something you can do to great effect when you are writing fiction. You can upset your readers' notion of what the story might be about by whipping the metaphorical rug from under their feet, or you can confound your characters' expectations (both in terms of plot and other people) of what might happen next, or who exactly they are dealing with.

You could also try contradicting your own instincts as a writer – don't reach for the comfortable phrase or the first response, turn your default settings off instead, and do something different. Try working in a genre that is new to you, or write about a character you wouldn't be seen dead with in real life, or have a go at poetry if you would normally stick to prose. You might find your own expectations are restricting you, so have a day of being contradictory and see where it takes you...

No Ladies Dancing!

I'm feeling punch drunk having cut seventeen scenes from the screenplay that I'm working on – once you start, you just can't stop – and on the subject of cutting, I've realised that I left out Nine Ladies Dancing from my Creative Writing Christmas Carol. Perhaps dancing didn't seem quite important enough, but I shouldn't have let that kind of oversight slip through. Mea Culpa.

Moral? Always check your work religiously and, if possible, get someone else to cast an eye over it as well.

As I'm in slash and burn mode, I won't linger, in case I cut anything else that really matters. Here's a beautiful door, the gateway to a fresh start next time, to make up for everything...

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas My True Love Sent to Me...

...Twelve Drummers Drumming! I imagine the sound as urgent and climactic, rallying the listener (and in this case the reader) onwards. Drums, whether at a gig or on the field of battle, are there to energise and inspire, setting the pace for a song or a march, and pace is something extraordinarily important when you are writing fiction.
Whereas tension is linked to suspense and has to do with the facts of your narrative - discovering who  murderer is, or whether true love will win through - pace has more to do with the way in which you relate these facts.
Uniformity is the enemy of pace. There should be variety within the structure of your novel. This applies from the macro to the micro: try and make sure that your chapters, your paragraphs, your sentences, and even your individual phrases are of different lengths so that your work doesn't become predictable. If you are writing about something dramatic, keep things short; if you are in more laid-back mood you can afford to meander (but not too much). Just keeping an eye on this simple technicality will have an enormous impact on the readability of your story.
Another way of manipulating the pace of a piece of fiction is through contrast. Just as you should go slow, slow, quick, quick, slow or long, long, short, short, long in structural terms, it's important to contrast the types of scene you are writing. If you have ratcheted up the emotion during a particular sequence of your book, give your reader a break and introduce something lighter. Think Hamlet and the gravedigger scene.
Pace has elements of texture and tension and contrast within it. It's what gives your writing dynamism. It's an essential ingredient in any good book and you should always be conscious of it when you are at work.

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas My True Love Sent to Me...

...Eleven Pipers Piping, an apt reminder that when you are writing fiction your prose will have a music all of its own. We are born with an innate sense of rhythm and the more you write the more you will develop a feel for the words you use. You will become conscious of the power of syllables and stresses, how to combine words of different length so that they don't just sound right, they look good on the page. You will see that the same applies to phrases then sentences and even paragraphs: that infinite variety doesn't just put a spring in your writing, it helps to build tension as well. Your awareness of the percussive quality of words will grow, so that you will instinctively use soft sibilants in the gentler passages of your work and harsher consonants in upbeat sections. As you master these concrete aspects of writing, you will gain in confidence and start introducing imagery into your work – a bit like the melody in a piece of music. Working like this at a more abstract or symbolic level is what helps to fire your reader's imagination.

As you can see, it's tempting to think of writing as orchestration, but the idea comes with a major health warning: if you become too conscious of the music in your voice, it will lose its magic. Your writing will become mannered and strained and too self-aware, an act of narcissism rather than creativity. To avoid this try and think technically rather than aesthetically, be objective not subjective, so that your stern editor's eye will stop your work from becoming self-indulgent.

On the Tenth Day of Christmas My True Love Sent to Me...

...Ten Lords a-Leaping. Lucky old me!
Over Christmas I went to see the Bristol Old Vic's anarchic and inventive production of Peter Pan. Rather than have conventional flying, Peter, Wendy and the Lost Boys used bungee ropes to convey the magic of their flight to Neverland, which was set in a graffiti-strewn urban back alley, with plenty of lords a leaping, tumbling and skirmishing.

There was none of the sentimentality of JM Barrie's original, but Tristram Sturrock's wild eyed, athletic Peter was mesmerising. The reason I'm talking about it in a creative writing blog is that it demonstrates the power and potential of revisiting an established idea and turning it on its head. I went with my nephews, Gabriel (nine) and Louis (six) - hello boys - and they were as open-mouthed with wonder as I was at this old story turned into something new and bold and original. Don't be afraid to take risks with your work, to be subversive, and remember that originality doesn't necessarily mean coming up with something no one else has thought of, but can be most potent when you re-examine something familiar with a fresh eye. That's often what takes the breath away.

As a little postscript, my great-grandfather was an actor called Arthur Whitby and he played the Rev George Amy in the original production of Mary Rose, also by JM Barrie.  Arthur asked Barrie if he would go and see my grandmother in a play as she was just beginning her career in the theatre. Here is the great man's reply.

He says, "Yes I shall go in and see your girl one night. And be very interested to see a child of yours. I didn't know that Mr Amy had any family but I have just now enlarged the vicarage and plumbed in a charming bathroom. You might suggest this in your performance. (I believe you could do it)."

All Barried out now - see you next week!

On the Eighth Day of Christmas My True Love Sent to Me...

...Eight Maids A-Milking... that's to say, eight young women doing something typical of their daily lives. When you're writing fiction and about to introduce your hero or heroine, it's important to show them in action. There are two reasons for this: firstly, it will make the picture you paint of them more vital and alive. You should avoid at all costs the cliche of having a character contemplating their reflection in a mirror, or a shop window, or wherever - it's been done to death and will reveal little of them other than their basic appearance. Far better to show them in dynamic mode, having a blazing row, or an achingly solitary drink, or walking away from someone that they love. Immediately you have parachuted your reader into the middle of a situation which, if you are skilful enough in developing it, will fire up their curiosity to know more.
As well as showing your main character in an engagingly vibrant fashion, it is also helpful if they are doing something which is typical of them: you want to encapsulate the ordinary world they inhabit in a way that contrasts with, yet at the same time anticipates (nobody said it was easy) the drama of the story which is about to unfold. In terms of maids a-milking, think Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy's novel opens with the local parson telling Tess's hopeless old father that he has discovered the family is descended from a noble line, information which sets in train a series of events leading to Tess's encounter with Alec D'Urberville, who turns out to be her nemesis. Tess herself is first seen at the Mayday dance, dressed all in white to symbolise her purity, though she is the only girl wearing a red ribbon, anticipating the bloodshed that comes later in the story. In the opening scenes, Hardy provides us with a lens through which to view the story as a whole.