In this article, screenwriter, script consultant, and NCW Academy tutor Christabelle Dilks shares the aspects of creating compelling characters for film or television drama.
It was author David Finkel who taught me to "report cinematically." This was key, he argued, to writing a story that feels like a movie, using the variety of camera angles available to the cinematographer, from wide establishing shots to extreme close-ups. Read more
Neuroscientist Susan Greenfield worries that with the rise of the so-called “screen culture,” we are entering into “unknown territory,” meaning that “the brain may be adapting in unprecedented ways,” although it is still uncertain whether these changes are good or bad.
For the past five years or so, I've read books on my phone. The practice started innocently enough. I write book reviews from time to time, and so publishers sometimes send me upcoming titles that fall roughly within my interests. Read more
The Guardian calls Irish-Indian poet Nikita Gill "Britain's most-followed poet on social media"-she has 780,000 Instagram followers and 180,000 TikTok followers, and her Instapoetry has been reshared by the likes of Khloe Kardashian, Alanis Morissette, and Sam Smith-and she has published seven volumes of poetry and two novels in the U.K. But she is far less known on this side of the pond. Read more
Nikkolas Smith knows a thing or two about book bans. The illustrator has created five picture books over the last three years-four of which have been yanked off library shelves. There's I am Ruby Bridges, about the civil rights icon; That Flag about the confederate flag; Born on the Water, which explores slavery; and The Artivist which features a child supporting trans kids.
Simon & Schuster has acquired the largest Dutch publishing group Veen Bosch & Keuning, including all of its publishers in the Netherlands and Belgium, as well as sister companies Thinium and Bookchoice.
The Publishers Association (PA) has criticised the government's response to a House of Lords report on AI, saying that it has failed to make "any tangible commitments to protect the creative industries against mass copyright infringement".
My publisher wife looks across at me reading a proof of one of her soon-to-be-released thrillers. 'The setting is great, isn't it?' she says. 'Really good,' I reply. 'Very generous.' Read more
'The one thing I take with me into my writing every single day, is that no one is ever really who you think they are. We're all projections of the person we think we should be' Read more
'Writing is a kind of revenge against circumstance too: bad luck, loss, pain. If you make something out of it, then you've no longer been bested by these events.'