Sarah Duncan's Blog

An agent likes your 3 chapters and synopsis and asks to see more. Heart pounding, you send the whole thing out. They love it! Cue champag...

Yesterday I heard on the radio a news story about a blind woman who wrote longhand 26 pages without realising her pen had run out of ink and...

Something that happens when I'm workshopping someone else's work is when I see a problem and raise it with the author they say somet...

I knew my first novel was a work of genius. It was obvious. So it was a bit disconcerting when my MA tutor suggested that, while writing it ...

My daughter bought a horse last year, an 8 year old, 16hh bay Arab.  She's hoping to train him in dressage, and has been taking lessons ...

I whiled away a few minutes the other day looking at an old piece of writing and counting the number of structural errors in it.  It had beg...

On the few occasions I’ve made a cherry cake I’ve carefully followed all the instructions, stirred in my glace cherries (full of E numbers, ...

So your manuscript has gone out, and come back more than several times.  You've had feedback from friends, fellow writers, possibly some...

I'm currently working on the second draft of a novel.  This book has been a bit of an uphill struggle, and I've done a lot of playin...

And now it's on to the last stage of this lovely meal. The cutlery has disappeared and you're now going to add the finishing touches...

The previous re-writes were very much about getting the novel into its finished shape. Once I'm happy with the outside shape and feel, I...

Now we're moving onto something with a bit more protein. I've decided roughly on the scene order and if there need to be any new sce...

The first course is soup, a lovely liquid mass. It's contained within the bowl, but can flow anywhere. Look at the cutlery and choose th...

Have you ever been to a posh dinner and been presented with a vast array of silverware spreading in ranks either side of your plate? Re-writ...

My most recent novel - Kissing Mr Wrong - came back from the editor with the request that I 'looked again' at the opening scene. It...

And now it's on to the last stage of this lovely meal. The cutlery has disappeared and you're now going to add the finishing touches...

And now we come to the bit that most people think of as re-writing, editing. This is the point when we examine every line and justify its pl...

The previous re-writes were very much about getting the novel into its finished shape. Once I'm happy with the outside shape and feel, I...

Now we're moving onto something with a bit more protein. I've decided roughly on the scene order and if there need to be any new sce...

The first course is soup, a lovely liquid mass. It's contained within the bowl, but can flow anywhere. Look at the cutlery and choose th...