Best Writing Advice: Give Your Characters Life

Give your characters life when writing

By Sufia Aleia For a story to exist, it must have characters. For characters to exist, they must be given life. After all, lifeless, inanimate objects can’t carry a narrative, can’t captivate a readership, can’t plunge a hand into a reader’s chest to take out their heart and examine it and say, Yes, I know […]

Best Writing Tip: How to Get Away with ‘Murder’

editing your writing

By Tarumbidzwa Chirume I was 15 when my English teacher, Mrs Williams, told me to commit murder.  It was Speech Day, and we all had to speak our self-written speeches for three minutes. I was confident in my speech – it was well-written, and I’d learnt it off-by-heart – so nothing could go wrong. Or […]

Best Writing Advice: It’s Skills, Not Genre, That Determines Writing Success

choosing your writing genre

‘What’s Your Favourite Popsicle?’ By Archanaa I stared at the red circle on my calendar. I had three weeks to submit my short story. The idea of participating in a writing competition for the first time scared and excited me at the same time. However, I still had not finalised the genre of my short […]