Writing Magazine

Broad Strokes

here’s a natural tendency in most writers to want to get things right from the very first word, when all we need to be doing is scoping out scenes and building our basic storyline – doing the groundwork, if you like. Like all groundwork, it won’t look too pretty at first; it needs further tidying up and polishing. Take a look at any new building project and you might wonder how anyone knows what to do next. It looks a mess. Okay, as analogies go it’s not perfect because builders work from

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