Writing Tips – Show, Don’t Tell

“Don’t say it was delightful; make us say delightful when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers Please will you do the job for me.”  – C. S. Lewis I’m sure every writer has heard the phrase ‘show, don’t tell’ at some… Continue reading Writing Tips – Show, Don’t Tell

Researching and Writing Greek Mythology

My strongest memory from my time as a Classics student is of writing an essay on the various representations of a minor goddess in Ancient Greek vase paintings. I poured over all sorts of resources, studied images, essays, and even read an entire (albeit, rather short) book on the goddess herself. All for one five-page… Continue reading Researching and Writing Greek Mythology

Writing Tips – How to get unstuck from the writing process

*sighs* If only we could just transfer all the vibes and bits of ideas in our heads into our Word doc and magically have it arrange all the planning so all we have to do is write. And in correlation to what a friend of mine had said about how it is we don’t have… Continue reading Writing Tips – How to get unstuck from the writing process

Autumn Prompts for Re-writing Fairy/Folk Tales

Spellbinder submissions for the Winter 2023 Issue (publ. Jan 2023) are open until November 14th. We have shared some prompts on our social media channels during the past week to boost your creativity and imagination while submissions are open. The prompts we posted during this submission window are under the theme of “Re-writing fairy/folk tales”,… Continue reading Autumn Prompts for Re-writing Fairy/Folk Tales

Writing Tips – Setting and Character

This season’s writing tips post is going to focus on the relationship between physical setting and characters. I have come up with what should be a fun and challenging writing exercise which will allow you to consider the importance of these two important elements of fiction writing. Setting – by which I mean the physical… Continue reading Writing Tips – Setting and Character

Summer Prompts – Point of View

This post will help you respond to the following Spellbinder Instagram post: “Choose a scene or a chapter from your favourite summer read and rewrite it from a different point of view. You could also maintain the main character as is, but switch points of view (eg from the first to the third person). Think… Continue reading Summer Prompts – Point of View

Writing Resources – Character

Character is a key element of prose writing, whichever form – short story, play, novel – that might take. Characters are often at the heart of a story. They drive it forward. For readers, they are often the reason we keep reading something. We want to find out more about a character’s motivations or thoughts.… Continue reading Writing Resources – Character

Writing Routes

The literary arts is a very broad field which this post will attempt to navigate. This is designed to encourage you to experiment with different forms and submit work to our magazine that does not fall into the more common categories of the short story and the poem, although we love receiving these too! Poetry… Continue reading Writing Routes