Lily Greenall

This week I’m working on Chapter 17 of my WIP first draft. It’s a YA gothic novel and is currently at about 50,000 words with the aim of getting to 100,000 at completion. I’m already planning all the ways I’ll rewrite it. I’m thinking of changing the setting, fleshing out the main character to add more conflict, and including a new baddie. The other characters and most of the basic plot structure are being pinned down in this first draft though. My plan was to write the whole first draft in chr

The rain was coming down hard as I crossed the street. I ducked into the doorway of Dean’s building and rang the buzzer. The estate looked grim in the rain; scrubby lawns and the red tile roofs. My shoes were soaked. I could feel my toes sticking together inside my wet socks and I scuffed the ground, working them apart. Holding the buzzer down I leaned back, peering up at Dean’s bedroom window. It was dark and the curtains were drawn. The intercom crackled, latch clicked. I shoved the door open

Walter Hartright, a young drawing teacher who lives in London, needs a job and an escape from the city for the autumn months. One night he goes to visit his mother and sister, Sarah, and is surprised to find his friend Professor Pesca, a cheerful Italian whom Walter once saved from drowning, waiting for him at the Hartright’s family home. Pesca tells Walter that he has found a job for him teaching art to a pair of young ladies in Cumberland, at a place called Limmeridge House, in the employment

The common adage states that everyone has at least one book in them. Everyone has a story to tell and most people, if pressed, can come up with at least one colorful anecdote. Storytelling is a natural human impulse. We do it all day, every day. We tell stories consciously (when we narrate our dash round Lidl avoiding non-social-distancers) and unconsciously (our memories are basically story-generating machines.) Storytelling is as effortless as breathing – it’s when it comes to writing these st