About Writing by Roland Fishman - Page 4

Thirty Years of Creative Writing Courses

This is from an article published in the local Sydney magazine:

Do you have an urge to write a novel or screenplay but need a bit of support to get your creative juices flowing? It might be worth starting the journey by looking into a four week course called Unlocking Creativity run by The Writers’ Studio in Bronte.

Getting Your Novel Published 1: The Publishing Landscape

Exploring the landscape of getting your novel published. If you are a writer who wants to publish your novel, you have more options available to you than ever before. But the path to publication can be confusing, frustrating and challenging, even for experienced writers.

In this article, we aim to provide an overview of the publishing landscape and give you an understanding of which publishing option is the most suitable for you and your novel.

Four important novel and scriptwriting lessons behind Pixar’s success

Pixar Studios, maker of such classic films as Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Up, have had phenomenal success turning out one hit movie after another. In his book, Creativity Inc, Ed Catmull, one of the founders of Pixar, outlines many of the principles behind the studio’s success.

From the Writers’ Studio perspective, it is gratifying that just about every principle Catmull articulates matches the approach we passionately follow when conducting writing courses at the Writers’ Studio.Here are four of their guiding principles:

Four Breaking Bad Writing Lessons

At the end of last year, an award-winning Australian film director told me that people often asked him how to best learn to become a filmmaker. His response – study Breaking Bad created by Vince Gilligan.

Like many of the ground-breaking cable television series, Breaking Bad unfolds like a good novel. David Simon, who created The Wire, another great series, pitched the crime writer, George Pelecanos, to join the writing team with the concept that The Wire was like a novel for television.

Writing Fiction nourishes the soul of the reader and writer

One of the outcomes of our 4-Week Unlocking Creativity course is to help participants understand and recognise whether writing fiction is something they want to pursue and make part of their life.

Writing fiction is an art and a craft that takes time to master. If you do want to publish a novel or write a professional screenplay, you need to dedicate time to learning the craft. The same applies to any creative endeavour.

More Than Meets the Eye – Kim McRae

More Than Meets the Eye

My partner, Roland Fishman, and I run The Writers’ Studio, which Roland founded in 1992.

We were both shocked and saddened to hear of the recent death of one of our writers under suspicious circumstances. And even though it was 10 years ago now, I can clearly remember the night we met her.

Getting your Novel Published 2: Traditional Publishing V Self Publishing

Once you’ve written the best novel you can and feel ready to get your novel published and release it to the world, the first decision you must make is whether to self-publish or pursue a traditional publishing deal. This article explores the pros and cons of both paths.

The British author services firm, Reedsy, describes self-publishing vs traditional publishing as one of the great debates of the literary world.

Self-publishing authors sing the praises of having creative control, not having to deal with the publishing gatekeepers and receiving higher royalties.

Getting Your Novel Published 4: Writing a Synopsis for Your Novel or Screenplay

This fourth article in our publishing series aims to explain why the synopsis, along with the Query letter, is such an important tool when seeking representation from a literary agent or publisher.

A synopsis is an overview of your manuscript. Writing it forces you to define your story and capture its essence, conveying that you are in command of your material, in an engaging manner. It is an artform in itself. The quality of your synopsis will determine whether an agent or publisher will read your full manuscript. Most agents and publishers simply do not have time to read every manuscript they receive.

About Writing

Thirty Years of Creative Writing Courses

Getting Your Novel Published 1: The Publishing Landscape

Four important novel and scriptwriting lessons behind Pixar’s success

Four Breaking Bad Writing Lessons

Writing Fiction nourishes the soul of the reader and writer

More Than Meets the Eye – Kim McRae

Getting your Novel Published 2: Traditional Publishing V Self Publishing

Getting Your Novel Published 4: Writing a Synopsis for Your Novel or Screenplay

Subscribe to our newsletter