Since 2011, Writing the City has built a wide repository of resources to develop your craft. On this page, you’ll find free videos, an audio series, and other sources of inspiration to help you in your writing journey.
Jeremy Sheldon and Suchen Christine Lim Teach Writing
A 7-episode series
A series of short films as a starting point for discussions on the craft of writing and understanding texts. Singapore Literature Prize winner Suchen Christine Lim and UK novelist Jeremy Sheldon explore ideas of character, a sense of place, memory, history and belonging and how they relate to creative writing.
The Writer’s Eye
This video focuses on the reasons writers choose to include details in their writing and the way this can help convey a sense of place or a character’s feelings.
Characters
This video focuses on how essential characters are to a story, how characters are created and the way stories can hinge on the contradiction between characters’ inner and outer worlds.
Encounters
This video focuses on the way a character’s internal feelings will at some point interact or come into conflict with those of another character’s. These encounters reveal important truths and help a story move along – in other words, plot often relies on characters interacting with each other.
Memory
This film focuses on the role of fiction in preserving and representing the past, especially from the subjective point of view of an individual’s perspective.
The Magical
This video focuses on the supernatural in fiction. It is asserted that belief in the supernatural is commonplace in Asian cultures, but also that acceptance of the supernatural in fiction might be universal.
The Individual and the City
This film focuses on inspirations for writing and what we can lend on from our own life experiences.
Looking Forward
In this video, which serves as a postscript to the series, Jeremy and Suchen summarise important writing tips and ideas for the future…
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