Hello fellow writers, and do hope you all in fine fettle.

Here in Wales we’ve had endless rain for weeks and weeks, and I find it most helpful to have a research obsession in times like these, as well as an ark…

So I thought it would be interesting to share with you my early investigations into the relationship between writing and drawing, via a review of this fascinating book: Meander, Spiral, Explode – design and pattern in narrative by Jane Alison.

The full video review is now posted at lesson 56 of The Complete Freelance Writing Course.

Partly written as an antidote to the traditional wave form of situation, increasing tension, peak and fall which dominates much teaching about form in narrative and story, Jane Alison describes other patterns which could form the basis of our writing. Using short stories and short novels mostly and literary examples like WG Sebald, Ray Carver and Gabriel Garcia Marques, she shows how patterns like spirals, radials and branches can create skeletons for our writing.

There is lots to intrigue and inspire here, perhaps raising more questions than answers, and I’ll return to this theme very soon here. A recommended book choice for writing nerds everywhere.