Writing Skill: Implicit Colour

Berries in the snow.
Chocolate flecked with hazlenut.
Lavendar crowded with bumblebees.
Daisies on the lawn.

In each of those, I don't need to tell you the colours for them to leap into your mind's eye: they each create vivid colour palettes, just through the things themselves. And there are heaps of things that will do that for us.

That's what we're going to play with in this Writing Skill: making your writing burst with implicit colour. So give yourself the gift of ten minutes' writing time, grab your pen, notebook, and something to sip, and let's start.

For colour inspiration, we're using the handy resource, Hex-Hub. Originally designed to give you the hex-codes of colours for websites, it has fantastic colour names. It divides them into five palettes: neutrals, warms, greens, blues, and purples. Ignore the neutrals and just focus on the four colour palettes.

On some paper or in your notebook, devote a page to each colour palette. (If you want to keep it a ten-minuter, allow 2.5 minutes per palette as well.) Then click on a palette and scroll through the colour names, jotting down all the names of things that catch your eye. For example, under warms, I swiftly get snow, rose, salmon, coral... Make sure you only write down names of things, not fancy colour words like "azure". Go through all four colour palettes like that, gleaning things with implicit colour.

The newly heightened awareness from just doing that exercise is enough, if you're using this as a warm-up and hankering to dive back into your work-in-progress. If you want to play with it further, then I suggest writing a poem or a short passage of description inspired by your favourites things you've gleaned, letting their inherent colours fill the page without an adjective in sight.

One side note: In my examples at the top, you almost definitely saw red berries, even though berries also come in white, orange, and black. Likewise, "apples" usually suggests green, despite all the other colours available. But some imaginings will vary. I can't control whether you saw pale English lavender or deep purple French lavender. I'm more likely to picture a big white daisy with a yellow centre (the ones I grew up with) than the little white-and-pale-pink ones more common in England. I saw dark chocolate; you might have seen milk chocolate. That's okay. Part of letting things come alive in the reader's mind is giving space for them to imagine it, not controlling every! last! detail! lest they inadvertently stray from our vision. We want to give them just enough detail that the rest can come alive in their mind, not constrain them to ours.

Have fun!

Want more Writing Skills? As a member of The Writers' Greenhouse Community, you'll get a new Writing Skill every week: quick fun activities to develop your writing across plot, character, description, style, genres, and poems.

Plus you'll get expert advice on tap, a friendly supportive writing community, and help sending your writing out.

Find out more and join here.  

Writing Skill: Sound of Water

When we’re dealing with writer’s block, whatever the cause, we need to start by being gentle with ourselves. List exercises and specific description are two of the gentlest ways to get our pens moving and start finding our way back to the place of ideas. They’re also both perennially useful for writing, even when we’re going great guns: lists help us cast a wider net for ideas, without pre-judging them; and we always benefit from practising description, as it’s the writing skill we use least in the rest of life.

As an added bonus, given the heatwave, this is themed around water. Writing is a joy – or at least, it’s meant to be. It’s our play space, our escape into secret worlds, and if what we need is somewhere cool and watery, we get to make that up!

So find your notebook and pen, settle yourself somewhere cool with an iced jug of something (people in cooler climes: feel free to substitute appropriately for your current weather!), and give yourself the gift of ten minutes’ writing. Or longer, if you want: this is your world.

Part One: Lists of Watery Places

You can give yourself 5–10 minutes for the list (five if you want to keep the whole thing a ten-minuter) OR you can write the numbers 1–20 down the side of a page. Some people prefer a time limit; some people find time limits stress them out and prefer a quota. You choose whatever suits you best. Then write a list of watery places. For example:

• the sea 
• rock pools on the Garden Coast
• a cave with dripping water
• that cave we visited in Greece with a lake and a boat 
• the weir by the canal

You can be as general or as specific as you like. Don’t worry about whether ideas are "good enough" or not: the joy of a list exercise is that you put down a bunch of ideas, so they don’t all need to be good. A lot of them end up being part of our thinking – eg in my example, "the sea" was what reminded me of those specific rock pools, and caves in general reminded me of a specific cave. Everything you think of goes down on the list.

Part Two: The Sound of Water and Watery Words

Now you’ve got your list, spend the rest of the time (five minutes if you want to keep the whole thing a ten-minuter) listening to and describing the sound of water. Adding sounds always makes a story or poem much more immersive, and water is one of those things we have heaps of onomatopoeia for – ie words that sound like the actual sound, like "glug", "slosh", and "trickle". Plus water tends to be pretty ubiquitous anywhere humans settle or hang around, so having water-words in your sound repertoire is always handy!

For listening, go to MyNoise.Net: very high quality soundscapes, professionally recorded and very lovingly put together by Dr Stefane Pigeon. He’s got heaps of watery soundscapes, so use your list as inspiration for what kind of water you’d like. (I’ve been listening to Icelandic Shores all week.) Once you’ve clicked on your water soundscape, do check out the presets below it as well, to play with, and the slider animation button which varies the sound as you listen.

While you listen, describe the water. You can write full sentences or simply brainstorm words, whichever you prefer. If you want more words, look at Reverse Dictionary’s sound-of-water words for extra inspiration.

That’s it! Your list’s given you more ideas of story locations, where interesting things might happen, and you’ve expanded your description repertoire to include the often-underused sense of sound. And you’ve spent ten minutes writing. Hurrah! (How’s that jug looking? Need a top-up?)

If you’re enjoying yourself, though, and want to take it futher, here’s a serving suggestion for you:

Optional: Moving through the watery place

To play with this futher, add someone moving through the watery place: a character through whom we’ll get all the lovely description. With all your water words, as much as possible, you want to use them as nouns (thing words) and verbs (doing words) not describing words or ___ing words: that keeps the writing lively and active. So if I braintormed "sloshing" and "glugging", I can say "The waves sloshed over the sand and glugged between the rocks".

• If you’re using this as a starting point, I suggest you write a descriptive passage / poem about exploring your watery place and moving around it: that’ll give you plenty of variety of water-sounds to describe. And have another look at those presets in MyNoise: they’ll give you a sense of moving around as the sounds change.
• If you want to use this with your own story, I suggest you pick the places where water sounds could be prominent, and then write a passage of description for each one. You might not use that passage as-is straight in the story: you’re sharpening your awareness of what the water sounds are, and expanding your repertoire of water-words by using them. Though some snippets might go straight in!

Have fun!

Want more Writing Skills? As a member of The Writers' Greenhouse Community, you'll get a new Writing Skill every week: quick fun activities to develop your writing across plot, character, description, style, genres, and poems.

Plus you'll get expert advice on tap, a friendly supportive writing community, and help sending your writing out.

Find out more and join here.  

Should I Just Give Up Writing My Novel?

It’s a fair question. Writing a novel takes a lot of time and dedication. Some people will rush in to say “Nooo! Never give up!” But if you’re asking, it deserves consideration. Maybe that specific novel is something you’re ready to ditch; maybe it’s become an albatross around your neck. You don’t have to carry on if you don’t want to. It doesn’t make you a quitter.

Or maybe you’re having a standard creative crisis point, the ones every writer and creative gets, but you don’t know about those yet. And if you ditch this one, the next project will reach the same crisis points – precisely because they are standard.

It’s not a question I can answer for you. But I can pose the questions which will help you decide and I can tour you through the standard crisis points you might be having.

Beyond writer's block

Some writers, on blogs or in interviews, will grandly declare that they don't believe in writer's block and that there's no such thing. Often, they'll follow this up with scornful comparisons: "Do plumbers get plumber's block? Do accountants get accountant's block?" This makes me cross: if someone hasn't experienced something themselves, they don't get to say it doesn't exist. "Your experience is invalid because I haven't shared it" - an appalling logical fallacy, arrogance, and lack of compassion.

The plumber/accountant/insert-profession example is equally nonsensical. Some work relies purely on carrying out pre-established procedures. You can't get "blocked" about that (though you may get bored). Some work relies on problem solving, coming up with new approaches, and inventing. (I don't know about accounting, but I imagine some plumbing issues fall into that.) That kind of work can hit exactly the same kind of wall as writing does: people get stuck. A cell researcher in a lab can get just as stymied and "blocked" as a novelist wrestling with an intractable plot problem. Scientific research, like writing, requires creativity. Some work also requires more emotional engagement than other kinds. An admin job might not seem emotional, but what if you have a task that you're avoiding, because you don't know how to do it or where to start, and you're afraid to expose your ignorance, and then it's gone on so long that you're afraid to admit you haven't even started... You might even not know why you're not doing it, only that at the end of every day, it's staring out from your to-do list like a bad dream. You'd call that "procrastination", not "admin block", but the result is much the same.

Often, that original gung-ho writer is implying that it's a question of professionalism: professional writers just don't get block: that's an amateur's game. (Sometimes they'll come right out and say that.) That's simply nonsense. Many professional, famous, highly respected and admired writers do get writer's block. Here's 13 of them, including Maya Angelou.

If you read that original gung-ho writer further, though (or the interviewer presses), usually they do know writer's block perfectly well: they're simply giving it a different name. That's where I do agree with them: "writers' block" isn't a very helpful term. (Though I still don't see how the original clanging denial serves anyone.) To get beyond writer's block, you need to know what's wrong. If the answer is "writer's block", it's difficult to find a solution. If you keep asking questions beyond "writer's block", you can find the problem at the root of it and resolve that. (If you read the 13 famous writers' advice on writer's block, you'll find that's what they're usually doing: they've figured out what the cause usually is for themselves, and advising accordingly.) So here are some of the possible causes, some useful questions to ask, and a raft of strategies to use. Writer: here are the tools to heal thyself!

Possible causes

• it’s normal – some days go unexpectedly well, some unexpectedly don’t (remember this when it's short-lived)
• bad day / bad time outside of writing: I’m tired, stressed, distracted…
• I’m afraid of / worried about something in the story / about writing
• I’m stuck on something in the story

Useful questions

• Is it just a bad day? Can I write through this – write now and judge it later?
• Do I need a break?
• What’s happening outside my writing? Am I tired / stressed / distracted? What can I do to ease that or shield my writing from it?
• Am I being perfectionist?
• Is there something I’m afraid of? eg hostile readers, not matching up to what I've already written
• Is there something I’m worried about? eg plot shape feels wrong
• Is there something I’m stuck on? eg need to research, don’t know how to resolve something
• What can I do about that?

Useful strategies

You might need to get the words out, to take a break, or to resolve something with the story. Once you have an idea of what you're stuck on, it's easier to choose which approach to take. Don't worry if the first approach doesn't fix it immediately; try a few different strategies.

Get the words out

• switch into italics and type highspeed what you want to happen, without worrying about style
• change location - go to a coffee shop with a pad of paper, and write longhand
• stop thinking about your audience, publication, possible film versions - write it for yourself
• morning pages: write high-speed, by hand, for 30 minutes every morning - this is just skimming the rubbish off the top of your head, not a place to produce great prose. It's also a great place to explore your fears.
• procrastination is fear: what are you afraid of, in this story / idea / book / poem? Write down your fears and the opposite positives
• go with it and see where it leads you
• stop while you know what happens next: in a book, stop each session while you know what happens next - mid-scene, even mid-sentence if necessary. Leave yourself a few notes of what will happen to kick-start your next session.
• close down all other computer programs, email alerts, blogs, and so on - go somewhere without wi-fi
• don't google every detail - you can get the precise information you need later. Just add square brackets [like this] and keep writing.
• give yourself a two-hour time-block during which you WILL stay at the computer / writing table, and you WILL produce words. Sometimes it's ninety minutes before it starts coming fluently, but by the two-hour mark it usually is.
• don't delete your false starts - just press enter a couple of times and start again or carry on.
• write helpful sayings and stick them above your desk, so when you stare up you see those reminders.
• cut out all the voices: stop reading, watching TV, and listening to radio talk for a week. It's hard, but without the babble your own voice starts speaking again.

Take a break

• go for a long walk - every day
• collect an image-bank: brainstorm key words and spend a few hours googling and collecting pictures around each one
• collect a music-bank: make playlists to write to - a different playlist for each project
• try a different art form: sewing, painting, drawing, sculpture, music, graphic design…
• clean your house: set an alarm clock and spend ten minutes whisking through each room
• read some non-fiction - fill your head with interesting information
• make your writing space magical: candles, incense, fairylights, flowers, music… Clean it before you want to write, so it's an inviting space to be in.

Resolve a problem with the story

• take a break: all those activities can help you get the distance and non-thinking mulling time to see what the problem is
• tell someone new about the story - someone positive and supportive who doesn't yet know anything about it. Describing your story can rekindle your original enthusiasm.
• talk it through with a friend: tell them what you've got and what you might be stuck on - they might have a solution or (often) you'll come up with the solution as you talk
• reread everything you've got so far: make a book thing, curl up with tea, and read it like a reader, to get an overview
• draw a plot map & some character sketches and character arcs: if either of those aspects are creating problems, it should come clear quickly. (I do this in a coffee shop: it's free of distraction, plus physical distance from your usual spot helps you get mental distance.)

Helpful sayings

I have these pinned on the wall in front of my desk, so that if I freeze and stare up, I'm reminded:

• Everything can be changed, reshuffled, deleted, enriched, or pruned later. Just write what you want to write.
• Stop while you know what happens next.
• I can do anything with the alphabet.
• I am a channel for [your deity/the universe]'s creativity and my work comes to good.
• [Your deity/the universe]: I'll take care of the quantity - you take care of the quality.
• Whatever I want to write is right.

If you want to explore more ways to get from writer’s block back into your joy of writing, and ways to unpick what's causing it, the Past Writer’s Block workshop is running on Saturday 15 August 2026, in Oxford. In a fun, friendly, supportive atmosphere, you’ll identify the obstacles that keep you from the joy of writing and find ways to move past them. Read more about the workshop and book your place here.

Questions for writing buddies to ask each other

The right questions can be better than any advice.

In 2010, I hadn't worked on my novel for almost three years. I'd been writing heaps of other novels, to the point of burn-out, and was very ill with endometriosis. Filip Dousek and I were regularly discussing his novel, Flock Without Birds (Hejno bez ptáků), and every time we spoke on Skype, he said, "How's your writing going?"