The People's Friend

1 month ago | thepeoplesfriend.co.uk | Alan Spink

Our Writer Of The Week is author Hazel Meredith-Lloyd. Hazel’s short story, “Mystery By The Book”, appears in the May 31 issue, on sale this week. Humour and intrigue work well in “Mystery By The Book”. Is a well-balanced plot something you enjoying crafting? Absolutely. I really enjoy studying story structure, plot, characterisation and setting. My sister introduced me to a book by John Yorke about story structure, titled “Into The Woods: How Stories Work And Why We Tell Them”.

1 month ago | thepeoplesfriend.co.uk | Hannah McLaren

After lunch, Julia followed Marianna to her office feeling like she’d already received her first warning. She’d been trying to extract from Mark where he planned to paint that afternoon, and he’d done likewise without giving any information away. Marianna had made a light-hearted yet pointed comment about how Julia was supposed to be working, not socialising. The room was small and modern, with a computer and little else other than paintings on the walls, all clearly Mariana’s.

1 month ago | thepeoplesfriend.co.uk | Hannah McLaren

Mark closed his eyes and leaned his head in his hand, his elbow resting on the arm of a bench. The warmth of the day and the lack of sleep had caught up with him. He had finished a sketch of a street corner and decided to give in. He felt relatively safe in town surrounded by concrete and stone, safe enough to switch off. As his eyes closed and his brain headed towards slumber, the sounds around him heightened.

1 month ago | thepeoplesfriend.co.uk | Hannah McLaren

Wizzy was so excited that she barely knew where to start. She’d sketched scenes prior to painting them hundreds, if not thousands, of times before. What was so different about today? It was, she decided, the promise of something unknown which thrilled her. After at least 40 minutes spent flitting around the piazzale, she had dozens of small sketches crowding her pages, from building façades to the wandering pattern of coloured cobbles decorating the pedestrianised area beneath the trees.

1 month ago | thepeoplesfriend.co.uk | Alan Spink

Our Writer Of The Week is debut author Katherine Abbott. Katherine’s short story, “Escape To The Country”, appears in Special 277, on sale this week. The storytelling flowed naturally in “Escape To The Country”. Was it an easy story to write? “Escape To The Country” was born out of conversations with family members about generations of time spent in Lincolnshire as children. It did flow, that’s true, a bit like a picture gradually unfolding before the eye.