Costa Award winner Brian Thompson tells us what makes a story.

Brian has been writing for a living since 1973, he has written innumerable television and radio plays as well as novels and several acclaimed biographies. He won the 2006 Costa Award for Biography with ‘Keeping Mum’ his wartime childhood reminisces. (Hotly tipped to go one better this year with ‘Clever Girl’ and take Book of the Year.) He said he wanted to give us what he thought makes a story.

He first talked about the work place. Always write in the same place, at the same time was his advice. Don’t have distractions, any radio or television. Never throw anything away - keep all your discarded drafts. Always stop with something left over for the next day, a point or a hook that will draw you on.

It’s not our job as writers to create plots or characters but we should be safeguarding the English language. Look at what you have written and ask yourself – do I say what I mean? ‘I don’t want you to tell me, I want you to show me, I’m sure you have all heard that before,’ he said. We should feed the passion for reading. The secret of reading is creating the story. We should make the plot move on with dialogue alone.

He felt that many writers do not give enough attention to what he called the back stories, that is the background of the characters although you may never use it. Also there is often no shadow – no sense of another world existing outside the story. People sometimes ask does it have to be true, no it doesn’t was his view but it has to be plausible. But don’t create distractions in the story he said. Brian likened it to a bowl of fruit prominently displayed in a stage play but never touched. The audience keep thinking ‘what is that bowl of fruit doing there?’

Never forget, Brian said, that writing is entertainment for other people. If you want to be published, it is no good letting the story come straight from your brain down your arm to your pen. The essence of writing is rewriting. This was uppermost in his mind as he had been up until 4.30 am that morning rewriting 75,000 words of his latest book. Always look at the story after it has been typed. Your handwriting can be seductive. As for endings, he said, they will come from the story itself.

A slightly unusual but very informative session by a very experienced writer.