Saturday, 24 January 2026

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Welcome to the Mindful Writer where I share ideas, readings and writing prompts designed to connect you more deeply and authentically to yourself, your writing craft, and everyone and everything you’re sharing this human experience with. You can find out more about me here. If you find value in my offerings, please consider taking out a paid subscription or buy me a cup of tea to support my work and say thank you for all of the posts I share here.

Wondering Aloud #1

On should and coulds and finding our own way

Hi Mindful Writers, welcome to my new feature for 2026. While the posts are free for all to read, only the paid members of the community can send in questions for me to answer. These can be about writing craft, mindful living and writing, finding our way and meaning in these time we find ourselves living in, anything and everything that’s on their minds.

Each month, I will also create a short teaching video inspired by the questions I’ve received, which is included at the end for paid subscribers. Time got away from me this month though as I have been so busy with the 2026 Year of Mindful Writing course starting and other teaching and mentoring commitments, so this bit now starts next month! I have written what I was going to say instead at the end.

Many thanks to Shoshana and Michelle this month for their excellent questions.

With love,

Amanda 💙

What is the best way to create structure for a writing project and still maintain the creativity that launched the idea in the first place? I’ve been writing now for years, mostly to mine my own subconscious by responding to prompts. It’s been fun and illuminating, but I’m missing the sense of accomplishment that comes with working towards a goal. I just started reading Libbie Hawker’s book “Take Your Pants Off” and appreciate her clarity around how to create a book outline. But even that approach concerns me, as I fear it will snuff out the creative flow and the joy that writing brings when its destination is unknown. — Shoshana

This is a path I have walked with my own novels: to plan and outline or not to plan and outline? I didn’t even know such an approach existed when I started writing my first novel and just wrote scenes and chapters as they came to me. During the years I was writing that story though, I learned all about how writing novels works. I discovered different structures and how the story arc works across them all, I now knew how character transformation was tied to what happened in the external world of the story, and how vital it was that setting and descriptive writing worked on multiple levels. And a myriad of other elements that feed into the construction of a novel.

So when I set off on the second novel, I applied what I had learned and before I wrote any scenes I created a plot/plan/outline and tried to make the protagonist, Evie, who had been living in my head for a couple of years by then, go along with it. She was having none of it and the writing didn’t go well at all. I had also decided it would be more saleable (as things like that mattered to me then!) if I wrote in third person. She didn’t like that either. So we limped along for several months not really getting anywhere. To the point that I stopped trying.

But she still wanted me to tell her story and it was when I was away teaching at a writing festival a couple of months after giving up, that the flow and the joy returned to me. When I wasn’t teaching, I went to a workshop taught by the author Shelley Harris and the exercises she had us do freed the story for me from the box I had been trying to squeeze it into.

So when I got home, I threw the plan out and the ten thousand or so hollow and clunky words I’d written and started again. In first person. I did what I had done with the first novel and just let the character tell her story through me. But all of the learning I’d done seeped into how that story came out. The first draft naturally had the story and character arc in place, it had layered meaning through the way I’d written the settings, and the first person voice created immediacy and connection in a way the third person hadn't been able to.

I’ve not made a plan or outline since. I connect with the characters that come to me and I let them tell me their story and I write it down. Always in their first person voice. Then when I edit, I bring in all of the craft elements needed to make it a novel that works on a structural, pacing and emotionally resonant level.

So, Shoshana, I’d recommend learning all about the different elements and having them in your subconscious. But let the first draft be a creative flow of discovery and joy. Follow the flow where it takes you as that, I’ve learned, is where the real magic of creation lies.

I am re-reading Verlyn Klinkenborg’s excellent “Several Short Sentences About Writing”. In it he extols short sentences, their directness and clarity, their expunging of superfluous words and thoughts and fluff. As a teacher I am a big fan of short declarative sentences; I teach my pupils to master them because they are the anchor for all sentences. I would love to hear your thoughts about short sentences. Do we use them enough? When should we use them and how? — Michelle

Sometimes they’re good. Other times not. Context is all.

When I worked as a journalist, short declarative sentences were the building blocks of my trade. But when I turned my hand to novel writing and needed to convey so much more than basic information, in a way that brings people and place and ideas to life in readers’ minds, longer sentences were often needed. I like to think they still didn’t contain superfluous words and fluff though. Short sentences are often used in flash fiction to great effect. This one I published at WestWord is a great example of long and short working together to create the feeling of being in the narrator’s chaotic mind.

Short sentences often work well in fiction and creative nonfiction when pace and tension is needed. Or to convey panic, confusion and fear in the protagonist’s inner thoughts. While long sentences are good for when you want the reader to linger with the moment, with what’s being revealed about the story and character, when what your conveying is working on a metaphorical level as well as a storyline one.

But, there’s no real answer to when to use them and how. Context is all. Too many short sentences together can make the writing feel flat. Sometimes more words are needed to connect with a reader on a visceral and not just information level. Let your intuition guide you. Read your work aloud. Does it sing and flow and make you feel things? As that’s what we really want it to do.

What I was going to say in my video…...

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Fabulous First Chapters

Making your opening as compelling as can be

Hi Story Lovers!

We have the deadline coming up for our annual First Chapter competition in which you can win a feedback meeting with our literary agent judge, which this year is Louise Buckley. Louise is with The Ampersand Agency, where she represents a diverse list of commercial and upmarket fiction across adult and young adult categories. With a keen eye for compelling narratives and fresh voices, Louise has built a reputation for championing authors who bring emotional depth and originality to their work. She is particularly drawn to psychological thrillers, contemporary women’s fiction, book club reads, and YA that tackles complex themes with authenticity.

Louise Buckley

Before joining The Ampersand Agency, Louise honed her editorial expertise working in publishing, giving her a comprehensive understanding of what makes a manuscript stand out in today’s competitive market. Her passion for discovering new talent and nurturing writers through their publishing journey makes her an invaluable judge for this competition.

Getting your submission ready

Back in late 2023, I ran a workshop called Fabulous First Chapters and to help you all with your submissions for the comp, I’m sharing the replay link here with you today.

Please drop a tip in my jar to say thanks!

And good luck with getting your chapters polished up to win that meeting with Louise. We’re looking forward to reading them all!

With love,

Amanda 💙


© 2026 Amanda Saint

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The Slow Burn: Writing Between Fire and Ash

a close up of lava rocks with red lights
Photo by Pablo Martinez on Unsplash

The summer has left us in southwest Scotland and autumn is here. We’ve had the wood burner lit a few times already. There's something mesmerising about embers – that quiet glow after the flames have died down, neither fully alive nor completely dead. They hold potential in their warmth, capable of rekindling into roaring fire or slowly fading to ash.

This liminal quality makes them a rich theme for storytelling. It's not about the dramatic crackle of fire or the finality of cold ashes. It's about that in-between space where possibilities shimmer, where there’s a delicate balance between what was and what might yet be.

The Emotional Landscape of Ember

Think about what embers could represent in human experience: the relationship that's neither reconciled nor ended, the dream that hasn't died but isn't actively pursued, the anger that's banked but not extinguished. These emotional states create natural tension because they exist in suspension.

In short fiction, this suspension is our friend. We don't need to resolve everything – sometimes the most powerful stories end with characters still in that ember state, glowing with potential but not yet transformed, capable of making change but not yet sure if they will.

Techniques for Ember Fiction

Use restraint as a literary device. Embers represent controlled intensity. Unlike roaring flames that demand our attention, embers require us to lean in closer. In our prose, this can be a way of showing characters exercising emotional restraint – saying less rather than more, acting with careful control rather than explosive passion.

Master the art of temporal layering. Embers exist because of the fire that came before while holding the promise of what could come, either a rekindling or an extinguishing. We can weave past and future into our present-moment scenes. A character might be washing dishes while memories of an argument surface, or packing boxes while imagining different possible futures.

Let objects carry emotional weight. In "Subtext in Flash Fiction," we looked at how objects can embody feelings that might take paragraphs to explain. With ember themes, we use objects that hold residual warmth – a wedding dress still hanging in the closet, a child's bedroom left unchanged, tools left behind by a departed loved one. These objects glow with what came before and hold the potential for a change that might come next.

Write dialogue that circles rather than attacks. Characters dealing with ember-state emotions often can't, or won't, address things directly. They talk around the real issue, testing the waters, seeing if that old spark might catch or if it's better left alone.

Creating Depth Through Smouldering

The most compelling ember stories often operate on multiple levels. On the surface, your character might be performing a mundane task but underneath, they're navigating the burn and fade of some unresolved situation.

This creates natural subtext because your character's internal state influences how they interact with the world, but readers must interpret the connection themselves. The recently divorced character who can't bring herself to change the thermostat setting. The writer who re-reads their rejection letters repeatedly but hasn't submitted anything new in months. The parent who still sets the table for four even though their child moved out a year ago and has never called since.

Use setting as emotional mirror. Embers have distinct qualities – they're warm but not hot, visible but not bright, fragile but persistent. Look for settings that echo these characteristics: the last light of dusk, a greenhouse in winter, a town that's not quite abandoned.

The Specificity of Ember

Generic fire imagery won't serve you here. Embers have particular qualities that differentiate them from flames or ashes:

  • They respond to breath – a gentle blow can revive them or put them out

  • They're beautiful but dangerous – you can be burned by something that looks harmless

  • They can hide among ashes, appearing dead when they're not

  • They consume slowly, almost invisibly

  • They require the right conditions to flare back to life

These physical realities become metaphorical tools. Your character's carefully controlled emotions might flare unexpectedly when disturbed. Something that seemed resolved might prove to still hold burning potential. A relationship that appears over might reignite with just the right conditions — or finally die out completely with one wrong move.

Working with Ambiguity

Ember stories thrive in ambiguous territory. Will the protagonist rekindle that old dream or let it die? Can the relationship be revived, or is it time to let it burn out? The power often lies not in answering these questions but in exploring the space where they exist.

This doesn't mean being deliberately obscure. Our story should work on a surface level so the reader can understand what's happening even if they're not sure what it means for the characters' futures. But that uncertainty about outcome, that sense of teetering on the edge of possibility, captures the ember experience.

Ember in Action

Sarah McPherson's story, Poison, demonstrates ember storytelling at its finest. The story retells Snow White from the stepmother's perspective, but instead of simple villainy, we see something more complex – years of resentment and self-judgement that have been smouldering quietly.

The repetitive structure ("She bit into the apple, and...") creates that slow-burn effect we discussed. Each repetition adds another layer of heat building towards the flames again: first triumph, then memory of past hurts, then recognition of deeper truths, and finally the flare of understanding that changes everything.

Notice how Sarah uses restraint throughout most of the story. The prose is controlled and measured, like carefully tended embers. The stepmother's anger has been "needled" into the apple slowly, not in explosive rage but through patient, persistent hurt. This makes the final emotional flare ("I cried out 'No!'") more powerful because it breaks that careful control.

The story also demonstrates how ember themes work with familiar material. Instead of reinventing the fairy tale completely, Sarah finds the embers hidden within it – the slow-burning complexity of stepfamily dynamics that swings between fiery flames and cod ashes, the unresolved grief that glows quietly in the household. The poison isn't really in the apple; it's in the jealousy and longing that have been burning low but steady all along.

Most importantly, the story captures that ember moment of recognition – when something that's been smouldering suddenly flares into clarity. The stepmother realises where the real poison lies, and that understanding transforms her from villain to something more human and complicated.

Your Turn: Writing Prompts

shallow focus photography of pencil on book
Photo by Jan Kahánek on Unsplash

Ready to explore ember in your own work? Try these exercises:

The Almost Decision: Write about a character who's been on the verge of making a significant change for months. Show them in a moment where that decision feels both inevitable and impossible.

Residual Heat: Create a story around an object or place that holds the warmth of what used to be there. Let that residual energy influence the present action without explicitly stating what's been lost.

The Gentle Blow: Write a scene where a small action – a phone call, a letter, an overheard conversation – threatens to either rekindle or extinguish something your character has been carefully maintaining in ember state.

Between Fire and Ash: Show a character navigating the aftermath of something dramatic (a breakup, job loss, death in the family), but focus on that quiet period after the initial flames of crisis have died down. What remains in the embers?

The Patience of Ember Stories

Working with ember themes requires patience from both writer and reader. These aren't stories of explosive revelation or dramatic transformation. They're about the slower work of tending to what remains, deciding what deserves to be rekindled and what should be allowed to fade.

In flash fiction, this creates a particular kind of tension – not the will-they-or-won't-they of action stories, but the quieter suspense of watching someone sit with possibility. Will they blow on those coals and bring them back to life or let them fade away?

As you craft your ember-themed stories, remember that the most powerful flames often start with the smallest spark. Sometimes what you don't write – the decision not made, the word not spoken, the ember not disturbed – carries as much weight as what you do.



© 2025 Amanda Saint

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