ABSTRACT
One of my favourite quotations about writing development comes from Louis L’Amour, who wrote best-selling novels about the American West. He observed that, ‘A writer’s brain is like a magician’s hat. If you’re going to get anything out of it, you have to put something in first’ (L’Amour, 1990: 133). The rub of course is determining what goes in and how to get it there? This chapter addresses this question by identifying what developing writers need to learn as well as the effective methods for acquiring this know-how.
