Drawing parallels between writing reports and writing fiction – and why characters are everything.

Last week, I was asked to give a talk to a group of counselling trainees at my local FE college about creative writing and academic writing. The contact came through my local writing group, The Beverley Chapter. I was suggested to the FE college because I once belonged to the world of academia and still do a lot of technical writing and, as you know, I write fiction.

Totally irrelevant picture of Stormtroopers carrying chocolate.

The brief I was given was fairly vague and I found myself stan...