The Tool-Kit
Welcome to the Itch of Writing Tool-kit! This Tool-kit homepage holds the full set of sections, so scroll down to browse.
30th September 2025: the Typepad Shutdown. As you may know, This Itch of Writing lived on Typepad for nearly 18 years, before we got one month’s notice that Typepad was shutting down; fortunately, we’d set up home on Substack in 2023! We’ve now recreated Substack versions of all the Toolkit posts, but making sure that all the links within those posts also point to Substack versions is a massive job which we are gradually chipping away at.
So, if in exploring the Itch you meet a link which leads to Typepad’s ‘closed’ sign, there are three things that will help:
Don’t despair. Many of those posts do actually exist on Substack, it’s just that we haven’t managed to update that link yet.
Use the ‘search’ facility - which you can see at the top of every page of the Itch - to check if the topic you’re looking for has a Substack version. Many of them do.
If you’re feeling kind, before you leave the original page, leave a comment saying which link is a Typepaddy one, and we’ll do something about it as soon as we can.
Links which end with (£) are available exclusively to paying supporters and founder members, which helps to keep This Itch of Writing going. Click here to find out more.
TWELVE TOOLS (NOT RULES) OF WRITING : just what it says on the tin
MY BEST TIP OF ALL : whatever you write
TWENTY-FIVE THINGS WHICH NO ONE SAYS OFTEN ENOUGH : about writing
THE ITCHY BITESIZED SERIES : short posts about key skills and issues
JERUSHA COWLESS, AGONY AUNT : All the problems which the Itch of Writing Agony Aunt managed to answer before she vanished up a melting glacier.
THE FUNDAMENTAL TOOLS & SKILLS
Showing and Telling; Psychic Distance; Past vs Present Tense; the Write Your First Novel series; Pinpoint Your Problem
CHARACTERS
Characterisation-in-action; Giving Characters Depth; Dressing your Characters
STORYTELLING, PLOT AND STRUCTURE
Plot vs Story; Narrators and Narrative Drive; the Novel Planning Grid; Scenes; Flashbacks and Backstory; Prologues; Writing Ethically; Handling Your Material; Creating the Reader you Need
POINT OF VIEW & NARRATORS
Narrators; Point-of-View series; Moving Point-of-View
NARRATIVE VOICE AND DIALOGUE
Voice, Style and Tone; Dialogue and Speech Tags; Rhythm and Rhyme; Writing Emotion; Description; Kill That ‘Office-Speak’
SENTENCES
Sentence Structure; Long Sentences; Structure and Punctuation; Free Indirect Style; Modifiers; Passive Voice; Verbal Nouns and Phrasal Verbs; Common Confusions; Spellcheckers and Thesauruses
REVISING, EDITING, RE-VISITING, RE-ENVISIONING
Diagnosing; Revising Process; Overwriting; Adjectives and Adverbs; Synopses; Cutting and Filleting; Editing; Filtering; When Do You Stop Revising?
PROCESS, PLANNING AND HOW TO GET OUT OF THE DOLDRUMS
Drafting; Notebooks; Procrastination; Inner Critics; Yoga for Writers; Writer’s Block; The Anti-Writing and the Must-Write Demons
FORMS AND GENRES
Long and Short Fiction; Form; Literary Fiction; Historical Fiction; Creative Non-Fiction
READING FOR WRITERS
How to Read Like A Writer; Riffing and Copying; Books for Writers
GROUPS, COURSES & ACADEMIC CREATIVE WRITING
Writing Courses and MAs; Feedback; Mentoring; Editorial Services, Commentaries; PhDs; Academic Writing
GOING OUTSIDE AND GOING PUBLIC
Titles; Presenting Manuscripts; Synopses; Rejection; the Being Published Series; Competitions; Giving a Reading; Publicity; Social Media
THE WRITING LIFE
Surviving Submissions; Rejections; Adulting; Making a Living
