A year on since we started Death Of 1000 Cuts, it’s immensely gratifying to hear all the positive feedback from regular readers. A few people on Reddit and Twitter have called me an arrogant dick, and you know what, they’re probably right. As John Scalzi succinctly put it, the failure mode of clever is ‘asshole’. … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. Goodness – we’ve been going for a whole year! I cannot believe it. In celebration, for one week only I’m going to post about creative writing every day, including the regular Thursday Barber’s Chair and this, a bonus … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. We’re just coming up to our first birthday! A year of Death Of 1000 Cuts posts. That shit cray. Thank you for all your lovely support. I expect I’ll do something special next week to mark the occasion. … Read more

Happy 1st o’ May and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. Friends, this blog has been going for almost a year. I can’t believe it. We’ll have to do something cool for the first anniversary. Like maybe I could announce something so exciting that … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This is a blog for writers, readers, creative people and anyone nosy about how authors make the language-stuff sound real nice. Every week we take the first page of an author’s novel or short story – polished to … Read more

Hello and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This is an editing blog for fiction writers, creative people who work with words and nosy readers who want to see how the ugly gubbins under the bonnet does its business. Every Thursday I take the … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This is a blog about self-editing fiction. If you’ve just started writing or you’ve been hammering away for years, I hope that you’ll find something useful amongst my discussions of how to make bad sentences into slightly less … Read more

Hey friends, and welcome to another Death of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. Please share this blog with your friends, tweet about it, post about it on forums and on your website, make general noise. It’s a quick and easy way to spread the word and I … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. Sometimes I like to discuss one miniscule element of redrafting fiction, sometimes I interview an author or editor about the editing process, but by far our most popular feature is ‘In The Barber’s Chair’, in which I take … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. If you haven’t been here before, I’m Tim Clare – feel free to show me some love by listening to my album, Jesus Buys Me Cigarettes, on iTunes, or buying my first poetry collection, Pub Stuntman. Death Of … Read more

Salut et welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut a time. If you like this blog, please share it. Tweet about it, click the ‘Like’ button below, etc. It makes a big difference. If you want to submit your work, please read the submission guidelines. This is a … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This is a blog about self-editing for writers, readers and the nosy. Each week we take an aspiring author’s first page and put it to the knife, to see if we can’t learn something about how sentences and … Read more

Tuesday’s Guardian quotes Hanif Kureishi as saying that creative writing courses are ‘a waste of time’, that ‘99.9 per cent’ of his students are ‘not talented’ and ‘just can’t tell a story’, and that he doesn’t think the fundamentals of creative writing can be taught. I try not to respond to manifestly stupid statements from … Read more

Welcome to another Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. First time here? Read the FAQ and submission guidelines. Otherwise, you know what to do, my sweet, sweet soldiers. Read the extract below, exercise your editing muscles by deciding what you like and what you would change, … Read more

Bonsoir and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. New? Want to submit? Read the submission guidelines and FAQ. As always, read the extract below, evaluate it, then compare your thoughts with mine after ‘The Cuts’. Three Fingers (by Oscar) Eight hours after consuming a … Read more

Release date: 1991 Systems: Arcade, SNES, Playstation, PS2, PSP, Xbox Captain Commando came out two years prior to Cadillacs & Dinosaurs and, in many ways, feels like practice run. A lot of the things that C&D does well are already present in this title, which builds upon everything Capcom had learned in Final Fight and … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. Not been here before? Want to submit your own work? Please read the submission guidelines and FAQ. Thanks very much to David for this week’s extract, and thank you to everyone who has submitted their work, or who … Read more

This isn’t a full-blown Welcome To The Fantasy Zone post, but since I’ve been writing a history of beat em ups for a solid 8 months now, I wanted to point you in the direction of Streetfighter 2: An Oral History. (warning: Guile’s theme auto-plays on the site) It’s a really fascinating look at the … Read more

Merry February, dear friends, and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. New here? Want to submit? Please read the submission guidelines. Beware – there’s a long waiting list! As always, read the extract below, decide what you think about it, then compare with my … Read more

Release date: 1993 Systems: Arcade Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I believe Capcom’s Cadillacs and Dinosaurs is one of the best 3D sidescrolling beat em ups ever released. Today, I will present you with incontrovertible proof of its badassery – indeed, so convincing will my evidence be, please have an inverted hat or similar … Read more

Good day to you, noble friend, and welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. If you haven’t been here before or you fancy submitting your first page for a turn In The Barber’s Chair, please read the submission guidelines. As always, this is about developing … Read more

Generation (by Jenny) Lucy shoved through the sea of legs, ignoring her mother’s frantic calls. The people she knocked tutted and muttered under their breaths but she didn’t care; the President was coming. She burst through the front of the throng and straight into a huge soldier dressed from head to toe in black armour. … Read more

Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. If this is your first time here, do me a massive fave and read the submission guidelines. Always looking for new first pages, although please bear in mind that the waiting list is humungous. If you enjoy this … Read more

Hello, fellow cutters. Welcome to Death Of 1000 Cuts – making you an awesome writer, one cut at a time. This is a blog about editing fiction – if you’d like to know how it works, or submit your own work, please read the submission guidelines. There’s currently a lengthy waiting list, so if you … Read more

Release date: 1991 Systems: Arcade, SNES Hey faithful companions. It’s another in my series of posts plodding through the history of the beat em up. As I wrote in December, they’re probably going to remain less than weekly as writing commitments pile up, but I will see it through to the end. Just want to … Read more