-
Research for Historical Fiction -3 Top Tips
As authors, we create worlds which we want to be believable. In science fiction and fantasy, the world may be another planet or a dystopian future. In historical fiction this world is the past. Good research is the key.
-
The Road to a Novel
The paths to writing a novel are many, this was mine to my first one.
-
Finding a better killer
I was just running through the main plot of my new crime novel, A Patient Man, with my wife a few days ago and she pointed out some similarities to the motives of the killer in my last one. After arguing for a few moments and trying the ‘there are only so many stories and…
-
Elementary my dear Watson
I’ve recently returned from a long holiday in France and whilst I did do some writing (honest) a lot of my time was spent reading. I’d loaded my Kindle with a mix of material but I set myself a goal in the first few days of getting through an anthology of the complete collection of…
-
A new project
So the final draft of my Inspector Given sequel is finished and with my publisher for consideration, it’s also been submitted to a couple of agents and I’m sitting here with fingers crossed – making the typing much more difficult than it needs to be. I’ve had some excellent help from my daughters and their…
-
Why can’t they get it right?
As an author of crime fiction I strive for accuracy and continuity. Now, I may not always get it right but at least I try. As a result, both a blessing and a curse, I notice flaws in other people’s work, particularly on TV. Sometimes it’s just the easy ones, the result of editing or…
-
Another rejection
Can’t believe it’s so long since I posted anything – where did that time go? I’ve been editing my novel, not as much as I should have been but it’s been perched on my shoulder pecking away at my conscience all the time. Oh, and I went on holiday. Part of my paper draft is…
-
Editing can be fun – or so they tell me.
On Sunday afternoon a wonderful thing happened. I finished the first draft of my second novel. I’m not a Stephen King-type 2,000 words a day writer but I had been consistently pushing out 600-1,000 words every day for the past two or three weeks trying to get the job done. Coming to the end was…
-
The vagaries of tense
I tend to write in the first person and in the past tense. I’m in the process of redrafting my second novel and discovered I continually tripped over a particular passage, though couldn’t work out why. Then I made a couple of minor changes, just to see how it looked, and hey-presto, no more tripping.…
