dead ringer

Write the story from the sidekick’s perspective, too – Things I learned while writing Dead Ringer

Write the story from the sidekick’s perspective, too – Things I learned while writing Dead Ringer

During one particular rewrite of Dead Ringer, I felt like I’d tied myself up in knots. My protagonist was breaking up with her boyfriend, but he seemed to be taking it too well. I couldn’t figure out what he was thinking or feeling during the scene. So I decided to write the entire novel from…

Let your readers hear your protagonist’s thoughts – Things I learned while writing Dead Ringer

Let your readers hear your protagonist’s thoughts – Things I learned while writing Dead Ringer

Dead Ringer started life as a third-person novel, until my agent suggested I make it first-person. This was a big change, but it made the protagonists’ voices much clearer. The reader gets to sit in their heads, hear their thoughts. This, I think, is the superpower of novels (versus TV or movies). You get to…

Make your protagonist the type of person who jumps into the fray – Things I learned while writing Dead Ringer

Make your protagonist the type of person who jumps into the fray – Things I learned while writing Dead Ringer

In life, I’m a risk-averse person. I always weigh up my options and try to act prudently. In novels, I’ve found that prudent characters make for boring protagonists. Dead Ringer got immeasurably better when I added in a second narrator, Jem. She’s reckless and rebellious and will always throw herself into the fray. For this…

Don’t give ’em a reason to stop reading – Things I learned while writing Dead Ringer

Don’t give ’em a reason to stop reading – Things I learned while writing Dead Ringer

One of my favourite pieces of feedback I’ve got on Dead Ringer is: “I stayed up past my bedtime reading it.” During one of my later re-drafts of the book, I did something bold. I re-cut all the chapters. I made them shorter and I changed the places where the chapters ended. My purpose (and…

Embrace the idea of multiple drafts – Things I learned while writing Dead Ringer

Embrace the idea of multiple drafts – Things I learned while writing Dead Ringer

I’ve spent a lot of my writing life harbouring under the delusion that my first draft needed to be perfect. Or close enough, anyway. If my first draft was a disaster, I was a failure. I still struggle with this perfectionism, but it’s good to remind myself that my first draft of Dead Ringer was…

You’ll have to rearrange your life in order to write a novel – Things I learned while writing Dead Ringer
|

You’ll have to rearrange your life in order to write a novel – Things I learned while writing Dead Ringer

If there’s one myth about writing that I hate, it’s the myth that great novels were written in snatched 5-minute bursts. “Get up earlier and write while drinking your morning coffee! Write in your lunch break! If you’re not writing while simultaneously making a risotto and changing a duvet cover, you obviously don’t want it…

To Newcastle in a flash: my experience of reading at Virtual Noir at the Bar
|

To Newcastle in a flash: my experience of reading at Virtual Noir at the Bar

One unexpected upside of a global pandemic is that it makes “travel” much easier. Virtual travel, to book events, anyway. Attending Newcastle’s Noir at the Bar, a boozy evening with crime writers, would have been difficult for me two months ago, what with the expense and travel time. Now that all our social gatherings are…

Joining a writing group will save your soul – Things I learned while writing Dead Ringer
|

Joining a writing group will save your soul – Things I learned while writing Dead Ringer

When I look back and try to identify the ONE thing that took me from slush pile to publication, it’s joining a writing group. Specifically, a workshop critique group. This was a big, scary step for me, because (like most writers) I haaate having my writing critiqued. At the time, it felt like someone was…

GenZ burnout and murder: the changing landscape of crime fiction

GenZ burnout and murder: the changing landscape of crime fiction

As the focus of crime fiction shifts to GenZ, the horrors are becoming more mundane – debt, burnout, poor mental health – but no less terrifying. “Generation Z” typically describes the post-Millennials, those born between the late 90s and the early 2010s. It’s a generation shaped by the 2008 financial crisis and ensuing global instability;…

Four months till Dead Ringer is published – what am I doing to prepare?

Four months till Dead Ringer is published – what am I doing to prepare?

My debut novel, Dead Ringer, is set to be published on 27 February 2020. That’s four months from now, which simultaneously feels like eons away and yet is also panic-inducingly soon. So, in between breathing deeply, what am I doing to prepare? – Letting everyone know that the paperback is now available to preorder from…