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Is there a stranger out there who shares your face? (guest post for Confessions of a YA Reader)
What is the likelihood that you have a doppelgänger somewhere in the world? The scientific facts are stranger than you think. The idea of the doppelgänger – a stranger who looks uncannily like you – stretches back through history. The superstition is that encountering your “double” is a bad omen that could lead to your…
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…
Dead Ringer book launch event – in pictures
Friday 28 February saw the official launch of Dead Ringer at Foyles in Bristol. Here’s some pictures and notes from the big night. I started off with a little speech and a reading of the first chapter of Dead Ringer. As you can see, there were many #faces during the reading… I missed my calling…
5 random facts about Dead Ringer
Here’s a quick look into my writing process with a few fun facts behind the scenes of Dead Ringer. A five year journey It is almost exactly 5 years from the time I started writing Dead Ringer to its publication. When I tell people that, I think they imagine I’m just a really slow typist….
The North/South Divide in Crime Fiction (guest feature on CrimeTime)
I wrote a feature for CrimeTime about the North/South divide in crime fiction and how setting can impact on a story. Name an island off the coast of England. Isle of Wight? Isle of Man? Maybe Lundy, if you’re feeling clever. How about Walney Island? It’s an island, a beautiful windswept island, off the north…
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…
