How to use historical research in your novel
Research is key to a convincing historical novel. And I'd say the most important rule is using original first sources. For The Ice Child, I visited the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, the Anthony Nolan Trust and Great Ormond Street Hospital. I found...
5 Ways to Create Successful Characters in Your Novel
The golden rule - rounded, three dimensional people. Good characters are not all good. Bad characters are not all bad. 100% angelic heroes or heroines are not believable, and also once you manage to elicit sympathy for your predator/anti-hero/abuser in your novel, you...
PrimaDonna Festival, Suffolk
I'm not one for festivals. I freely admit I'm the last surviving human who hasn't been to Glastonbury, Latitude, the Isle of Wight, Reading or anything else remotely festival shaped. Until three weeks ago. A friend and I decided to go to the very first PrimaDonnaFest...
A life in crime
I've spent the summer looking at best-selling crime fiction. I started my career with six psychological thrillers, but one thing that a writer must appreciate is that the market changes: the readership changes, language changes, laws change, and technology. That's...
Life in colour – my paintings
I took A Level art several centuries ago, and for a while considered going to art college. I didn't take that route in the end, but I've always been really enthusiastic about art and art history. My novel 'The Girl in the Green Glass mirror', for instance, is about...
when life takes over
A serious lack of blogging on here - life took over! Moving house principally among them. My apologies. However, on the subject of life...... The traditional view - somewhat outdated, I think - is that creative artists, be they musicians, painters, actors, sculptors,...
Only a dog
For all you dog lovers out there, my poem about an old friend - 'Only a Dog'. Rain-printed marks on the kitchen floor; Out of sheer habit, I open the door To empty space, surprised to find he isn't there. He isn't there where he used to stand As if dressed in a grey...
in the sea
I live in one of the most beautiful counties in England, Dorset; and one of the things I love most is being able to swim in the sea, especially when its very cold. Now, where does this insane fetish come from, I wonder? Because I absolutely hate being cold. In fact...
A.E. Housman
I'm reading Norman Page's biography of Housman at the moment and I reached a quotation of the poet: 'Existence is not itself a good thing that we should spend a lifetime securing its necessities: a life spent, however victoriously, in securing the necessaries of life...
Work in progress
I’d already had three books published when a friend told me ‘I never think of what you do as work.’ When I’d wiped the ironic smile off my face, I gave her the grudging benefit of the doubt. Writing isn’t road sweeping. It’s not plumbing. It’s not mountain rescue. In...
Do you dream in colour?
The senses are so important when writing – working them into the book. The taste of salt, or fear, or the dry mouth of shock; the sound of a voice. The subdued longing in a touch or the latent aggression in a clasped hand; the brush of wet grass against the skin. The...
There is no unique picture of reality
Stephen Hawking said this. When novelists sit down to produce a story, do they reproduce reality? No. For a start, everyone’s version of ‘reality’ is different (see above). Which works well, because that gives writers scope to produce their own. When you and I, for...