Books for Christmas reading
Merry Christmas. What are you planning to read over Christmas? Here’s a Yuletide taster menu for you, from the top of my To Be Read pile. Something to fill in deadly gaps between TV Xmas…
Free Short Stories April (no fooling)
I have a special offer for you this month – free short stories and no April Fool. I’m delighted to say I’ve joined up with a group of other writers to offer short stories for free, including…
My 2021 in books
Imagine you could buy a pill that could give you more brainpower, more empathy, better vocabulary and a longer life, while preventing cognitive decline, reducing stress, helping sleep and lifting depression. How much would you…
The popularity of amnesia – talk and guest blog
Last time I mentioned I was talking at the Milim Leeds Literary Festival about why amnesia stories are so popular. There’s no doubt that writers have written about amnesia for thousands of years. What attracts…
Crime wave caught on camera
Today’s story is a crime story with everything a good crime story needs: An idyllic setting, a crime wave, missing bodies, mystery, violence in the dead of night, a criminal unmasked. To begin at the…
Panto season – oh, yes it is, oh, no…
The panto season has started early this year. Everyone loves live entertainment. (I’m even doing a live appearance myself on December 6th – more on this to the right and below). Here in the UK…
7 steps that make a satisfying ending
In 2000 the movie What Lies Beneath opened to mixed reviews. Despite a strong opening, cast (Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer) and director (Robert Zemeckis), reviewers talked of its “decomposing script” and said it “ran off…
Are we entering a golden age for short stories?
There’s no doubt, short stories are having a moment. At their best, they can be jewels of literature – presenting a character, a feeling, often a profound story, with extreme precision. However until recently, publishers…
Into The Mirror and beyond
Like all writers, I get invited to festivals, book clubs and bookshops to talk about the stories I’ve written, stories that have taken me to Hollywood and back. It was one such story that unexpectedly…
The one sentence at the heart of all horror stories
I’d hoped to avoid Halloween and horror stories… But I just got sucked in. It must be all the skeletons, zombies and pumpkin lanterns around here. I started thinking about what horrifies people and how…
Why do we love crime?
Do you love crime, like me? We’re not alone. Turn on the TV, go to the cinema, walk into a bookshop – crime is everywhere. Yet, ironically, crime statistics are going down all round the…
Wants and Needs in writing
Wants and Needs in Writing A few weeks ago I wrote about my GOATS method for writing fiction and screenplays. Anna Mönnich wrote in response from Germany. Her email brings up an issue that often…
Measles and MMR vaccine deniers: how to create a panic
You may have seen reports this week of a surge in measles across Europe and the United States. The media have blamed a paper by British scientist Andrew Wakefield, whose research connected the combined MMR vaccine with…
Small things can be important too
Small things can be important too. Sometimes, I sweat for an hour over a paragraph, a line of dialogue, a single word. I’ve known comedy writers argue for ages over whether the number 35 is…
Fighting yourself? Here’s a way to stop.
Fighting yourself? Have you ever started a project and found that for some reason you’re not moving ahead? Maybe you’re trying to write a book and not getting round to it. Making sales speeches that…
What is the BBC biased against and why?
BBC bias – Every week, it seems, the BBC is under attack from one side or another. Most recently they’re in a twist over pay for women. Just this week came the weird spectacle of…