Showing posts with label Feature Friday. Show all posts

Feature Friday - Charlie Cochrane - Writing a Mystery


Welcome to Charlie Cochrane, today's guest for Feature Friday, Charlie is here to talk about writing a mystery novel, take it away Charlie...

How do you create suspense in your stories?

There are all the well-known techniquey things to draw on - shorter sentences, fast paced action, cutting down on description etc - but I think in the end it comes down to good plotting and good writing. I've just read two of the British Library series of classic mysteries and you couldn't have had two better examples of what to do and what not. One of them was so slow, even in the supposedly tense bits, because the author had the habit of never saying something once when he could say it four times. The other was really gripping, with a great climax where the reader was allowed to get into the head of the person-you-thought-was-the-killer-but-actually-wasn't and depicting their emotions and muddled thoughts.

Do you start with the crime/mystery then work the story around it or do you wing it?

Wing it, wing it, wing it. You see, when I write a mystery it's like I'm watching the story unfold on the television or hearing it on the radio. In half hour instalments, maybe, each of which corresponds to a chapter or two. I see the body being found, the characters being introduced, the clues lining up, and as I follow all of this I start to wonder who might have done it. This may sound totally ludicrous, but it works for me.

What are the ethics of writing historical figures?

In my humble opinion (as they say), I believe you have to make them act in line with what is known of their character. I know in historical fiction any and everyone is seen as fair game, so you can have the fictional Horatio Hornblower rubbing shoulders with real life admirals like Pellew or Nelson, which is fine so long as they do what the real Pellew and Nelson would have done. However, particularly in fanfiction, I've seen both of these gents acting in a way that would be called libellous if it were written about a living person. Frankly, it can be insulting. (Ooh, I got all cross there.)

In fiction anything is fair game, do you like finding obscure ways of bumping people off?

In a word, no. I'm not a writer whose mysteries focus on clever methods of despatch or highly complicated denouements. I'm more interested in the why someone was killed than the how, so my victims tend to be bludgeoned or poisoned or something straightforward, leaving the reader's mind uncluttered so they can concentrate on the characters and their motivations.

Have you ever had to go back and *hide the keys*? (stealing cues from Bill & Ted)

To my shame, I confess I had to look up that reference. If you mean do I have to go back through the manuscript when writing to plant clues/red herrings, then yes, I do sometimes, but it's a risky business. If you don't have a light touch and a sure hand, it can scream "Look! Look! Clue!" Funny thing is that usually the references I need are in the story already, so when I go back for a first review I'm amazed at how things hang together. Like my sub-conscious has been far more effective than I have at subtly seeding the story with what I'd need.

What part of the process do you find the hardest?

Writing sex scenes. Which is why it's great writing the Lindenshaw series and the recent Cambridge Fellows novellas, all of which are fade to black.

About Charlie

Because Charlie Cochrane couldn't be trusted to do any of her jobs of choice—like managing a rugby team—she writes. Her mystery novels include the Edwardian era Cambridge Fellows series, and the contemporary Lindenshaw Mysteries. Multi-published, she has titles with Carina, Riptide, Endeavour and Bold Strokes, among others.

A member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, Mystery People and International Thriller Writers Inc, Charlie regularly appears at literary festivals and at reader and author conferences with The Deadly Dames.

Links: http://www.endeavourpress.com/?s=charlie+cochrane
http://www.riptidepublishing.com/titles/two-feet-under

Charlie's Amazon Pages - Amazon US | Amazon UK


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Feature Friday - Elin Gregory - Writing Historicals


My guest for Feature Friday this week is the wonderful Elin Gregory, here to talk about the pitfalls of writing historicals, welcome Elin...

One of the great joys, and great hazards, of writing historical fiction is the amount of research that needs to be done. There are very few people who are so steeped in the culture, primary sources and archaeological records of their chosen period that they don't need to fact check. Mary Beard is probably a safe bet for Roman stuff but I bet even she has to refresh her memory from time to time. And I'm just a museum worker with about enough knowledge of the 3000 years or so of the history our collection comprises to give out handy little soundbites, entertaining but not too heavy. When I embark on a new project it means some serious reading and note taking.

I do know writers who use their overall impression of the period to write their first draft and then check the fine detail to flesh out the second draft but you can get badly caught out by that. Part of the plot of Eleventh Hour, set in London in 1928, rests upon a chance encounter on a trolley bus. I adored them when I was a child – the ting of the bell, the showers of sparks as the boom that carried the electrical current bounced across from wire to wire – and my mother, born in 1925 was certain that they predated her.

Photo from Manchester Daily Express 1962
I checked, of course, even found an image of trolley bus designs dated 1928 – I thought. But once the book had been released into the wild, so to speak, I was looking up something else and discovered that the '1928' referred to the model number and the **&^% things hadn't gone actually gone into service till 1929 – about 3 months too late! If only I'd used the word "tram", dammit! Internet searches and asking ones mum are all fine and dandy but sometimes you need books – expensive glossy specialist books.

There's nothing quite as satisfying as going book shopping with the knowledge that, if necessary [and assuming you get any royalties] you can write the shopping spree off against tax. Books tend to go into subjects in more depth and also are peer reviewed, which can get absolutely vicious. They may vary in interpretation of the facts but the facts and supporting material are usually kosher. But even so there are times when you come across things for which there's really no excuse.

Some years ago I decided to take another swipe at a long project based on Y Gododdin, a 9th century Welsh poem describing a series of battles in Dark Ages Northumberland and Yorkshire. Amongst the Dark Ages history titles I picked up was The Holy Kingdom by Adrian Gilbert. This was published by Bantam books – a subsidiary of Transworld publishers so not a hole in the corner outfit. I was leafing through the photos in the middle and well…


You know that feeling you get when someone tries to tell you you’re looking at a unicorn but somehow you can't quite believe it?

Well it’s worse when you’re looking at a painting you know very well, by an artist you admire and the painting is completely uncredited! This is art piracy and a Really Bad Thing!

This is the picture, though in the book it is cropped to the left and has no attribution.


It was painted by Ron Embleton – beloved to people of my generation for his illustrations in Look and Learn, the end titles for the Captain Scarlet cartoon series, and his raunchy cartoon strip Wicked Wanda – but he was also very well known as a historical illustrator. The painting was commissioned by the National Museum of Wales and shows an upper Paleolithic interment on the Gower coastline, wrongly described as the Red Lady of Paviland [it’s a bloke]. At approximately 33,000 years old it is the oldest ritual burial to be found in Western Europe. The body was covered with a thick coating of red ochre, possibly as a deterrent to scavengers. In the Holy Kingdom the image is described as being a depiction of the burial of King Arthur and there's so much wrong with that I just don't know where to start!

Art piracy is as egregious as book piracy. Five minutes with Google reverse image search can usually give you an attribution that, even if it's not 100% correct at least makes it look like you've TRIED! But far worse than that, Holy Kingdom was advertised as a work of reference and now there is a whole bunch of would be Arthurian scholars who probably think that Arthur fought the Saxons dressed in a parka and mukluks.

So books – yeah, but they have to be the RIGHT books.

All of which is trying to say – I suppose – that authors of historical works do their best to get things right with the resources at their disposal but sometimes we just get it wrong. If I do another edition of Eleventh Hour, it'll say 'tram' dammit!

Logo by Catherine Dair
Elin Gregory lives in South Wales and has been making stuff up since she learned to talk. Writing has always had to take second place to work and family but, slowly, she is finishing the many novels on her hard drive and actually trying to do something useful with them.

Historical subjects predominate. She has written about ancient Greek sculptors, 18th century seafarers but also about modern men who change shape at will and how echoes of the past can be heard in the present. Heroes tend to be hard as nails but capable of tenderness when circumstances allow.

There are always new works on the go and she is currently writing more 1930s spies, adding to a series of contemporary romances and doing background reading for stories set in Roman Britain and in WW2.

Website: www.elingregory.com Blog: http://elingregory.wordpress.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elin.gregory

Buy Links: Amazon US | Amazon UK

Borrowed from the Secret Intelligence Service cipher department to assist Briers Allerdale – a field agent returning to 1920s London with news of a dangerous anarchist plot – Miles Siward moves into a ‘couples only’ boarding house, posing as Allerdale’s ‘wife’. Miles relishes the opportunity to allow his alter ego, Millie, to spread her wings but if Miles wants the other agent’s respect he can never betray how much he enjoys being Millie nor how attractive he finds Allerdale.

Pursuing a ruthless enemy who wants to throw Europe back into the horrors of the Great War, Briers and Miles are helped and hindered by nosy landladies, Water Board officials, suave gentlemen representing foreign powers and their own increasing attraction to each other.

Will they catch their quarry? Will they find love? Could they hope for both?

The clock is ticking. 

Buy Links: Amazon US | Amazon UK

Malcolm Bright, brand new museum curator in a small Welsh Border town, is a little lonely until – acting as emergency archaeological consultant on a new housing development – he crosses the path of Rob Escley, aka Dirty Rob, who makes Mal’s earth move in more ways than one.

Then Rob discovers something wonderful, and together they must combat greedy developers and a treasure hunter determined to get his hands on the find. Are desperate measures justified to save the bones of our fathers? Will Dirty Rob live up to his reputation? Do museum curators really do it meticulously?

Answers must be found for the sake of Mal’s future, his happiness and his heart.
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Feature Friday - Garrett Leigh/Black Jazz Design - Cover Design


Welcome to the talented Garrett Leigh, award winning author and cover designer...

There are two questions that I get asked the most when people want to talk to me about cover art.

#1 What’s your favourite cover you’ve ever done?

#2 What kind of cover will make me a bestseller?

The first question is easy enough: I’ve no chuffing idea. Sure, there’s books out there I’m super proud to have my name in for any number of reasons—the book sold a ton, the art was on point, or I’ve splashed a family member all over it and have blackmail rights until the end of time (true story). But there’s others that perhaps didn’t set the world alight in sales terms, but are super personal to me. It might be that I’ve used a photograph taken by my SO, or my dad, or that I simply loved the book. And my absolute favourite covers change all the time as new assignments come in.

The second question is far more complicated, and brings us back to the discussion Kellie Dennis and I have moderated at many con panels over the last few years.

It basically boils down to this: Do I have to have a model on my book, nekkid or otherwise?

And that answer isn’t simple either. The obvious one is NO, of course you don’t. It’s your book…have what you like (if you’re indie…publishers have their own rules). But will it sell, they cry? And generally, the consensus seems to be that it won’t…at least, not as well as it might’ve done with a model on the front. (There are exceptions to this general rule, particularly with established authors who have large and loyal readerships).

The model thing seems to be a particular trend in MM romance. MF have the whole Fifty Shades concept cover vibe going on, and thrillers, fantasy etc follow similar patterns. But as romance makes up the main bulk of my business, that’s what I’m talking about right now. Art vs sweaty-gritty-man-titty. It’s a thing.

Go back to the bestseller question, and the answer becomes even more convoluted. Because the market doesn’t run on cover art alone. Reputation, hype, and early reviews all impact ranking, and no cover in the world can disguise a shitty book.

BUT, one of the best tools for gauging what’s going on in the world of cover art is to check out the bestseller lists in the genre/subgenre you’re writing in. You might find that the top ten books don’t fit your book at all, but pick them apart, figure out what they all have in common. Do they have models? Plain fonts? Certain colours that crop up more than most? Make notes.

A cover alone won’t give you a bestselling book, but it’s often the first thing readers see. Do you want to stand out from the crowd? Or blend in and get caught up in a rush for a certain type of book?

There are no right answers.

Oh, and for the record, my favourite covers of 2017 (so far) are these…


Garrett Leigh is an award-winning British writer and book designer, currently working for Dreamspinner Press, Loose Id, Riptide Publishing, and Fox Love Press.

Garrett's debut novel, Slide, won Best Bisexual Debut at the 2014 Rainbow Book Awards, and her polyamorous novel, Misfits was a finalist in the 2016 LAMBDA awards.

When not writing, Garrett can generally be found procrastinating on Twitter, cooking up a storm, or sitting on her behind doing as little as possible, all the while shouting at her menagerie of children and animals and attempting to tame her unruly and wonderful FOX.

Garrett is also an award winning cover artist, taking the silver medal at the Benjamin Franklin Book Awards in 2016. She designs for various publishing houses and independent authors at blackjazzdesign.com, and co-owns the specialist stock site moonstockphotography.com with photographer Dan Burgess.

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Feature Friday - Sue Laybourn - Editing


Sue Laybourn is here to talk about editing for this week's Feature Friday. Welcome Sue...

Hug an editor today.

RJ asked if I would like to write a post about editing and editing stuff. Well, of course, I would. So here I am. Having been an editor for over 5 years, the temptation to babble is great. Instead, I’ll ask myself questions in attempt to keep verbiage at a minimum.

So, Sue. How did you get into editing? It was a complete accident. I had a couple of books published with Totally Bound and I had been out of work for a few months. A dear friend suggested that I ask Totally Bound about editing vacancies. I did. They sent me tests. I did the tests. I passed.

What does your job involve? When I get a manuscript, it’s my job to polish it and make it the best that it can be. Apart from the normal things one would expect an editor to do, e.g. spelling, grammar, highlighting repetition, pet words (we all have them—and the favourite, by a long chalk is look), dangling modifiers, etc. I make sure I respect the author’s ‘voice’. A bull rider who left high school early isn’t going to speak or think in grammatically perfect English any more than an upper-class English toff is going to throw New York cabbie slang into every conversation. Voice is what sets one author apart from another. It’s their brand. It’s what makes readers snap up their books.

What do you like best about editing? The obvious glib answer is that my commute involves rolling down the stairs. The meatier answer is that editing is also about building a working partnership with an author. When an editor works with an author over a long period of time, they learn to recognise the weak spots, and consequently, learn how to help the author fix them. It is one of the most rewarding aspects of my job—to see an author grow and develop over time. To see their writing evolve and strengthen.

What do you like least about editing? There’s nothing really. It is hard work. This was a mild bone of contention between me and my late husband. He felt that a ‘hard’ job was one that involved hours of backbreaking, physical labour. He didn’t understand that sitting at a computer and concentrating for hours at a time could be equally tiring. I also have a habit of setting myself a to-do list for the day and I tend not to stop until I’ve ticked off everything on the list, even if it feels as though my eyeballs are about to drop out and my brain is leaking through my ears.

Do you have any advice for new/ aspiring authors about working with editors? Do your research. Check your potential editor’s qualifications/experience. I don’t necessarily mean demanding to see their degree certificate (not all editors have English degrees). Have a look at books they’ve edited. Check the reviews. Read some sample pages. Talk to authors. Often the best way of finding an editor is by word of mouth. There’s a lot of us out there. If you find an editor who looks like a good fit for you, perhaps ask if they’d be happy to do a sample edit of a few pages to see if you’d work well together. Be wary. There are some charlatans out there. Really, recommendations are the best way to go.

Do you have any advice for aspiring editors? Remember that editing is a partnership. Refrain from being too dictatorial. Make suggestions rather than give orders. Be tactful, be encouraging. And, unless you can back it up with solid references, don’t talk in absolutes. Most importantly, be supportive and kind.

If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch. I’m always happy to help, offer advice, listen.

Contact details: nostoneunturned.editing@gmail.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NoStoneUnturnedEditingServices/


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