I wrote at least 100 words a day for a year

This time last year, I set myself a small challenge. The goal was to write a minimum of 100 words a day on a side project, other than my main book, every single day of the year.

I did it. As you can probably guess, otherwise I wouldn't be blogging about it.

And most of the time, it wasn't too difficult to fit in. 100 words can literally be done in a couple of minutes. You can do it while waiting for a train, or in the queue at the chip shop. 

I wrote my minimum daily 100 in lots of different places, and under lots of different conditions. I tapped it out on my phone, trying not to wake the kids at 11:45pm in our cabin on a Disney Cruise. I typed on my laptop and wrote longhand in notebooks. I wrote in pubs and coffee shops and on trains. I got 100 words a day down in hotel rooms at the Harrogate and Bloody Scotland festivals. I stuck to at least 100 a day through a (thankfully mild) bout with Covid. I even got 100 down on the nightmarish day we moved house. I wrote every day: weekdays and weekends, birthdays, Christmas, Halloween, today. 

Most days, I wrote more than the bare minimum. In fact, the average word count was 198 words. I only aimed for 100, and found that I had exceeded the total almost every day.

The stats

I worked on two projects over the course of the year. I finished the draft of one book (starring a certain recurring character), and started another one (a standalone). I wrote 50,066 words on the former, from January to late September, and 22,207 words on the latter, from late September to today, giving a total of 72,273 words.

That's not a bad total for a year. In fact, it's close to a full book's worth of words. 

But this was just a side project, so it's 72,273 extra words that wouldn't have existed otherwise. I still wrote a full draft of a book as well as that.

Are they good words? Some of them are pretty good, some are total shit: such is the way of first drafts. But I now have a big chunk of words to work with, and hopefully, in 2022, I can develop one or both projects into books people might want to read. 

It's just before 6pm where I am, and 2021 is almost over. Wherever you are, I hope you have an amazing new year and read (and/or write) some good books.

And tomorrow? I'm going to write 100 words.

Alex Knight Q&A

Janet Emson at the fab From First Page to Last blog kindly asked me to do a Q&A on Darkness Falls. 

You can read it below, or better still go over to From First Page to Last and read it along with some other great interviews.

***

1. Tell us a little about Darkness Falls

It opens with the protagonist, Thessaly, driving on the highway late at night in Pennsylvania. She stops for a break at a 24-hour diner and hears a voice she recognises in the booth behind her. It’s the voice of the man who killed her brother 20 years ago, and then disappeared. Is it really him? Where has he been hiding all this time? Thessaly has to make a split-second decision of what to do, and her choice draws her into a dangerous mystery…

2. What inspired the book?

I’m always fascinated by those chance meetings and coincidences that happen in real life. Like you can be on holiday thousands of miles away and run into someone who’s related to your best friend from high school. I thought it would be an interesting hook if one of those coincidences brought a survivor of a traumatic event into contact with the perpetrator, and what lengths she might go to to get resolution.

3. Are you a plan, plan, plan writer or do you sit down and see where the words take you?

Kind of a bit of both. I like to write out a 4-page synopsis that has the main beats of the story, the characters, important scenes, and hopefully an ending, but it’s not set in stone at that point. The book always changes and develops as I write it, and I often come up with a completely different ending. That was the case with this one, which went from a climax set in New York’s Grand Central Station to a more intimate ending with four people in a house. I think lockdown may have influenced that change!

4. Having been through the publishing process a number of times, is there anything about the process of creating a novel that still surprises?

Really just that it doesn’t get any easier. Each novel is a struggle and it feels like it’s not going to work, but you just have to push through and trust you’ll be able to do it again.

5. What do you do when you aren’t writing? What do you do to relax and get away from it all?

I like to read and watch movies, of course, but I also love getting outside and going for walks and runs. When the world gets back to normal, I’d like to go back to travelling again. I love visiting cities and exploring them on foot and by train.

6. If you could only read one book for the rest of your life which book would it be?

Too difficult! It would have to be a big book so I could take my time with it. I love Raymond Chandler, and the Everyman edition of his collected stories is pretty chunky, so I’ll go with that.

7. I like to end my Q&As with the same question so here we go. During all the Q&As and interviews you’ve done what question have you not been asked that you wish had been asked – and what’s the answer?

Good question!

How about… Could you get away with a murder in real life?

To which the answer is, probably not as I’m pretty disorganised, don’t plan in enough detail and I wouldn’t have the ability to go back and edit the things I did wrong or the inconsistencies in my alibi. If my editor helped me from the beginning on the other hand…

***

Twenty years ago, her brother was murdered. Tonight, she’s found his killer.

Thessaly Hanlon is four hours into a long drive home through the night when she pulls into a 24-hour roadside diner to take a break. She’s exhausted, but when she hears a chillingly familiar voice from the next booth, she wonders if he’ll ever sleep again.

The voice is unmistakable. It belongs to Casper Sturgis, the man who murdered Thessaly’s brother two decades before, and then disappeared without a trace.

Thessaly makes the decision to follow the killer. As Thessaly begins to unravel the second life of Casper Sturgis, she finds that digging into the past can have deadly consequences…

Buy Darkness Falls

A 2021 project

Happy New Year! 

I hope you all had a safe and relatively enjoyable one. Fingers crossed the vaccines are rolled out quickly enough for us all to leave the house a little more this year.

I had a reasonably productive 2020, despite everything, and there will be news about my 2021 book soon. It's not out until the autumn, but the Hunted paperback will be out in early March. 

As always, I'll be writing another novel, but this year I'm going to try something new. Inspired by a technique Jenny Blackhurst told me about, I've made a chart of all 365 days in 2021, and I'm going to try to keep an unbroken chain by crossing off a day every time I write at least 100 words on a side project.

What's the side project? I'll tell you on New Year's Eve.

I tried this for a few months last year and it worked pretty well until I got hopelessly stuck, so I think the secret is to plan ahead a little more. It showed me that even small amounts of writing can build up to a lot of words pretty quickly. A bit like a micro-version of my 500 words technique.

Maybe this will be all on one project, maybe it'll be on more than one. The only rule is, I have to do 100 extra words on something that isn't the main book every day, all year.

If you'd like to do this yourself, feel free to download my chart.

All you need to remember is what Fleetwood Mac (and indeed Adrian McKinty) said: 

Never break the chain.

Interview with Tony Forder - Don't Look For Me

Reposting this interview with fellow crime writer Tony Forder from 2017, around publication of Don't Look For Me. 

First of all, thank you so much Mason for taking part in this. You must be thrilled at the moment to have your new Carter Blake novel on release, his fourth outing.

Thanks for asking me! Yes, it’s hard to believe I’ll have four books published, as I still feel like a rookie.

I think those days are long behind you – you're rubbing shoulders with the good and the great of the crime literary field these days, and deservedly so.

So, I have to begin here: do you feel good, bad or indifferent at having Blake lumped together with the likes of Reacher, Gentry, Victor, Puller and, one of my favourites I have to say, Joe Pike?

I think it’s inevitable when you’re writing in this genre, and I am a fan of many of the above gentlemen (good choice on Joe Pike). I think there’s room for a lot of different approaches to the lone wolf genre, so I’m always a huge compliment when someone mentions my books in the same breath as Lee Child or Robert Crais.

They are all great creations, of course, but Carter Blake deserves to be right up there with them. More so in some cases.

Why did you choose to write under a pseudonym?

That was my agent’s idea. He suggested coming up with something snappy and American-sounding, and Mason Cross was the one we agreed on. I told him he could call me whatever he liked if he got me a book deal. The other advantage of having a last name beginning with C is it alphabetically places you alongside the premier league of crime writers: Chandler, Child, Connelly, Christie, Crais, Coben… it’s a good place to be on the shelves.

I guess a name in exchange for a book deal is fair enough. You know, when I first saw your name I did think it sounded more like a character than an author. And that is rather a slippery trick on the surname. Note to self: think of pseudonym surname starting with C – Leroy Cudgel… Nick Carnage…Hmm, I may just have something here.

Did you consider it a risk in setting your novels in a foreign country?

I guess there’s always the risk that you’ll get some things wrong, but I try to research as much as possible, and run drafts past my American friends. Having said that, a lot of the time I’m writing about characters and places that I’ve invented, so I know them as well as anyone. And while America is a foreign country, it’s a very familiar one, and they (mostly) speak the same language, which helps.

I think you're right – other than the precise geography, so much of which you can find on Google Maps anyway, we are surrounded by Americanisms all the time if you like crime.

Being a Scotsman, from Glasgow, were you at all tempted to add to the Scottish mafia of authors and set your work in your home country, or did you feel that you were looking for a different territory and genre to explore?

Both. I’ve written stories set in Glasgow and will definitely write a novel set there sooner or later, but I also felt it was quite a crowded market and, since I’ve always loved American thrillers, I thought I would give writing one a go. I think a lot of writers write what they like to read, and many of my influences are American.

I can understand that. I recently wrote the first draft of an action thriller, and my initial instinct was to set it in the US. I ended up writing the first half set here, and then rewrote it all again for the US, only to revert back to a UK setting. My first published short story was in an American setting, so I feel comfortable with the feel and the language, but I felt as if I was forcing it. Mind you, I've also re-written it in first person POV as well, so it would not surprise me if my UK-based third person POV first draft ended up being a US-based first person POV novel.

The action scenes feel extremely cinematic. Do you ever write something with an eye for how it might look if the novel became a movie at some point down the road?

Thank you! Obviously I would love for the books to be adapted at some point, but in fact I always tend to visualise my scenes in a cinematic way when I write them. I always think about how a particular scene would look in a movie; what actor might play a supporting character, what kind of music would complement a scene, stuff like that.

That's interesting. It certainly shows.

Who is your favourite modern day literary tough guy (and no, you can't go for Reacher!!)?

Hmmm… modern day, I’d have to go for Harry Bosch, who is tough as nails but not afraid to be a decent guy at the same time. I think Titus Welliver totally nails the character in the Bosch TV show.

I think I'd have to agree on all points. Harry is a real hard case – for me the best cop in literary fiction right now – and Titus Welliver now is Harry Bosch…minus the moustache.

The rise of independent publishers and self-publishers has seen a massive influx of crime and thriller novels available to buy. Do you think the market had become flooded, and therefore diluted?

I think there’s always been a lot of crime and thriller novels, because it’s such a classic structure. I think there’s enough room for everyone, and hopefully the very best rise to the top. It’s always been a crowded market though, going back to the pulp days – that’s a good sign because it suggests there’s still a big appetite for the genre among readers.

Agreed – given there are only so many plot devices, it's amazing how many different stories can be told.

I think fans will be interested to know – and I count myself amongst them – did you go the standard route of agent > publisher to get the first Blake novel out there?

Yes, although possibly with more luck than is normal. I was completely clueless about the publishing industry before writing my first novel, and was incredibly fortunate that a top flight agent approached me based on some stories I’d published online. I wrote one novel that didn’t find a publisher, but the feedback was generally pretty good, so that gave me confidence to write another, which was the first Blake novel, The Killing Season.

That sounds more like good writing attracting attention rather than luck, Mason.

In recent months I have read novels from mainstream publishers that break just about every 'rule' an author can break, according to agents, publishers and other authors. Do you think it is (a) true that established authors can get away with sloppiness and laziness, and (b) that the only genuine advice you can offer about rules when it comes to writing is that there are none that cannot be broken?

(a) I think that’s true to an extent, and often you’ll read Amazon reviews of the big names where people complain they aren’t as good as they used to be. Sometimes you can tell a writer is coasting and phoning it in, but if they’re selling books, they’re going to keep being published. I really admire writers like Michael Connelly and Stephen King who are still doing fantastic work after dozens of books. Ian Rankin’s most recent Rebus book is one of his best, and he’s been doing them for thirty years.

(b) That’s also true. I think the old saying is correct though – you have to know the rules before you can break them.

Agreed. Connelly also takes a breath when he introduces new lead characters, such as Haller and McEvoy. There's a new one coming this summer, which I think we're all looking forward to.

I often quote a Stephen King piece from the novella, The Breathing Method: It is the tale. Not he who tells it. I believe that to be true. What are your thoughts, please?

Depends on the tale! I think a brilliant writer can make an absolutely straightforward story compulsively readable, but it’s always a thrill to read a book with a fantastic hook that’s never been done before.

Those hooks are rare, but yes they are exciting when they appear.

When reading a new novel written by a friend, do you find it difficult to be critical?

No. you can be critical without being a dick. Luckily, whenever I’ve read anything written by a friend so far it’s been pretty good. As a writer I know my own work will always be improved by people giving me feedback and telling me what they liked and didn’t like, so it’s a vital part of the process.

Yes, I think criticism is to be welcomed provided it is constructive. Sometimes I read reviews on Amazon and they are crushing for no apparent reason (not my own so far, but they'll come, of that I have no doubt).

If you were sitting down to edit The Killing Season now, do you think you would end up with a different book at the end of it?

Good question. I’m not sure what specifically I would do differently, but it would be nice to add more foreshadowing of future events now I’ve written four and a half books about Blake. I don’t think it would be radically different other than cosmetically. That first one is probably closest to the book I envisioned when I started out than any of the others.

Interesting. I wonder if you think that's possibly shared by most authors, who perhaps have pretty much the whole first book mapped out in their heads, compared to those that follow.

Do you enjoy the non-writing elements that come with being a well-known author?

Not sure how well-known I am, but yes, in general! I enjoy travelling and meeting people, so that definitely comes in handy when it comes to the promotion side of things. Even at my level, it can be quite exhausting keeping up with all of the festivals, library talks, bookshop events etc., so I have no idea how the genuinely big names manage to balance everything.

Looking on from the sidelines it does seem a little overwhelming. On the other hand, the more you do the more popular you must be, I guess.

Final one – and please elect not to answer if you find the question intrusive. I was wondering whether your lifelong friends still refer to you as Gavin, or if the persona of Mason Cross has now devoured you whole?

Old friends still call me Gavin (or Gav, actually), but a lot of my fellow authors know me as Mason, simply because it’s less hassle to stick to one name at festivals and so on. I don’t make a big secret of it or anything, but it’s actually quite nice to have the separation, so I can compartmentalise my life a little more easily. It sometimes causes a problem when I check in at a hotel and don’t know which name I’ve been booked in under.

So, a case of putting on your Mason Cross hat when writing or doing writerly things, but just Gav or Gavin at other times. Sounds like a nice balance.

And that's it. Thank you again for taking part. I must warn you, I read the latest Puller novel recently and could not finish it. If I had to read one more character 'bark' I would have felt obliged to call Battersea Dogs Home. If Blake does that to me, we may just have a falling out. I think we're safe, though – I get the sense that Carter Blake is going to be doing good deeds for some time to come.

I hope so! Thanks for the questions.

Well, my review of the book is in, so you held up your end of the deal, Mason. My sincere thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer these questions for me.

Don't Look For Me - review

Four books into what will clearly be a long-running series featuring the enigmatic Carter Blake, and Mason Cross has so far been able to give his readers something different each time. Different, yet familiar. Opening up a new Mason Cross book is like sliding into a pair of old slippers.

Sure, you know Blake is going to be involved in a fight within the first few chapters, that he will be both hunter and hunted, and that he will not only emerge victorious but also unruffled. We know that about Bond and Bourne and Reacher, et al, but it doesn't stop us coming back for more. Wild horses could not prevent me from gaining access to more Carter Blake in the future, that's for sure. I like the fact that Blake is not perfect – he gets surprised at times, he gets hit, he gets beat up, and occasionally he loses his man. It is that lack of perfection that makes Blake all the more real, and all the more appealing.

The past continues to draw Blake back in. Last time out it was his ex-colleagues who dragged him back, and now it's an ex-girlfriend. It seems the past will not remain where he left it, but when someone is in trouble, Carter Blake steps up. No matter what awaits him in the shadows.

In Don't Look For Me, Blake has to contend throughout with someone who has a similar set of skills, a similar approach to achieving goals, and a similar method of dealing with opponents. A wily, cussed character, with an appreciation for an adroit foe. I liked Gage. I saw him as a man worthy of Blake's best efforts. Carter Blake with a black hat.

I thoroughly enjoyed the premise of this book, and in addition to Blake and Gage the two female characters were also engaging, though in very different ways. One I liked, one I did not, and I wasn't quite sure whether I was supposed to. The action is spread over hundreds of miles, mostly in Nevada and Arizona, and as usual the physical scenes are cinematic. Early intrigue leads to understanding, which in turn leads to anticipation. A couple of unusual settings here, too, and they play a role in developing a brooding atmosphere.

One of the things I admire about fast-paced action thrillers of this ilk is the author's ability to maintain that momentum and to create plenty of conflict along the way. Having written one myself recently I can attest to the fact that a lot of work goes into making it all seem effortless (something I am still striving to achieve). Mason Cross has succeeded yet again in delivering that pace and drive and character and story all in one neat package that sweeps you up and carries you along for the duration, never allowing you back down until you are sated by the ending and wishing you could go back and start all over again.

 A five star read.

Buy Don't Look For Me here

Visuals

Visuals have always been a big part of my writing process.

Often, the visuals will come to me before almost anything else; like the full moon over rows of fields in Killing Season, or the ghost town in the desert in Don't Look For Me.

When I'm planning a new book, I like to gather images together that will help me get a handle on the place, characters and story I'm dreaming up.

It's really helpful for starting to visualise the locations and the world in which the book takes place. Also, it's a lot easier than writing, so yay for productive procrastination.

I've always done this, but it used to be with a mixture of old-fashioned clippings and pics saved in Word docs. For the last couple of books, I've created Pinterest boards as part of the brainstorming process. Quite often, I'll get an idea for a new story strand from an arresting image.

Here's my Pinterest board for Presumed Dead. I hope it gives you a flavour of the feel of the book.


(Yes, I have a board in progress for my 2019 book. No, I'm not showing anyone yet.)

Writing tips / musings: omnibus edition

I've written a few blog posts over the years on how I write, and been asked to contribute various 'top tips' articles to other publications.

I thought I'd group the ones which have been most popular together here.

I get irritated by writing tips blogs which hand down knowledge from on high as though graven in stone (talking of which, bonus tip - clichés are fine, used sparingly), so you should always go with the advice that works for you, and not feel bad about discarding the advice that doesn't.

Everyone's different, and your mileage may vary, as they say.

~~~

Writing a first draft

Revising a book

Top 5 tips on being a writer

Editing

Grizzly murders and the perils of quoting the Boss

The next one

If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything

What works for me

Why I wrote The Killing Season

The fine detail

5 tips on plotting

The 500 words method

Structuring a novel in Word

Settings and Samaritans

Why America?

Top 10 locations to set an action thriller

Q&A with Magna Books

The Problems of being a writer

Writing a series

Visuals

Revising a book

This was the second of my two pieces for Rebecca Bradley's excellent blog, which I'm reposting here. The initial one was on first drafts, aka the terror of the blank page, this one is on what to do once you've filled those pages.

Once again, make sure you check out Rebecca's blog to read about other writers' revision process; it's a cornucopia of great advice.

Your first draft has been completed, what state is it generally in?

Kind of a mess! It’s usually missing important scenes, characters have changed names halfway through, the geography and timeline is often a bit mixed-up, I’ve given places names like ‘Toytown’, characters are named after actors who I think could play them… the first revision is about going back through and fixing all of the placeholder stuff that I only put in there until I could think of something better.

What is the first thing do before you start to revise?

The most important thing to do is nothing.

As in, take some time off and don’t even look at the manuscript for a few weeks. I need to be able to come back and look at it with fresh eyes. Usually it’s not as bad as I had feared, and the things that need to be fixed are more obvious.

When I’m ready to go back over the manuscript, I print out a hard copy and go through it with a pencil and a set of highlighters, with a notebook to record anything that requires more detail.

How do you assess the damage that needs working on?

I read through the whole book. Normally I’ll have a good idea of what scenes and elements will need the most work before I start, but it’s important to see how it reads as a book, even in rough form.

I also find this process often gives me better ideas for new scenes, or ways to tweak existing ones.

Do you allow anyone to read that very first draft before revisions or can you assess it objectively yourself?

Are you kidding? No one ever sees my first drafts but me. I hate showing anyone a work in progress until I’ve been through it at least three or four times. I even get paranoid when someone walks into the room while I’m writing, and change to another window on my screen.

I email each day’s work to myself as an extra backup, and I have a recurring nightmare about accidentally sending a work in progress to my editor or agent.

What do you initially focus on, when approaching the completed first draft of the manuscript?

Getting the structure right, making sure the plot holds together and makes sense, and that the pace works. I usually end up cutting scenes and adding new ones if I feel the story is sagging at a certain point, or if I notice a key character disappears for too many chapters.

Do you have any rituals, writing or real-world, when revising a manuscript?

I like to book myself into a hotel for a couple of days to immerse myself in the book. The more remote the better. I like to go to places out in the country where I can go for a walk to give myself a break and wool-gather.

Essentially, my concept of what it is to be a writer was formed by watching James Caan in Misery at an impressionable age.

In what format do you revise, paper or computer?

As above, I print out a hard copy to read through and make notes, but after that I go back to the computer, save a new version of the file, and do my edits on the screen. I set my documents up with headers for each chapter so that it’s easy to navigate around the document and to switch the order of chapters if necessary.

How messy is the revision process – can you go in and repair areas or does the whole manuscript get decimated?

I quite like the process of pulling it apart and putting it back together again. Generally there will be some parts that don’t need too much work. Other parts will need major surgery, others will be taken out altogether. I’m an adder, so my books usually put on ten thousand extra words between the first draft and final draft. While it’s a net gain in word count, I’m still cutting stuff that doesn’t work and killing darlings as well as adding new material.

Is revision an overhaul of the story or is it minor editing?

The first run is usually more of an overhaul, but after that it settles down into a series of smaller and smaller edits until (in theory) I get it right.

What’s the biggest change you’ve made to a story during this process?

One thing I tend to do a lot of work on after the first draft is the ending. In one case, I expanded the ending and changed my mind about who the villain was! That obviously entailed going back and laying a lot of the groundwork earlier in the book so it felt natural.

When first drafting, many writers keep track of progress by counting words in a day. How do you make sure you’re progressing as you’re revising?

Good question, and with editing there isn’t as easy a way of gauging your progress as keeping track of words per day when writing a draft. I usually have a deadline on edits, so I’ll know it has to be finished by a certain date and work back from there, working out how many pages I need to cover a day.

Of course, some pages need more editing than others, so it may take a few hours to edit the first hundred pages, and then days to edit the next twenty.

Do you prefer to write the first draft or do you prefer the revision process?

Whichever I’m not doing when someone asks me! I probably prefer revision – it’s easier to fix something that already exists than create something from nothing. I always say there are hundreds of ways to fix a first draft; there’s only one way to fix a blank page.

What do you drink while you’re working?

I really want to give a more rock n roll answer, like Jim Beam black label, but usually it’s coffee, switching to tea when I’ve had too much caffeine. Occasionally I’ll have a beer.

How long does this process take and what shape is the book now in?

It usually takes a few weeks to do it right, although when I’m against a deadline, I need to cram that work into less time. When I’m getting close to finishing I’ll work way into the night fixing the last few things.

You never really get to a point when you think it’s perfect, you just get to a point where you’ve done as much as you can and it’s time to stop.

Writing a first draft

A while ago, I was asked by fellow crime writer Rebecca Bradley to contribute to her blog series on writing a first draft. You should definitely check the series out if you want to hear about lots of different ways to write the first draft of a book. Head over to her blog to read the others. There are tons of them, and it's a treasure trove of useful advice and tips for any writer.

How many ways are there? As many as there are authors. More, in fact. Big thanks to Rebecca for letting me repost my contribution here.

When you decide to write something new, what is the first thing you do?

The first thing I do is to start noting down all of the ideas I have about the new project and start trying to get a very basic plot outline scribbled down. It’s always interesting looking back once I’ve finished a book to how radically different the finished product is from the first few ideas, but there are always some good scenes or characters or even lines of dialogue that make it through from inception to completion.

Do you have a set routine approaching it?

I’m still fairly new to this, so I’m experimenting with different ways to approach a new book. Having now written four novels, I’m beginning to work out the things to do to make my life easier. The most important thing is to write a rough but reasonably detailed synopsis that gives me the main characters and the key scenes. From experience, that synopsis changes a lot as I write, but it’s important to fool myself into thinking I know what I’m doing.

Pen and paper or straight to the keyboard?

Depends where I am. If I’m out and about when I have an idea, I’ll usually write in a notebook or type some bullet points into the notes app on my phone. As soon as I get near a computer though, I like to transcribe my notes and start to arrange them into a coherent order. There’s one very important reason to do this as soon as possible, and that’s the fact that I have real trouble reading my own handwriting. I think I missed my calling as a doctor.

How important is research to you?

Quite important, because I like to ground my novels in reality as far as possible to balance out the more outlandish thriller-y elements. I don’t overdo research before I start writing, though – a) because it’s a great excuse for procrastination, and b) because the temptation to dump all the research you’ve done into the book is strong. I try to write as much of the book as possible and then research the gaps in my knowledge… which are numerous! The good thing about research is it will often give you a great idea for a new plot twist, or a solution to a story problem you’d been struggling with.

How do you go about researching?

Like most writers these days, I do a lot of Googling. The internet is an incredible resource for lots of things, from the minutiae of firearms to flight schedules to street views from all over planet Earth. I also read factual books and newspaper or magazine articles about topics that are relevant to whatever I’m writing. It’s always good to have visited the place you’re writing about (assuming it exists), but even when you’ve been to a place you can always learn more by reading about it. How do you store everything; ideas, research, images that catch your eye? I always have a few notebooks on the go and try to record ideas and promising-looking research avenues as I find them. Quite often a newspaper article or website will have really useful information, so I email the pages to myself and store them in a (now gigantic) folder called ‘INTERESTING STUFF FOR BOOKS’

Tell us how that first draft takes shape?

I just try to plough ahead, knowing that it isn’t going to be perfect or pretty, but that it’s important to get a first draft to work on. It’s like working on any big project – you have good days and bad days. Sometimes you’ll make a breakthrough and get a lot of words down and they seem to be reasonably good words, other days you’ll be spinning your wheels, wondering if you should just give up on the whole thing. On those days, it’s important just to get some words down, no matter how clumsy, and trust that you’ll be able to fix them later on.

Are there any rituals you have to do or items you must have with you while writing that draft?

No – I just need space and time to write. That’s the challenging part. The main ritual is making sure I get time to write every day, whether it’s last thing at night or during lunch.

Does the outside world exist or are you lost to us for a period of time as the magic works?

Unfortunately I don’t have the luxury of withdrawing from the world as I have a day job and young children, so I have to make the most of the available time. I think being forced to engage with the real world helps, though. You need to know about real life and real people to do the job.

What does your work space look like?

At the moment, I’m a writer without a workspace. The office is going to be redecorated, and so I have to make to with the kitchen table, the couch, or sitting on the floor with my back to the wall. Luckily I’ve never been the sort of writer who needs a perfect environment in which to write. [edit: I have an office again now. Still do a lot of writing on the couch and at coffee shops]

Edit as you go or just keep getting words out?

Mostly just keep getting the words down. Occasionally, if I have a really bright idea of how to fix an earlier scene I might go back and tweak a little, but mostly it’s about gritting my teeth and focusing on the finish line. I see many writers counting words in a day.

Word counter or other method of keeping track of progression?

Definitely a word counter. I always aim to do at least 500 words a day. Most days I do more than that, but it’s important to have a realistic target that’s not too intimidating. So, that first draft is down.

Roughly how long did it take? And what shape is it in? 

My last couple of books have been written to deadline, so much faster than before I had a book deal. It takes me about 4-5 months to get a rough draft down, but that’s very rough indeed. After that it’s usually another month or two to get it in a good enough shape to send to my publisher. The most recent book is my most ambitious and sprawling to date, and it took a lot more time to whip into shape.

In what format do you like to read it through, e-reader, paper or the computer screen?

The first time I read through I have to print out. For some reason you miss the mistakes more easily on a screen. Later on, I send the document to my Kindle to read over a more polished draft.

What happens now that first draft is done?

Ideally, I take a break for a few weeks and come back to it fresh, but the available time doesn’t always allow that. When I come back to the draft the first thing I do is print it out and go through with a pencil and a notebook and lots of different coloured highlighters working out everything that needs to be fixed. There’s always a lot that needs fixed.

Thanks for digging into the depths of the first draft. It’s been a pleasure having you Mason.

It’s been a pleasure for me too!

Top five writing tips

I'm appearing at the excellent Bute Noir lit fest this weekend - come and say hello if you're on the island!

In the meantime, here's a summer repeats. A while ago the excellent tartan noir author Michael J. Malone asked me to contribute my top 5 tips on being a writer to his blog. Head over there to check out some of the other great advice, and see below for what I said:

1. There’s no secret formula

The best preparation for being a writer is to read a lot and write a lot. Everyone says this, but that’s because it’s true. Like all writers, I started out as a reader. I always enjoyed creative writing at school, but reading widely helps you to work out what sort of stories you want to tell.  The other biggie is to take it seriously. If you want to write for a living, you have to treat it like a real job and show up for work, even on the days you don’t particularly feel like it.

2. You need a system, but everyone has a different one

I used to work in fits and burst, writing loads one day and then not doing anything for weeks at a time while I pondered all of the wonderful books I wasn’t writing. I had been told that a serious writer needs to write 1,000 or 2,000 words a day, and that seemed like an impossible task to fit in amongst all of the other responsibilities and distractions of everyday life.

My breakthrough came when one of my friends suggested just writing 500 words a day. That let me focus on a manageable goal, but at the same time, the words started to build up fast: 500 words a day, six days a week is 3,000 words. In four weeks you have 12,000 words. In six months, you have a first draft of a novel.

Everyone’s different when it comes to laying the groundwork. You don’t necessarily need to painstakingly craft your 3 act structure or write detailed biographies of every major and minor character. Stephen King doesn’t plot at all. James Ellroy constructs elaborate 300-page plot outlines.

They both write great books. Me? I try to plot in advance as far as possible, knowing that I’ll improvise a lot on the journey.

3. You need to put yourself out there

If you want to maximise your chances of somebody publishing your work, you need to let people know about it. Submit stories to magazines and competitions. Blog and tweet. Go to literary festivals and chat to authors and publishers in the bar. Do everything you can, because you never know what’s going to help.

The breakthrough for me was one of the things that took the least effort: I posted a few of my short stories on the HarperCollins Authonomy website (now sadly departed), and against the odds, it resulted in a contact from the agent who now represents me.

Even now I’m published, I think it’s important to make sure I’m as visible as possible, which means doing festivals, library events, guest blogs, interviews and basically never saying no to anything that gives me an opportunity to reach new readers.

4. You can learn from every writer

I’ve been inspired and motivated by so many writers. Not just crime writers, either: SF, historical, graphic novels, literary, horror, non-fiction. Listen to established writers and work out how their suggestions chime with your own methods and experience.

And you don’t just learn from the nuggets of actual writing advice like…

“Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.” (Elmore Leonard)

“Whatever it takes to finish things, finish. You will learn more from a glorious failure than you ever will from something you never finished.” (Neil Gaiman)

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” (Stephen King)

…but you learn just as much by reading authors in the genre you aspire to work in and beyond. If you read enough, you’ll start to notice things you can learn from, like a clever plot twist, or the way dialogue can do the heavy-lifting on character development, or a really amazing opening line.

And you can also learn from not-so-good books, from the flat-out terrible, to the ones that almost work but don’t quite. You start to see the pitfalls to avoid. And even if you think a book just plain sucks, you can still learn from it by working out what made it suck, and then not doing that.

One of the best pieces of advice I got came from comic book writer Mark Millar. At one of his events he spoke about knowing a lot of people who said they were writing a novel or a screenplay, but what they were actually doing was sitting around in coffee shops with a laptop talking about writing a novel or a screenplay. It reminded me of the sign Harry Bosch keeps on his desk: Get off your ass and knock on doors. The writer’s memo should be the opposite: Sit your ass down and write some words, something like that.

5. It’s the best job in the world

The most pleasant surprise is that my dream job really doesn’t disappoint. You have to love writing, of course, because there’s a lot of that to do. But all of the other stuff is so much fun too: events, signings, working with publishers on making the book better than you thought it could be, seeing early proofs of the cover, walking into an bookshop or library and seeing a real-live book with actual words you made up inside it.

I’ve done a lot of different jobs: some which I’ve enjoyed, some I’ve hated. All in all, I would have to say being a writer is substantially more fun than real life.

A tale of two titles

As I may have mentioned before, the third Carter Blake book was published this week in two territories under two separate titles:

Winterlong (Pegasus, US)

The Time to Kill (Orion, UK)

Why the change?

I wrote the book as Winterlong. It's the codename of the secret covert ops initiative Carter Blake used to belong to (although appropriately, it has gone by many names). It works for a book set in the depths of winter. It's also one of my favourite Neil Young songs, and I love the Pixies cover too. But the most important thing was, I liked it as a title.

My UK publisher Orion liked it too, and it was Winterlong throughout the editorial process, right up until the first proofs were produced.

But then they decided to rework the cover. Feedback from sales said that Winterlong wasn't quite thrillery-sounding enough. My editor asked me what I thought about The Time to Kill as an alternative title. I was honest and said I didn't mind it, though I preferred Winterlong. But I was in agreement with taking advice from sales. Call me a mercenary, but as long as it's the same book, I'd rather sell twice as much with someone else's title.

So the book got a new title and a new cover (which I love, both on the new blue paperback and with the original pink font).

Meanwhile, my US publisher Pegasus had acquired the book under the original title, and they thought Winterlong would work better for their market. They also had some concern that it could be confused with John Grisham's A Time to Kill. Again, sound reasoning, happy to go with it.

I got my author copies of both version last week, and I love them both. It feels kind of like I have two books out, and I only had to write one.

The experience got me thinking about why titles change. Some light Googling revealed that it happens a lot.

Would Baa Baa Black Sheep have sold as many copies as Gone With the Wind? Would Trimalchio in West Egg and First Impressions really have done the job as well as The Great Gatsby and Pride and Prejudice?

I asked some of my crime writer friends, and found it difficult to find one who hadn't had a book with multiple identities. With thanks to the below authors for their comments, you can read about what some of the best thrillers of recent years were almost called below:

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CL Taylor - My UK title was The Accident, my US title was Before I Wake which I thought was clever because a) the main character's daughter is in a coma and b) the main character is sleep walking through life/in denial and what happens 'awakens' her to the danger she's in. 

Tammy Cohen - The original UK title for The Broken was The Fallout, but that changed at the last minute when we realised there was another book coming out the same month called Fallout. But the US publishers much preferred the original title so it came out in the US as The Fallout. I didn't mind at first as I preferred the original title anyway, but actually it wasn't great for me because all the publicity and reviews etc for The Broken don't appear if someone in the US Googles the book. So it's like starting completely from scratch. Plus inevitably there are people who buy the book twice thinking it's a new title and are mighty pissed off!

Brian McGilloway - The Nameless Dead was called Isle of Bones originally. Hurt was called Family Life and in the US ended up as Someone You Know. My name for Preserve the Dead was Sticks and Stones. In the US it ended up as The Forgotten Ones. In every instance I preferred the working titles...

Katerina Diamond - The Teacher was originally called Unkindness - I do love my original name but I also love The Teacher and I fully understand why they chose a punchier name for it. As a result I have never bothered to name any of my other ones. It's a title and it's all about selling at the end of the day - that's the part I know nothing about

Lucy Dawson - My first four all had title changes at Little Brown's request. You Sent Me A Letter and Everything You Told Me were mine and the next one is Come Back, which is mine too. I honestly can't even remember what my original titles for the first four were. 

Sinead Crowley - Book 1 started life as Can Anybody Out There Help Me? but they thought it was too long and we batted every terrible internet related pun back and forth till they accepted Can Anybody Help Me? Book 2 was Are you Watching Me' And book 3 was originally Don't You Remember Me? to fit that theme but no one liked it, and I came up with One Bad Turn which we all love.

Michael J Malone -  Taste for Malice was originally called, Sins of the Father - a check on Amazon quickly found how overused that was.

June Taylor - My soon-to-be out there psychological thriller Losing Juliet was submitted to HarperCollins Killer Reads as Two Summers. But as it was to be a winter launch they deemed it unsuitable. Also said it wasn't thrillery enough, and preferred a woman's name in the title. I liked the original one, but a couple of months ago I saw a YA novel released called Two Summers, so maybe the change of title was a good thing.

James Oswald - I wanted to call book six Suffer the Children, but Penguin wouldn't let me. Apparently any suggestion in the title that children might come to harm kills sales. I completely failed to come up with anything else, and it was my editor who suggested The Damage Done. Italian titles for my first two are The Name of Evil and The Book of Evil. I'm betting book three will be The Rope of Evil.

Marnie Riches - The Girl Who Wouldn't Die was originally Blown Away, it ties in with a leitmotif running through the book and some apparent suicide bombing. The Girl Who Broke the Rules was meant to be called Empty Vessel, again, because it tied in with the story, which is about trafficked people whose organs have been harvested. Born Bad, coming out next year, was meant to be called Killing a King. 

Fergus McNeill - Eye Contact and Broken Fall were my titles, and everyone seemed happy with them. Knife Edge was a brilliant suggestion by my editor (someone actually gets stabbed, right on the edge of a cliff) so thank goodness she dissuaded me from the working title of You're Scaring Me.

Cass Green - The Woman Next Door was Hidden In Ordinary Days until my agent just grimaced and went, "Hmm.. no." !

Clare Mackintosh - I Let You Go was Written in the Sand when I first started it; when it was less thriller, more romantic suspense. It lost the title early on and was nameless, then my editor suggested I Let You Go, which it was perfect. It's been interesting seeing the titles of the various translations. In Chinese it's The Runaway , in German it's My Soul So Cold, in Dutch Mea Culpa, and in Italian - with no prior knowledge of the working title - it's Written in the Sand.

Jenny Blackhurst - How I Lost You was originally Cradle and All but apparently some dude published by Headline already had that. Before I Let You In was Before You Let Me In when I pitched it.

Helen Cadbury - Bones in the Nest was my agent's far better idea. I wanted to call it Bird Bones.

Neil White - The working name for my second novel was The Painter Man (based upon David Mandell - Google him). An excerpt appeared at the end of the first book with that title. It was changed to Lost Souls just before it came out. I get more emails asking why they can't find The Painter Man than anything else. It's a pain in the arse. I prefer The Painter Man.

Tom Wood - My first book was titled The Killer and was published as such in the US, then retitled as The Hunter in the UK ('Women won't buy a book called The Killer,' my UK editor told me). My second book was called The Contract, but the same editor changed it to The Enemy. He wanted my third book to be called The Game, so I just let him. I stopped trying to think of titles after that. My fourth book was published as Better Off Dead in the UK and No Tomorrow in the states because my UK publisher wanted a crimey title and in the US they wanted more thriller. Oh and that same editor wanted my last name changed to Wood from Hinshelwood, which my US publisher liked and so followed suit... after I was already published as Hinshelwood, so The Killer is by Tom Wood in pb and Tom Hinshelwood in hb. This is the short version.

***

After reading all of that, I think I got off lightly with only one title change.

My next one is currently titled Don't Look For Me, but by the time it comes out in April, who knows?