I will deliver two free talks in Dumfries and Galloway to celebrate Book Week Scotland in November, both of them looking at the conversation between writer and reader. The theme of Book Week Scotland this year is Blether and I will look at how you can’t always trust the writer to tell the truth!

What do I mean by that? Well, convention dictates…

Time and time again in my writing, I come back to the theme of conflict., It is what makes fiction work.

But why is it important? Because stories need things to happen and that usually comes out of conflict - characters argue, fight, feud etc. It is through seeing characters in conflict that we see them at their truest, when their guard is…

The Long Dead (The Book Folks), a DCI Blizzard mystery set in the world of archaeologists and wartime  memories, has now topped 60 reviews on Amazon and it's held steady at four stars. You can find out more at…

What makes for good writing? Well, I think that good writing works because it triggers responses in its readers. The best writers get into the head of their readers (it is the theme of a creative writing course I am due to deliver in Kirkudbright, starting in a few days, and a ghost fiction workshop I am due to deliver in a haunted Scottish castle on Halloween).

I think writing works best when readers say ‘I have been in that situation, ‘I know someone like that’, ‘what a terrible…

Following on from my previous blogs on creating characters, a word about minor characters and the care you need to take when creating them.

But why, you may ask, spend unnecessary time on insignificant characters? Some may have roles so negligible that they won’t even warrant names: the servant who brought the drinks; the hotel maid who cleaned the room, the police officer who drove the car and so on.

They deserve attention, though, because, although the reader isn’t supposed to…

The latest DCI John Blizzard mystery, the seventh in the series published by The Book Folks, is up to 42 in the British Detective Stories section of Amazon Kindle.

In A Flicker in the Night, a spate of murderous arson attacks evokes bitter memories for stalwart detective John Blizzard.

It was a defining moment in DCI John Blizzard’s…

I am writing the latest DCI Jack Harris crime novel and, although I plotted it pretty carefully in advance, the characters are doing a lot of the work for me as I write, throwing up questions and hinting at secrets.

It reminded me how important secrets are to a crime writer. It is crucial that your characters are hiding things. They may reveal their secrets to the reader but it can be a very effective storytelling tool if the investigators are in the dark until the story comes to its…