The second book of your Dark Renaissance series, “Blood Under Water”, has recently been released. What’s it about and who will like it?
Giulia Degarno, former thief and assassin, and her friend Hugh, an aging knight, travel to the city of Averrio to start a new life. When a dissident priest is found dead in a canal, they’re framed for the crime. Giulia has only a few days to solve the killing and clear their names – but a powerful conspiracy opposes them, and they are up against enemies who are more than human.
It will appeal to anyone who enjoyed Up To The Throne, Giulia’s first adventure, and also to fans of dark fantasy and grimdark. It’s also got a strong noir flavour, so if you ever wondered what a private eye story would be like set in a fantasy equivalent of Venice, this is the book for you!
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A RomCom in Space – easy, right?
Dumped, my new radio play, was released last week. In this article I’m going to talk about some of the things I like and don’t like about what I wrote, and some of the techniques I used to make a romantic comedy on an exploding spaceship hold together (all of which you are welcome to steal.) But first, if you haven’t listened to the play, now is a good time – because the article contains spoilers!
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How do I get the
idea for my novel?
I finished my second novel, Dead Moon, two weeks ago. My wife is reading it. She hasn’t fired me yet. My first novel, Vile, has spent the last four
months with an editor. Goodness knows if
it will ever emerge again. So, here I
am, starting a new novel again. But where will I find the idea? And how do I know it’s the right idea? And what sort of ideas make the best
foundations for your novel?
In this article I’m going to talk about putting together those first ideas that will launch your new novels. Ideas so strong, that at times they’ll feel they are writing it for you.
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How do you avoid writing a boring, uninteresting play?
I read more than 300 play submissions during our 2018 Little
Wonder Radio Play competition and there were an astonishing number that fell
into one of the three types:
Some has an interview and discovers it isn’t what it seems!
Someone is in a strange place and discovers they are/were
actually dead!
And worst of all…
Someone is waiting for something… but nothing happens!
But there have been some great plays like this!
All three of these story formats can (and have) be very successful – but they’re also very dangerous. In this article I’m going to talk about why your play about something waiting to be interviewed to get into somewhere only to discover they are actually dead is BOOOORING, and what you can do to avoid writing it again.[i]
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Today I’m lucky to be able to share an interview with author and playwright Kai Maristed. An experienced reviewer and critic, her short stories have been published in many of the magazines of note and she has taught writing in the US. In this interview, we talked about her latest project – translating Wedekind’s controversial Lulu Plays into English – and how working in different languages and mediums changes the way that you write.
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