Ruth Hogan's debut novel 'The Keeper of Lost Things' generated huge commercial success and critical acclaim across the world. Telling the story of Anthony Peardew, a short-story writer who collects treasures and trinkets. The whole story became clear to Ruth after she got a stunning first line, that simply appeared in her head. We talk about what she did next, how she developed one sentence to the rest of the story.We talk about the huge success of her first story influenced her next two, 'The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes' and 'Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel'. Ruth has been dubbed the 'queen of uplift', and she discusses what that means for the way she tells stories and plans her books.There's also a top-writing tip from crime writing behemoth, Ian Rankin.@writerspodwritersroutine.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Owen Nicholls is a pop-culture obsessive, having written for Empire and NME, the mission for his first novel was 'High Fidelty for movies'.Originally thinking it may be a screenplay, instead he enjoyed the space and time writing a novel gave him. For Owen, a screenplay needs to be tight, purposeful and focused, he thinks that with novels you can take time to discover your characters and plots.'Love, Unscripted' is the tale of a failed romance, and trying to figure out where it all went wrong - we talk about how Owen learned the tricks to write a novel, how he figured out what his characters needed to be, and also how he used his favourite films to help tell the story.Want to buy the book? Use this link to help us out in the process! - https://amzn.to/2lnlbRu@writerspodwritersroutine.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Along with Dan Gillespie Sells, Tom MacRae wrote the hit West End musical, 'Everybody's Talking About Jamie'. It opened in Sheffield, before transferring to London, selling-out constantly and receiving rave 5 star reviews. After writing for comedy on TV and for Dr Who, Tom had always planned to write a musical with his mate Dan, from the band 'The Feeling'. Then, watching a BBC documentary about a boy who wanted to go to high-school prom in a dress, he finally had an idea. Drawing on modern pop influences, and working class musicals such as 'Blood Brothers', Tom and Dan locked themselves away in a French villa and wrote the musical.Tom talks about the plotting and planning of writing for stage, how you writing dialogue when you know half the story has to be told in song. Also, how he knows when to be funny, and also went to switch off and stop working for the weekend.There's fantastic advice in here about discipline, characterisation and finding the hook of a story.Buy the book and help the show out - https://amzn.to/34GSDUJPledge on Patreon and help the show out - patreon.com/writersroutine@writerspodwritersroutine.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tim Smedley is a journalist who has worked for the FT, Guardian, New Scientist and many more. A few years ago, he was so disgusted at the levels of pollutants in the air around London where he lived - he moved. He also resolved to find out more about what was causing it, and to read a book on what could be done. He found out such a book didn't exist - it was up to him to write one.With just a year to get everything done, he chatted to some of the world's foremost experts on air pollution, travelled to countries with examples of what can be done about this and how we can do better, and packaged it all into a book - Clearing the Air: The Beginning and the End of Air Pollution. It's been shortlisted for the 'Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize', and we talk about how that's affected his writing.Also we talk about how hard it is to plan and plot a non-fiction novel, the structure of the story and why making it personal solved every problem.Please do support the show over at patreon.com/writersroutine.@writerspodwritersroutine.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bestselling author Sheila O'Flanagan is prolific, published around 30 novels and has won the 'Irish Independent Popular Fiction Book of the Year. Her new book is 'Her Husband's Mistake', and sees Roxy finding her husband in bed with the next door neighbour. You know this immediately, it's the very first sentence. We talk about how long she worked on making that first sentence perfect, and how it set the tone for the rest of the novel.To get ideas, Sheila's main strategy is to put women in situations where they have to dig deep inside themselves, and when she has that initial thought, she'll run through every decision she is making daily, as her character too - what would they do? how would they act here? We learn about how this process has developed, and how her writing style and routine has changed over time.She has three rules for writing: to tell a good story, to make the reader feel like they know the characters, and to make each book better than the last.Also, there's a top writing tip from a dystopian fiction author. And, if you can support the show, please pledge a few dollars a month over at patreon.com/writersroutine.@writerspodwritersroutine.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rob Hart's new book 'The Warehouse' is in the mold of 'Farenheit 451' and '1984', and focuses on one big business that suffocates all others, and the stories of 3 people who work there. Because of this, his characterisation needs to be truly believable and authentic, we talk about this struggle and how he became his characters in writing.It's also his first proper foray into standalone novels, having made his way with the 'Ash McKenna' series, and we talk about his relief at writing independent books, and how he finds it more enjoyable that staying with the same characters for many years. Not that this book was a quick write - he had the initial idea around a decade ago and it took many attempts to finally get it down on paper. We talk about that challenge and, in particular, that tricky first sentence.If you can, please do support the show over at patreon.com/writersroutine.If you want to buy the book, please use this link! - https://amzn.to/32yhXKL@writerspodwritersroutine.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shari Lapena's first book, 'The Couple Next Door', was the number 1 adult fiction title for the UK back in 2017, and with 3 books published since we talk about how such success has affected the way she now tells stories. Her new one is 'Someone We Know', a twisting tale of a teenager so desperate for wi-fi he breaks into homes, and then strange things start happening all over the neighbourhood.She doesn't plan, in fact she finds the whole idea of planning baffling - how do you know your story before it's even written? We hear about how she plans for lack of planning - writing many different threads so the perfect solution to the problem makes itself clear.We also talking about a year in the life of a writer, how editors get involved and there are some top work tips in there too!Patreon.com/writersroutine@writerspodwritersroutine.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Laura Jane Williams is a prolific journalist, and successful memoir writer - her books, 'Becoming' and 'Ice Cream for Breakfast', talk about her twenties and quest for love. We chat about the arrogance of memoir-writing - what makes her think her story is worth reading? Also, you can hear the strange methods she uses to get into character, and the exact moment she knows them inside-out.'Our Stop' has been called 'the feminist rom-com of the summer', and we talk about what that means, and how she made sure the men in her story were three-dimensional and believable. Also, we chat about why Laura is able to write the thoughts in most peoples heads, better than most people actually can.If you can, please do support the show over at patreon.com/writersroutine for some merch!@writerspodwritersroutine.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After achieving great success with her debut novel, 'The Tall Man', Phoebe Locke is back with a new summer-hit, 'The July Girls'. It tells the story of murders that happen every year on exactly the same day, and the quest to track down who is doing it, and why. Originally it was a short story that never saw escaped the top drawer, and Phoebe explains why she's happy about that, and why the characters stuck with her enough to revisit their story.Phoebe has a very strict method of writing - the Pomodoro Technique. 25 minutes on and 5 minutes off. When she writes throughout the day is flexible though and she chats about why she'll write early sometimes, and late on others. We talk a lot about characterisation, and how she wants that to set her apart from other genre-writers, and you can hear why she thinks that gimmicks sometimes really help to tell a story.She is also known by Nicci Cloke, and has written many books under that - her actual name. We find out why she's taken Phoebe Locke for these stories, and why pseudonyms can be really useful.@writerspodwritersroutine.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stuart MacBride pretty much hasn't had a day off for 16 years. Every chance he gets he'll find a little space and place to write in. It's made him a very successful crime author. His newest novel is 'All That's Dead', in which Logan McRae returns to work after some time away, and is immediately thrown into the deepest, darkest part of the crime world.We chat about why Stuart switches up his writing style - recently his need to keep things fresh saw him draft novels as TV screenplays. We also hear about where he gets his relentless work ethic from and how that's impacted his storytelling, and why he's always having discussions and arguments with himself about where the story should go next.And, if you're a fan of the depressing state of world politics at the moment, you may enjoy the story of how Stuart got the idea for his most recent story.@writerspodwritersroutine.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.