Underwater, running out of air…

When I’m diving deep I always glance up to the surface. Sometimes, as deep as fifty metres, you can still see it, maybe even the boat awaiting you. But often or not, you can’t. And the thought occurs to me, what if I were to run out of air, right now? Could I make it?

You can increase the danger by going inside a wreck at depth. Now, if you run out of air, you are already inside a steel mausoleum, and have to find your way out before you can begin to ascend.…

Inside a killer’s head

When writing a thriller, there needs to be a sense of jeopardy for the protagonist. Perhaps a killer is after her, maybe more than one. The killer can be left vague, abstract, distant, and this allows the reader to imagine how terrifying they can be. [nice image by Jiceh, by the way]

Or…

The author can go inside the killer’s head, show the reader what is in there. This approach is less followed, for several reasons.

(1) The writer is not a killer (well, usually, one hopes), and writers should ‘write what they know’.…

Is it worth paying for a copy-edit?

First, I’m an author, not a copy-editor, and I’m not selling any services. For my first four books I didn’t use a copy-edit as it would have cost me around a thousand pounds to do so per book, and I didn’t think it was worth it. Now I have a large publisher behind me, and have just had a copy-edit done for me (for free), I’ve basically changed my mind. 

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