The staircase is one of the central motifs of The Assumption. Although we only see it once (or do we? This is a work in progress) it is very important to the narrator, Laurie Oakes as they progress from prison to their destination location and emotional state. This is a very early draft. This came out…
Here’s a very early sketch I did of the protagonist Laurie Coates. I do a lot of this kind of sketching before committing a scene or a characteristic to the manuscript. So, here’s Laurie in development. I’m Laurie and I am not a pleasant person, by which I mean that I don’t like other people…
This is another of those sections spoken/thought by Laurie our protagonist and and narrator that looked so good when I wrote it. Only for the character’s character to deviate from this a lot later. I mean, “A LOT” too. So, it had to go into the Dead Ideas folder. Anyway, see what you think. The…
Every so often you, as an author, will have an absolute corker (a good thing in UK English) of an idea that you’ll rush to get down on paper/screen. You sleep. You dream… During the next day’s edit you re-read it and you’ll think: “It’s not right this. Doesn’t work. I’m going to delete it.”…
Laurie (now Laurie Coates, a pun on ‘côte but that’s another story for another time) is the narrator. Laurie is a narcissist apparently. That’s quite possibly down to parenting though. Either way, this is an early draft for Laurie, which I removed. The song lyric at the top is an atmosphere setting device I’m currently…
The fictional city (and county capital) of Crosschester from my first novel, The Water Meadow Man, is back. In my new novel, currently called ‘The Assumption’ it is a place of mad spies and fry-ups. Here’s an extract from the first draft. I left The Four Crosses Hotel in search of a decent early morning…
When it comes to writing a novel there’s little more enjoyable than writing a monster. Here’s the very first draft of one of the monstrous characters from my new novel in progress: The Assumption. Bear in mind, though, that some monsters are made not born. Some of these nightmare personalities have their own reasons, their…
My next novel is well underway. It’s a spy mystery with some very human monsters, heroines and quite a lot of swearing. I have a working title for it that it both biblical and general. Right now I’m calling the book The Assumption. I’ll be publishing work in progress here. I’m even thinking about a…
Mrs Quinn is an extraordinary women. Aged around 70 or more she has all the qualities of a spymaster, a killer and London cabbie. In this early (deleted) scene she’s trying to convince the protagonist, Laurie, to take up on a mission. Mrs Quinn didn’t do anything by accident, so of course we were already…