CRIME AUTHORS SPILL THEIR GUTS ABOUT WRITING. Every Thursday top-notch authors of psychological thrillers and crime fiction share their writing secrets – and the secrets to their success – with you and me.
“You’re searching for emotional touchstones you can connect with to write them honestly.”
This week: JOHN BOWEN
Tell us about yourself…
My name is John Bowen and I’m a Birmingham based bestselling multi genre thriller writer, dad, husband and all round fiction fan. I love books, audiobo
oks, movies, video games, television… If there’s a narrative medium where made up people are getting up to made up stuff then I’m usually interested.
I’m approaching my third anniversary as an independent author, with over 50,000 books sold and 15,000 downloads of my free short story collection. My first novel, supernatural suspense thriller WHERE THE DEAD WALK was released in 2014, my action adventure thriller, VESSEL, in late 2014, my shorts collection, COLD SWEATS & VIGNETTES, in early 2015, and my cozy murder mystery crime thriller, DEATH STALKS KETTLE STREET, late last year.
How long does your first draft take you?
Always longer than I’d like… but usually around a year. I start with a loose outline, which I build out and restructure as I go. By the time I reach the half way point every forthcoming scene is usually sketched out. This helps identify any possible structural or pacing issues and gauge if the plot, core character arcs and theme are working nicely together so I don’t get bogged down rewriting huge sections near the end…TO READ IN FULL, CLICK HERE