Authors reveal the images that inspired 100,000 words
THIS WEEK: Rachel Abbott reveals how looking at a photograph can help bring a whole scene to life…
Rachel Abbott’s debut thriller, Only the Innocent, was an international bestseller, reaching the number one position in the Amazon charts both in the UK and US. This was followed by the number one bestselling novels The Back Road, Sleep Tight and Stranger Child, Nowhere Child (a short novel based on the characters from Stranger Child) and Kill Me Again. In February 2017 Rachel released her seventh novel, The Sixth Window. Her novels have been translated into over 20 languages. In 2015 Amazon celebrated the first five years of the Kindle in the UK, and announced that Rachel was the #1 bestselling independent author over the five-year period. She was also placed #14 in the chart of all authors. Stranger Child was the most borrowed novel for the Kindle in the first half of 2015. Rachel splits her time between Alderney – a beautiful island off the coast of France – and the Le Marche region of Italy, where she is able to devote all her time to writing fiction.
RACHEL SAYS: Every writer seeks inspiration for their stories from a whole range of sources. For some it could be news reports, magazine articles or local tales. They may discover a character they believe would be the perfect hero or villain in a novel, or be inspired to develop a devious plot. All of these work for me too – I believe that characters can drive a plot if they are strong enough.
But character and plot without a real sense of place don’t feel like quite enough to me. I want to sense the atmosphere of the surroundings and I try to bring this to life in my stories…TO READ IN FULL, CLICK HERE