This is some advice that I wished had been given to me when I was publishing my first book The Body in the Boot. The big problem was that, now that I had a completed book burning a hole in my hand, I desperately wanted to get it out there as quickly as possible. And so I did. However, since that time, I have had to re-edit and republish the book several times in order to get it anywhere near to a reasonable standard. However, I was lucky in that most of my readers forgave me for the typos, poor editing and formatting saying that they liked the story. However, more than a few also pointed out its shortcomings which, although it stung a little at the time, in the end proved to be immensely helpful.
Continue readingTag Archives: Crime novel
My new detective – Biddie O’Sullivan
As a writer, I try to make plans but I’ve learned that, sometimes, such plans can very quickly go out of the window. I was halfway through Mac Maguire’s fourteenth adventure, A Murdered Crow, when a new idea hit me pretty much out of the blue. It was all Mac’s fault really as I had him reviewing some crime novels as part of his investigation into a murder and, in order to give him some clues, I had to invent a couple of authors and their fictional detectives. One of these fictional characters was called Detective Inspector Biddie O’Sullivan who works out of Cork City, Ireland. As I say, Biddie was invented just to help Mac’s plot along but, somehow, she stuck in my head.
Continue readingWriting about what you don’t know
Writing about what you know is probably good advice for any writer. However, if you’re writing a series, sooner or later you are going to have to try something new. This happened to me by book six, Two Dogs. Part of this book, by necessity, had to be set in Paris so I was somewhat taken out of my comfort zone. In subsequent books, The Chancer and The Eight Bench Walk, I take the reader to the North-West of Ireland and then to Cyprus. I can’t say how well I’ve achieved this, as only the reader can judge that, but I’ve certainly had no adverse reviews as yet regarding the locations of my books.
Getting facts about a location wrong can seriously annoy your readers so let’s see what resources you can use to ensure that this doesn’t happen.
Continue readingI want to write my first crime novel but how and where to start?
I was asked this question by someone recently and I gave them an honest answer.
‘I’ve no idea,’ I replied.
I got quite a puzzled look when I said this as I had just told the person who had asked the question that I had published twelve crime books so far. I had to explain further. What I meant by this was that, if there was a right or easy way to write your first book, I certainly hadn’t found it. If my journey in writing could be compared to a drive say, from New York City to Washington DC, some two hundred miles or more, then my journey would have taken in Washington State some three thousand miles away. Nothing about the route I took towards publishing my first book, The Body in the Boot, was straightforward. Let me explain…
Continue readingCozy, hard-boiled or somewhere in between? Crime fiction and uncertain times
Book sales have increased during this pandemic and, for some, it seems that crime fiction has boomed. This caused me to look at my own sales figures. As I’m a self-published author on Amazon, my sales figures are very easy to find. It looks as if my book sales have more or less doubled compared to last year. It is, of course, a situation that I’m very happy with, however, it did start me thinking.
I have been advertising a little more and I’ve finally got up to ten books in my crime series but I’m not sure that’s the whole story behind the increased sales. Continue reading
The Eight Bench Walk – Things to consider when setting a book abroad
My latest book The Eight Bench Walk should be ready for publication next month. This is the first Mac Maguire mystery that is more or less completely set abroad and so it presents its own set of problems. (Only part of Two Dogs was set in France and Ireland in The Chancer is definitely not ‘abroad’ as far as I’m concerned).
One of these was getting the locations right. Continue reading
Where do a writer’s ideas come from?
I attended a local reader’s group a few weeks back. It was one that specialised in crime and murder mysteries. I was interested in what they did and it turned out that they were interested in what I did too. The first question, as always, was ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’
I couldn’t give a definitive answer as I honestly don’t know. I don’t want to investigate how my ideas are created too deeply in case it’s akin to analysing a joke. It’s never funny afterwards. For me the strangest aspect of being a writer is having to keep an open mind. I don’t mean this in the usual sense as in being intellectually open to new ideas or concepts. An analogy for that is like being in a house and looking out of the window at all the new ideas parading by and then inviting the ones you like or find interesting inside. For me as a writer an open mind is more like having your front door wide open and whatever decides to walk in, walks in. Continue reading
The Tiger’s Back – Just published!
The ninth Mac Maguire detective mystery The Tiger’s Back is now available in Amazon Books. Here’s the blurb –
‘It’s January and winter is biting hard. Mac has been asked to investigate the brutal murder of a homeless man in London by his grieving daughter. Meanwhile two of Mac’s police colleagues are looking into the suspicious death of a Cambridge history professor. Their paths cross and they realise that both deaths are somehow linked.
During the investigation Mac meets someone from his past, someone he’d hope that he’d never see again. The Tiger, the most fearsome and violent criminal that Mac had ever dealt with, is once again loose on the streets.’ Continue reading
Why can’t crime writing be more like real life?
I’m taking a quick break from writing the seventh novel in the Mac Maguire series in order to write this post. In the next few weeks I’ll be handing over the first draft to my partner for its first read through. I’m planning on publishing the novel, as yet unnamed, late April or early May and hopefully by then I’ll have come up with a title.
Among the myriad of things I often get wrong in any first draft is the plot line. There are either some obvious holes or, one of my partner’s pet gripes, some events are just too implausible. When these implausibilities are pointed out I usually groan silently and wonder how I could have written something that was so unlikely to happen in real life. Continue reading
The ‘birth’ of Mac Maguire
I’ll be publishing a new Mac Maguire mystery in October called Two Dogs. In the book Mac tells his new colleague Kate Grimsson how he got his nickname ‘Mac’ (his real first name is Dennis). I’ll not tell you here as that would be a spoiler so you’ll need to read the book to find out. Over the series of books I’ll be letting readers know a little more about his past, however, this isn’t something I’ve had to think up as I already knew his back story long before I wrote the first book in the series The Body in the Boot. Continue reading
Patrick C. Walsh Author 