I have been asked in replies on my blogs, in chat and in person. I've been asked to give tutorials and teach people how to write. I've thought about it, I've considered it and now I've started it.

I'm not sure I can teach YOU how to write like I do, but I can tell you how I developed my own style and maybe, hopefully, that will help you develop yours.

These are my books. It took two years to write my first book - and another nine years to publish it.

My Amazon.co.uk page

Lesson 1

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To make an interesting story, you have to make the reader believe he/she has something in common with at least one of the characters – preferably the main character (or one of the main characters).

In MY book:
Hazel is young, naïve and scared – well, who wouldn’t be? Everyone – or just about everyone – is scared of something, especially when they were young - and everyone has been naïve.

For me, it’s not knowing if there’s anything behind me, lurking, skulking, waiting to pounce (hence the woods and the dark atmosphere – I wrote about what scares me). Also, the thought of zombies scares me too… but this is a werewolf story, no zombies allowed.

So, Hazel is deep in the woods (look at the backstory, there’s a massive legend about her woods and so she has a REAL reason to be scared too. I put the real, historically documented danger of disenfranchised soldiers inhabiting the woodlands – men coming home from the wars in France (Agincourt) to find their family gone, their village scattered and so they have nowhere to go; they survived in the woodlands and became almost feral.

Then I added the mythical, story-tale legend of werewolves to the mix. One or another of the stories – or both/neither stories - may have been invented purely to keep people out of the woods. It’s down to the reader’s imagination to figure that out, but that also depends on you, the storyteller to give the reader enough doubt in their mind to make them wonder which, if any of those stories is made up and which could just be real.

Those soldiers preyed on civilians, robbing, raping and murdering anyone that strayed into ‘their’ territory – that’s a documented historical fact and I used it to enhance my story. Do not be afraid to use actual events to bulk-up your story. It’s not plagiarism if you write it out in your own words, using your perspectives.

Hazel is scared, alone, looking for her lost pet, and frightened. And then she’s confronted by her worst fears – someone or something is following her. Not only has she wandered too far, she hasn’t found her pet and now… even bigger danger.

Building tension so the reader has to turn the page to see what’s going to happen is relatively easy if you have a character the reader has connected with. Combined with a physical (or mental) danger the reader can identify with. In other words, the reader has possibly experienced a similar situation before, and can sympathise with the character because ‘Oooh, that’s JUST how I felt when that happened to me!’

Building tension ONLY works if you also RELEASE that tension. A book that is just building tension without a respite will become way too stressful and unrealistic for the reader. You have to know when to let up.

She found her pet, she got home safely – all tension released and ready to start building again…

As the story goes, you can elevate the level of tension one notch at a time until the reader is way beyond where they were at the beginning of the book.

To begin with, ‘the edge of the seat’ for the reader will be easily reached, but toward the end, they will have some idea of the character’s resilience and they’ll know – ahh, she/he’s got this.

In my story, the comfort of the morning arrived as her pet came home of his own accord (sorry, is it too late for a spoiler alert…) Then, it’s RAMPED up the very next moment (not gonna tell you how, read the book!)

Massive tension, scarey-scare, real danger, horrifying event and respite in the form of rescue.

How’s that for condensing the story?

To keep the reader engaged, you have to go a little way past their level of ahh, she/he’s got this. Not too far though, too much tension at once is bad, remember?

Then you can slip in a little back story. Not a massive Info Dump, use subtlety and finesse. I used a cliché’d story from her adopted daddy-figure giving a potted history of the legends of his days of yore.

Safety, comfort, a little bit of romantic dalliance and sigh everything is just peachy…

More massive tension (maybe not quite so bad as before, but worrying), a bit more history/backstory and a revelation. If the tension threatens to ruin the peachy normalcy that the character is starting to settle into, all the better.

Put a secret in there to spice things up, keep the reader involved and on the edge of their seat for a different reason other than tension and danger.

Keep interchanging tension, secrets and everyday stuff to build your world around your characters – you do need both, the characters may live in the same world as you, but I bet your readers don’t all live in the same world as you… Explain things that could possibly be different for them. You live in a tower-block, some of your readers live in cottages in the woods and vice-versa.

By the end of the book, the ‘edge of the seat’ for the reader will be so far beyond what it was at the beginning that the culmination of tension-relief will prove to be the satisfying end of the tension and from there, you can slowly lead your reader back to normality with the assurance that they will most definitely be reading your next book(s).

I own or have permission to use all pictures.
Werewolves kindly loaned from Paul Mudie