Posts by Brereton
You should dig into the Detection Club, which had Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Chesterton, etc as its founding members. It's entry oath was: Do you promise that your detectives shall well...
Decide whether it's the wealth and comfort of the family which they dislike, or their family which they don't click with. The former scenario would alienate a lot of your readers unless you got it...
I'm in the final stages of packaging the book and would like to start arranging pre-orders to help with the first week "bump". How far in advance should I allow the pre-order option, and is there a...
I currently have the choice of two routes with my novel - to lead with a knives-and-poisons main conflict, with reference to the protagonist's emotional conflict, or to lead with him conquering his...
I was looking at the sales rankings on Amazon today with my publisher and he pointed out that all of the self-published best sellers have a short title then a semi-colon followed by a pitch line (s...
Are there specific tricks, mechanisms or devices to offer a shortcut to a level of civilisation without confusing the reader? I'm using a Ancient Rome-like country but don't want to base the plot i...
I've just received the written feedback from an editor in a large publishing house. On the whole it's very critical, with the occassional "could be good" thrown in at the end of sections with a lis...
I've been advised to sharpen my sidekick from an "intriguing second tier" character to the delegate for the readers. Is there a tried and tested formula succinctly captured somewhere? I'm looking t...
I've just approved my typeset manuscript and re-reading the book, I'm aware that it sounds very far away from my internal voice. Whilst it has all of the elements in practice, the colour and fluenc...
I have known gaps - voiceover artist, studio time, editing, distribution, but what are the unknown unknowns that I need to consider? Having read previous threads, there are some very wise answers,...
