After years of unsuccessfully trying to get my stories noticed from the slush pile, I went back to university to study for an MA in Creative Writing at the age of 40. Before graduation I’d secured both a literary agent and a book deal. I’m now a full-time writer and live in Nottingham. Sounds quick but it took a long time, if you count the ten long years of prior rejections.
What you have written, past and present.
I wrote four Young Adult books between 2014-2018, published by Macmillan Children’s Books. Then in 2016 I moved back to writing my first love: adult psychological crime fiction and that’s what I write exclusively today for Hachette’s Bookouture, a digital-first publisher. Audible publish my audiobooks and I’ve also written two Audible Originals exclusively for them. I’ve just written my fifteenth adult thriller.
What you are promoting now.
THE EVIDENCE, a psychological thriller I’ve written exclusively for Audible published 11th February 2021.
A bit about your process of writing.
I work best during the morning. This discipline is a throwback to working a full-time day job and writing between 6-8 am before I went out to work. Sometimes I write in bed immediately after waking and, on a good day, I can get a couple of thousand words down before I get up. But usually, after reading and surfing online for a while, I go downstairs to my office and start work between 8 and 9 am. In pre-lockdown days we’d go out somewhere in the afternoons. Remember that?
Do you plan or just write?
I used to just write a short blurb and that was the extent of my natural urge to plan. But writing commercial thrillers and a few a year, means I now have to plan the book more thoroughly … thoroughly for me, anyway. I’ll do a long outline which I agree with my editor and then add to it as I start writing. I don’t know a lot about the story at the beginning of the process, I just have my initial idea and a sense of how I want it to feel. It doesn’t mean the plot can’t differ from the outline – it nearly always does – but in order to provide the twists and turns the modern reader expects, there has to be some element of planning.
What about word count?
I write a few books a year so it’s essential I’m disciplined about achieving minimum daily word counts when I begin a first draft. I try and get a basic draft down in no more than a couple of months so I’m looking at 1-2k a day. I often add substantial word count during structural and line edits. Sometimes I like to use an app on my phone called Focus Keeper. The ticking timer drives some people crazy but it keeps me … well, focused.
How do you do your structure?
I tend to draft out my initial outline in the form of five acts to start writing to a recognisable shape. But I’m not a slave to a turning point at 10%, another at 25%, that kind of thing. I just find it a useful template to get me started.
What do you find hard about writing?
Stopping. I find it so hard to break off or have a whole day off so I have to force myself as there’s a real world out there and real people I care about and want to spend time with. I’ve found getting out of the house is key to breaking the spell. I’m constantly striving to achieve that illusive but tempting cliché: work-life balance.
What do you love about writing?
I love how the world and characters I’m writing seem so real. I love that I’m earning a great living doing something I would do – and for many years did do – for free. And I love writing digital-first; it’s incredible that 6-8 months after having a new idea, the book can be out there.
Advice for other writers.
Write. Sounds obvious but most writers I know, myself included, have a precarious state of mind that is prone to self-sabotage and procrastination. So many new writers – I used to be one of them – spend too much time striving for perfection instead of getting the book down and then using editing as a powerful tool to refine the story. It’s really hard to get something good the first time around. I like to think of the writing process as a kind of sculpting: starting with a lump of clay and through many stages and revisions, finally ending up with something good.
The Evidence by K.L. Slater is available exclusively on Audible now.