I’ll be selling and signing m’books in Basildon this Sunday 29th June, so if you’re in the area do please pop by to say hello! The event runs from 10 till 4 and is in the Basildon Sporting Village, which I’ve not been to before, but I’m imagining lots of people in tennis whites jogging about while sipping something healthy and green.
Author: MarkStayWrites
Author, screenwriter, and award-winning podcaster.
Tenterden Steampunk Day Next Saturday 28th June, 2025
I had a great time at last year’s Steampunk Day and I’m delighted to be returning this year! Although my books aren’t overtly steampunk (though the End of Magic trilogy gets more steampunky in books 2 and 3: airships, steam power, industry etc) I find that the steampunk community is polite, cheerful, immaculately-dressed and wonderfully open to trying new fiction.
There’s plenty to do on the day — lots of stalls, good food and music — and you get to hop on a steam train and blast through the English countryside! Treat yourself…
Nicola Whyte: Planning the Middle
Special guest Nicola Whyte, debut writer of 10 Marchfield Square, reveals how she plans the middle act of her novels to avoid overwriting…
Or watch it on Youtube…
TRANSCRIPT
MARK: What small thing has made a big difference to your creative process?
NICOLA: I think planning the middle, really. Because I used to plan the end and then, you know, your characters do their decisions, and then it would be like, hey, guess what? This 90,000 word novel is 130,000 words. And now I’m like; if I know the middle, it is much easier to stay on track. I think that’s probably the biggest change for me. I think in terms of, yeah, stopping me from going absolutely bananas. But also like a piece of information like… we talk about the German market: I was in a, a workshop with Imogen Cooper, and she said that if you translate a book into German, it adds almost a third onto the length of the book. When you consider translation costs, and paper costs, and ink costs and all the rest of it, it was like, whoa. Because up to that point I was like, it’s not that big a deal to cut some words, but actually, you realise in terms of making it appealing… So those two things together really focus me on not overwriting, not just enjoying myself forever and meandering off down wherever, and just keep me focused.
MARK: So yeah, yeah, I see that’s a very good point. The German editions of my books are quite chunky, but I just thought it was because they were a slightly smaller format. But that makes complete sense now. And when you when you talk about planning the middle… because for many people this is one of the most difficult parts, because the opening is all fun and games, the middle act is where you need to escalate and things have lots of consequences and sooner or later you have to tie these things up. How are you planning that middle?
NICOLA: So it’s that big shift. What’s the big change that is going to happen? That gear change. So when I’ve decided like what’s the big turning point, where everything sort of goes up a gear, once I know what that is, then it keeps me on track. And it means that my characters are never… You know, it’s like keeping the target in sight so they can’t veer off too much. You know, if you do what the characters want you to do, you will end up so far away from where you need to be. And editing for word count is probably one of the most painful versions of editing. When you’re trying to shave off 40,000 words and you’re going, ‘I can’t possibly!’ but you have to. Learning the hard way is also a very big motivator.
Nicola Whyte: The Percolation | Mark Stay’s Creative Differences Episode 11
I had a wonderful time chatting to Nicola Whyte the debut writer of 10 Marchfield Square about how she was inspired by the nooks of London and Douglas Adams’s whodunnits. We also discuss planning the middle of a novel, “soft boiled crime”, designing author websites, and we get nostalgic about the Ottakars book chain and much, much more!
Or watch it on Youtube…
LINKS
ALL THE LOST SOULS BY AMIE JORDAN
MASSIVE ATTACK AND TONY COLLIER: LIVE WITH ME
WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM THEIR FRIENDS BY STUART MACONIE
THE BOOKS BESIDE MY BED BY PAUL ARMFIELD
Mark Stay’s Comic Con dates…
PORTSMOUTH – SUNDAY 22ND JUNE
TENTERDEN STEAMPUNK FESTIVAL – SAT 28TH JUNE
BASILDON – SUNDAY 29TH
LFCC FRIDAY 4TH, SAT 5TH, SUN 6TH JULY
MIDLANDS COMIC CON SAT 12TH, SUN 13TH JULY
GUILDFORD SAT 19TH JULY
For more dates in pop over to https://markstaywrites.com/diary-and-appearances/
Join the Green Room: https://ko-fi.com/markstaywriter/tiers
I’ll be at the Portsmouth Comic Con this Sunday 22nd June 2025
I’ll be selling and signing m’books at the Portsmouth Comic Con this Sunday 22nd June at the Mountbatten Centre from 10-4. I used to visit Portsmouth every month when I was a sales rep for Headline Book and I’ll be interested to see if they still have two rusty old submarines leaning on each other in the harbour!
Anyway, if you’re in the area and fancy a fun day, then come along. It’ll be great to see you!
For more events in June/July, check out my diary and events page here.
I’m at the Brighton Comic Con this Saturday 14th June
I’ll be selling and signing m’books at the Brighton Comic Con this Saturday 14th June at the Amex Stadium. They’ve got some great guests, including one Brian Blessed, who I’ve not seen since he opened Waterstones in Epsom. As the staff prepared to have our photo taken with him for the local paper, he shouted ‘KNICKERS!’ in that voice and we all cracked up. If anyone should every come across that pic, do please send me a copy.
Anyhoo, if you’re in the Brighton area this Saturday, do pop in and say hi!
Are you a Writer? Want answers?
Twice a month, I run online sessions for writers called the Green Room. You can ask me questions about the craft of writing, your WIP, or the business of publishing. The sessions are fun and informal and chatty. You can send me questions in advance. They’re recorded live and saved on Kofi for exclusive access to Green Room supporters. Recent topics for the Q&A sessions include…
‘Show, don’t tell’
Writing for children
Dealing with feedback
Happy endings
Writing historical fiction around real events
And much, much more!
And once a month we have a 200 Word Workshop, where you can send me 200 words from your current project and I give it a critique.
I’m running this via Kofi, where you can join by clicking on the Green Room membership tier for £20 a month.
There’s no long term commitment. With Kofi, you can support for just a month, or for as long as you like.
My goal is to be able to give supporters advice that will make a real difference to their writing and career, because the way I see it: having worked in this industry as a salesperson, bookseller and author for over 30 years, I’ve made every mistake, so you don’t have to.
The next session is Thursday 12th June, 8pm BST…
And here are the international timings…
TIMEZONE INFO
THURSDAY 12th JUNE, 2025, 8PM BST
9PM CEST
12 NOON PDT
1PM MDT
2PM CDT
3PM EDT
FRIDAY 13TH, 5AM AEST
FRIDAY 13TH, 7AM NZST
Join Nicola Whyte on the Creative Differences Livestream
Nicola Whyte’s debut whodunnit 10 MARCHFIELD SQUARE has been getting rave reviews and I’m delighted that she’ll be joining me on the next livestream.
Nicola’s work has been listed for the Comedy Women in Print Prize, the Cheshire Novel Prize, the Daily Mail First Novel Competition, the BPA First Novel Award, and the Times Chicken House Children’s Fiction Competition.
Join us live to join the conversation about writing whodunnits, being a debut novelist, and all those little things that make a big difference to the creative process.
As always, it promises to be a fun evening, so pop that date in your diary…
WEDNESDAY 11TH JUNE, 8PM BST
Or join us live on Youtube…
Sarah Pinborough: Describe a House
Before you watch this clip, take a moment to describe a house (maybe even write it down), then watch this clip with bestselling author Sarah Pinborough whose novel WE LIVE HERE NOW is out now (and is set in a very spooky house!) and was partly inspired by this exercise — Credit to author Mark Chadbourn for the exercise!
TRANSCRIPT
SARAH: You know the author Mark Chadbourn?
MARK: Yes. Yes, yeah I do. Yeah.
SARAH: We were at an event somewhere, and he was doing this thing where you have to describe a house. So he was like, describe this house, da-da-da-da… And so, he goes, ‘Is there a path?’ ‘Yeah, it’s kind of a stone house.’ ‘Where is it?’ ‘It’s on its own, in the middle of nowhere. It’s quite a cold place. It’s quite forbidding. It’s kind of oppressive, doesn’t want you to come in and blah, blah, blah.’ But then when I got to the end of this, he said, when you get people to describe a house, it describes their emotional… How they view relationships and their emotional thing. And this idea of no one’s coming in my house. And actually when I look back, I’m like, well, here I am, single at 53 (laughs), and I maybe there was something in it, but it’s kind of that house in my head that I pictured then, you know, like this kind of in the middle of nowhere on its own, doing its own thing house.
Or watch it all on Youtube…
Sarah Pinborough: Relatable is Commercial
Here’s a clip of me mansplaining theme to bestselling author Sarah Pinborough, before she sums it up succinctly… 🙂
Or watch the whole interview on Youtube…
TRANSCRIPT
MARK: We have a thing called the Green Room where people… we talk about writing, and I bang on and on about things like central dramatic arguments and themes. When you say, what is your book about? You’ve just given us a brilliant example because you’ve, you know, it’s about the lies couples tell each other and that thematically, you know, runs through the whole story and it’s so strong because we spent, you know, eight minutes talking about it already. And I think we could talk about it all night. But it’s and that’s what I think makes your book so compelling because it is, you know, about these terrible truths…
SARAH: It’s that awful word, ‘relatable’.
MARK: ‘Relatable’.
SARAH: ‘Relatable’.
MARK: Relatable equals commercial equals money in the bank. Yeah, it’s Mike says 100%. All you need is a dog. And we had we had, we had Mike and his dog on here a few episodes ago, folks. I’ll, I’ll put a link in the show notes. You can check the episode out.
MIKE SHACKLE: I am a professional. I’m sorry.
LINKS MENTIONED
The episode with Mike Shackle and his dog…
Here’s my writing group The Green Room…
And here’s my favourite video on theme and the central dramatic argument with Craig Mazin…
Mark Stay Writes 