I was delighted to be featured on the Author Interviews site for an all-new batch of questions. I reveal my favourite writing tools, the most non-writery thing I do, and my favourite scene from The Corn Bride and more. Click on my grinning mug below for the whole interview…
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.
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
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.
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
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…
Or join us live on Youtube…
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…
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…
This month’s special guest bestselling author Sarah Pinborough reveals when she knows that’s she finished a draft and how she ‘triple writes’ her books…
Or watch it on Youtube…
TRANSCRIPT
MARK: How do you know when you’re done?
SARAH: Well, Mark, invariably, I am skating in the last knockings of the deadline. So when I write the end, I literally think ‘I’m going to scan through this and I’m sending this fucker off,’ so… But, because I do triple write, as it were, like I plan in a notebook, then I rough write into Scrivener, then I copy it over into Word, tidy it in Word. I do it in like 8000 word chunks. I’ve kind of… if it’s not untidy and it’s not…. You know, it’s probably most people’s second draft, when I hand it in. And I kind of think… I mean obviously this would be different if it was on spec, but I’m like; they’ve paid for it. Let’s see if it’s holding, you know, because if it’s not holding, it doesn’t matter how pretty I make it. (If) there’s a massive structural problem, let’s get to that. You know, so I kind of figure that’s the way.
This month’s special guest bestselling author Sarah Pinborough reveals a great tip for writing in 20-minute bursts…
TRANSCRIPT
MARK: What small thing has made a big difference to your creative process?
SARAH: Cocaine! Okay, that’s a joke. (laughs)
MARK: (laughs) You might have said that a little too quickly.
SARAH: What small things made a difference to my creative process. I mean, it’s not a small thing, but obviously… Oh, actually, I do have one for this! So I use the Freedom app. You know, which turns the internet off. And my friend Harriet Tyce… because I used to just turn it off for an hour and then dick around on my phone. Pointless. But she told me to do it… There’s that thing where you do it in 20 minute bursts. So you set it for 20 minutes, and then you work… because 20 minutes you can work for. And so three lots of 20 minutes, and you’ve done, like, nearly a thousand words. And it’s much more focused. So I do try and do these 20 minute bursts if I’m not feeling it. And that does help, you know. And also I’m not a great fan of the word count thing. You know, people say I must write 2500 words a day. I think it’s better to have a good thinking time.
MARK: Yeah, absolutely. That 20 minutes is that sort of Pomodoro timer.
SARAH: Yeah. That’s the word! Pomodoro. That’s it.
Or watch it on Youtube…
I chat with Sarah Pinborough, the bestselling and award-winning author of Behind Her Eyes about her new thriller We Live Here Now, spooky houses, her method of ‘triple writing’, going on tour and the lies we tell each other…
Or watch it on Youtube…
LINKS
The book links are affiliate links and I earn a wee bit of commission if you buy from them.
LAUNCH AT WATERSTONES MILTON KEYNES ON WEDNESDAY 4TH JUNE
MOBLAND
THE HANDMAID’S TALE
DOPE THIEF
TUBI FOR JACK PALANCE HORROR
YOU KILLED ME FIRST BY JOHN MARRS
THE HAMLET BY JOANNA CORRANCE
PAM KOWOLSKI IS A MONSTER BY SARAH LANGHAM
THE DEVILS BY JOE ABERCROMBIE
ANDOR
IT AIN’T ME BY EMILY ZECK
COME AND MEET MARK AT A COMIC CON
Mark Chadbourn on Bluesky
The Mike Shackle episode
Edit by Kai Newton
Production assistance by Emily Stay
Jingle by Dom Currie
Mark Stay Writes 