Who Dunnit?

A course for would-be crime writers has produced some familiar tips and some new ones. They are valuable for all authors, not just novelists or non-fiction writers, so here a some of them.


The course was organised by The Times and featured six crime writers who each had a two-hour slot on Fridays in February and March to give the benefits of their wisdom and their experience. You can find out more about them online if you search for their websites.

The first speaker was Jill Dawson, the author of 11 books and a well-known mentor – Gold Dust who discussed her enjoyable book ‘The Crime Writer’. Although there were only 600 murders in the UK last year, there were 21 million units of crime in circulation, she said.
Her novel was written in the voice of Patricia Highsmith, famous for ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’ and other novels, including Ripley follow-ups. “Writers need to find their own way, make a lot of mistakes and learn from them,” Jill said. “There is evidence that writing can be taught.”
That is good news for all writers – as well as her revelation that one of her mentees has had a book published in her 80s.

The second tutor was Christobel Kent, who once worked in publishing and has had 17 books published. She specialises in spooky settings and I enjoyed her book ‘The Crooked House’. Her general advice for writers was: when you are stuck leave the laptop in the lurch and go for a walk or do something different.

Then we had Paula Hawkins whose brilliant British book ‘Girl on a train’ led to the less convincing film version set in the US with Emily Blunt. She said she had never done any writing courses but had learnt the craft as she went along. She advised sharing when you were in difficulty with a piece of writing. “The first person you need to please is yourself,” she said.

Fourthly, Dorothy Koomson (podcast ‘The Happy Author’) told us about her journey, which started well as her third novel, ’My best friend’s girl’, sold 500,000 copies. Her first crime novel was her fifth book, ‘The Ice Cream Girls’.

“Keep writing every day”

Koomson’s advice: “Have a story you believe in. There are nine basic plots but your structure makes it unique. You will have doubts but keep going every day even if you write only a sentence.”

The fifth tutor, Andrew Wilson, is a reviewer of crime novels for The Times and an expert on Agatha Christie, who rejoiced in leaving ‘invisible clues’ in her stories. He suggested that writers read their text out loud, which I have already advised as a useful trick to decide where punctuation is needed, and that you bring your own experience and knowledge into your writing.

That advice works for novelists, non-fiction writers and copywriters.

Finally, former journalist Jim Kelly revealed that he had written the first of 16 novels on the train commuting to and from Fleet Street. He advised that there were multiple sources for stories including local papers, old photographs in libraries and museums, and memoirs and biographies (which reveal how people have thought and felt in days gone by).

For me this has proved a pleasurable and informative course with stacks of helpful hints for every kind of writer.