I’m a big fan of playing games to help me generate ideas and get inspiration for new stories. Usually it’s ‘what if’ that helps me to develop what I’m writing. But on this occasion it was the Ideas Store page, by Paula Williams, in the (now closed) Writer’s Forum. It provided a grid that gives you various elements for your story literally on the roll of a dice. The rules are that you get two characters, two character traits, a location, an object by throwing a dice. I decided that I was going to play along when I found the words: journalist, old house and notebook in it. Yes, ok, I cheated and picked the words rather than rolling the dice, but I couldn’t pass up the inspiration for Dan’s next adventure.
What happened next?
The notebook became battered and leather-bound (in the style of Indiana Jones in The Last Crusade) and the house became Old Manor Hall, now derelict and the former home of Simeon Burns, a rather nasty man as the reader comes to discover. The stage was now set!
The book started out as a novella following Dan and Ed as they try to solve the murders and uncover missing treasure. But something didn’t quite feel right. I don’t know what it was, but my writer’s brain wasn’t happy. So, I’d set it aside and got on with writing and publishing A Deadly Portrayal, out in October 2023.
This was just before National Novel Writing Month (which has now closed). I’d always wanted to take part but had never been in the right place in my schedule to be able to do it. I sat back and had a think to myself about what I could do with A Deadly Legend – or The Curse of Simeon Burns, as it was then. It was short, probably less than 30,000 words, but I really loved the story, so what was I going to do? Then I realised that Emma was missing and it didn’t have the police strand to it. Once I started to work out how Burton, Shepherd and the team would fit in, the story began to grow. And, of course, the boys needed Emma’s level head to keep them out of trouble!
How to plot…
As I started to write, I realised I didn’t want to put together 50,000 words (the target set as part of NaNoWriMo) if my story wasn’t strong enough. So, I went to my wonderful editor Donna Hillyer with my plot to see what she thought. I was delighted when she came back and said that the plot was great, and it was full steam ahead. I’m not going to lie, NaNoWriMo was hard work. I was fortunate that I was between day jobs and so could dedicate as much time as I needed to get the work done (about 1,700 words a day every day of the month), but it’s still difficult.
I completed my 50,000 words, bringing the book up to novel length. This was the trickiest part of the process because the new storyline couldn’t be just padding. Every move the characters made, every section of dialogue had to be carefully thought through, every new scene had to genuinely add something to the story.
I absolutely love A Deadly Legend. From the very start, the research, the plotting, the writing, creating the new characters, I loved every step. I hope this really comes across in the story and that readers love it as much as I do! You can find out more about the research that went into A Deadly Legend in another article on the website.