John Dean – Crime Writer

You don’t have to look far if you are an emerging writer for authors offering advice. I’m one of them with the free Handy Hints sections on this website and my recently-published book on fiction, entitled On Writing (available on Amazon).

And do you know what? Whoever you choose to learn from, it’ll be good stuff. Sure, different authors have different takes on their craft, different techniques, different philosophies, but, by and large, their advice will be good.

So, how do you select the right path? The answer is to be brave enough to reject some of the advice, however august the writer may be, and to select what works for you. You are not seeking to become a clone of a well-known author but to emerge as someone original with your own way of telling stories, your own approach to creating characters, your own way of describing locales, your own technique for weaving plots.

It will not happen immediately, it will need time to evolve, to experiment with what works and what does not, and an acceptance that you will not get it right every time.

The best piece of advice you can keep in mind is that, although writing is a very technical process, you should never lose sight of the fact that it should be fun so enjoy!