My writing style

It may not surprise you to learn that Subigus began life as a screenplay. 32 scenes in a 3-act structure which were expanded to become the chapters of a novel. My writing style isn’t typical. I am very light on description, relying on the reader to fill-in the blanks using their own imagination. I’m not someone who will take 20 pages to say ‘the door was blue’. All of this means that my novels move along at a fairly rapid pace - I want to tell you the story over a 90 minute film.

There’s a logic to this. I feel it’s important to reward the reader’s effort in small bite-sized chunks. Today’s reader is a busy person. They aren’t holed up in a library by a roaring fire hoping to while away a long, dark winter’s day. They might only get 15 minutes per day in which to read. On the tube, on the bus, between the kids falling asleep and falling asleep themselves. They don’t deserve to wade through 40 pages of waffle before anything happens. At least that’s my theory. It’s also my personal preference. I hate books that take 20 pages to say ‘the door was blue’. Something needs to happen on every page to move the story along.

I think this is one reason why padding a text with descriptive waffle to reach a word count seldom works. Subigus is 76,000 words but I really wanted it to be 80,000 as I’d told myself that was the minimum acceptable length for a novel. Except everything I added to try to reach that goal turned out to be low value waffle that detracted from, rather than adding to the story. It ruined the pace and the flow. It was the first thing to go during the editing process. I learned my lesson. When Consevius turned out to be 68,000 words I was content to let it sit.