Every character needs the right name. Sometimes the name comes first, and writers draft the person behind it. Sometimes they start with the person’s attributes then pick a name that suits. Readers will make assumptions of age, religion, class, and culture based on that name. Writers can either endorse those perceptions or challenging them by […]

As the COVID restrictions are relaxed in some jurisdictions, there are different opinions on whether writers should incorporate their experiences into their work. Anything set in 2020 will need to reflect the changes in the lives of the characters. Not mentioning the pandemic would be unrealistic but dwelling on it might deter  readers, many of […]

In January 2018 I began watching every episode of Doctor Who in chronological order, at the rate of one per week. I wrote reviews of the first two seasons for Whotopia, supplementing my concise comments on individual stories in the Doctor Who Ratings Guide. Whotopia is no longer around so I have decided to make […]

Today marks 23 years since the publication of a book that highlighted a plausible Jack the Ripper suspect. The Secret of Prisoner 1167: Was this Man Jack the Ripper? by James Tully, suggested that James Kelly was responsible for the murders. John Morrison made the same connection in a booklet published eight years earlier.  This […]

Regular readers of this blog will know of my interest in the 1884 Carmarthen mystery and its tentative connection with Jack the Ripper. I have now written a definitive account of events in The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns, released on 14 July and available for pre-order now from bookshops and Amazon, if […]

Writers are sometimes advised to write about what they know. This might include places they have visited or characters that they have met. For the last few months many of us have had a limited opportunity to acquire new knowledge, due to isolation restrictions. There are now options to write about these experiences. Submittable currently […]

This week I returned to one of the 333 suspects in my book about Jack the Ripper, aiming to write a longer piece about him. This follows articles about Robert Hiron, John George Donkin, Jim Connell, William Onion which I expanded into an, as yet, unpublished biography and Thomas Cutbush. So many of the suspects […]

This week I made a mistake. I wrote a brilliant short story that absolutely met all the criteria for a competition except one. The organisers stipulated that it was only open to unpublished authors. This was clearly stated at the top of the rules, not buried in the small print, so I only have myself […]

In the final part of this series on using genealogical records for research, we’ll look at deaths. In the UK civil registration began in 1837. Prior to that you may be able to find records in parish and cemetery registers. As with births there is no guarantee that all deaths were notified to the authorities. […]