Writing historical fiction is a strange process. You might suppose (as I did) that it’s a fairly boring task, with no room for inspiration. These people lived and died, their lives are a matter of record, and all there is to do is to recount those lives in so many words and try to be... Continue Reading →
This is the beginning of my latest novel, released in October 2020 and available to order now. It was inspired by the life and work of the Victorian MP and philanthropist Anthony Ashley Cooper, the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. The book follows eleven-year-old Billy, a chimney sweep (or 'climbing boy' as they were known) as... Continue Reading →
I've just come back to this website after a couple of years away. After finding the right keys and shoving the door open past the pile of letters on the mat, I've begun blowing away the cobwebs and taking off the dust-sheets, and I've realised that a lot has happened in the intervening time. Endever... Continue Reading →
I remembered being just sixteen, and kissing red-cheeked, fair-haired Callie Anders, who lived there, and whose family would soon move to the Shetlands, and I would never kiss her or see her again. This sentence just doesn't seem right to me. There are too many sub-clauses, the clauses don't seem to relate to each other... Continue Reading →
I'm currently going through the Endever Process with what now feels like my first actual novel (the others, it turns out, were all just pretend — or at best they were exercises to get me warmed up for the real thing). In practical terms, this means the manuscript is opened up to the bullpen of... Continue Reading →
"Say what happened, and let the reader know when it happened and what caused it and what the consequences were, and tell me where the characters were and who else was present – and while you're at it, I'd like to know what they looked like and whether it was raining." - Philip Pullman The above... Continue Reading →
I love technology This feels like some kind of ‘Technophiliacs Anonymous’ group meeting: “Hi, my name’s Matt and I love technology.” To many of my friends and associates, technology is a dirty word. They don’t see the benefit in fiddling around with a computer or a smartphone when a piece of paper never runs out... Continue Reading →
You don't have to be a great writer to get published. You don't even have to be a particularly good writer. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that talent has very little bearing on one's chances of getting published. Let me qualify my statement. Firstly, I'm not complaining. This isn't another one... Continue Reading →
Or, The oddness of characters. Characters are funny old things. We dream them up, give them lives, names, faces,bodies, likes, dislikes, all manner of mannerisms, friends, families, wants, desires, needs, passions; and yet, for all that, they can remain stubbornly two-dimensional, trapped in the words on the page, struggling to come to life. This is... Continue Reading →
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title. Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, scene ii The above lines from Romeo and Juliet are often taken by writers... Continue Reading →
Matthew Wainwright, Children's Author 