Debbie Bennett once asked Stephen King to dance, she also writes thrillers. Working with Debbie on her latest: Rat’s Tale, we had great fun honing twisted minds along a twisting plot.
Debbie says…
`I’ve never directly engaged an editor before. My first thriller Hamelin’s Child was agency-edited and I’ve never really felt the need for one subsequently, as I’m a bit of a grammar-nerd and have eagle-eyed beta readers. But my latest Rat’s Tale is a bit different. For a start, it’s much shorter at just 47,000 words, and I wanted to do something slightly different with the structure, which I wasn’t at all confident about.
John Hudspith’s name kept cropping up in online literary circles and he came highly-recommended, so I thought I’d at least send him a sample and see what he made of my dark and twisted mind.
Johnny tells it like it is. Cut the fluff, he says – and I like my fluff – but he highlights the good bits as well as the clunky bits, and picks up on the areas where I wanted reassurance and/or advice. And he has a scarily accurate way of putting exactly the right words into my characters’ mouths …
But do you know the most annoying thing about this man? I disagree with him, I debate with him and I argue with him – by email, often late at night. And I go away muttering and think about it. Two days later and I grudgingly admit he may have a point. And by the time I’ve rewritten it several times, I know he was right.
Give him a try. You won’t be disappointed.`
Debbie Bennett UK.
Thank you, Debbie.
Buy Rat’s Tale: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rats-Tale-DJ-Bennett-ebook/dp/B00JMSEJG2/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397409366&sr=1-5
On Writing & Editing 