In order for my characters to come alive, I need to see them interact with each other, so in my notebooks, I have pages and pages of conversations and mini scenes that don’t necessarily add to the story but are essential for me to write in order to build and understand my characters and their relationship.

One of the hardest parts of writing characters is to let them be flawed. A writer falls in love with their characters, so to allow them to be cruel, or selfish is hard, but the flaws are what makes a character come alive – everyone in real life has had to face up to uncomfortable truths or deal with adversity. Not everyone deals with it head on.

I love writing dialogue, particularly arguments between characters. I always enjoy writing creepy scenes that have the hairs rising at the back of my neck and establishing setting is so much fun, spooky woods, abandoned houses… who wouldn’t love writing about those? The hardest part, for me, is writing the characters that I know are going to die. I fall in love with all my characters, so setting them on an inevitable path towards death is always heart-breaking, but often inevitable in a crime novel!