Write a thriller: Get inside your character
A writer must feel what his characters feel to convey the emotion and sensation The great Belgian crime noveliest Georges Simenon described writing as …
crime fiction
Write a thriller: Do you plot or not?
Should crime fiction writers figure out the details of their plot before they write? Harlan Coben doesn’t. John Grisham does. Robert Ludlum did, …
Why you should break Elmore Leonard’s writing rules…sometimes
Elmore Leonard, who died yesterday at 87, has 10 rules for writing. They don’t cover most of the important points of writing. They could really be …
10 Historical Thrillers You Have to Read
The unmissable best historical thrillers, including at least a few you haven’t heard of Naturally I’m assuming you’ve already read …
Writing with Paint: Learning Oils for My Caravaggio Novel ‘A Name in Blood’
To research A Name in Blood, my novel about the mystery of Caravaggio’s death, I traveled to all the places where the great artist lived and worked. I …
Researching my Caravaggio novel: Learning to Kill
In the chapel of the Pio Monte della Misericordia, I stood before the great painting now known as Seven Works of Mercy (Caravaggio called it Our Lady …
Me, Mozart and the intifada
If there had never been a Palestinian intifada, I might never have written my novel about the death of Mozart, MOZART’S LAST ARIA, which is published …
Using real locations in historical fiction
Historical novelists recreate the emotions and events of distant times. For some novelists, this is a matter of supreme imagination and invention, …
Amadeus, Murder and the real Mozart
The long wait for a successor to Amadeus is over. In fact, my new novel MOZART’S LAST ARIA answers questions about the great composer’s death that are …
My Mozart novel and the intifada
If there had never been a Palestinian intifada, I might never have written my novel about the death of Mozart, MOZART’S LAST ARIA, which is published …
Gentleman and thug: researching my new historical novel
One of the great pleasures of novel-writing is the research which, for almost every book, ought to bring the writer to investigate different areas of …
My voice and his voice: first- or third-person narrative in the novel
Robert Harris has been one of my favorite authors since I first laid hands on “Fatherland,” his “what if the Nazis had won” thriller. “Enigma” and …