Bryony's Blog

Paula Hawkins is the best-selling author of The Girl On The Train  which has sold around 11 million copies globally and been made into a blockbuster film grossing around US$24.6 million.  Here I talk to her about her interest in the best-selling novelist of all time, Agatha Christie.     BR: In a number of interviews, you’ve mentioned that you read a lot of Agatha Christie as a teenager and that this influenced your desire to be a writer. What in particular did you like about her work? PH: Agatha Christie’s books were the first real mysteries I ever read; I remember being thrilled by her plotting, by the casts of dastardly characters, the glamorous locations, and by all those shocking twists. BR: Have you a favourite? PH: And Then There Were None. It’s perfectly constructed. BR: There are some people who consider Agatha Christie a little twee and old-fashioned now.   Not gory enough, I suppose! For me, one of the...

I have met many people who tell me they would love to write a book but they don’t know what to write about.   The problem as I see it is that they expect an entire story to ‘come’ to them all at once and I would be very surprised if this happens even to the most experienced of writers. It is often a chance remark or a fleeting glimpse of something that gives authors those 'Aha' moments. Here are some tips for getting started.                 OBSERVE   Being a writer requires you to be an observer. Writers are nosy people.   You watch, you record, you remember.   You yourself are probably a bit ‘odd’ or different.   You always feel as though you don’t really fit in.   You’re a loner.   You imagine what it is like to be other people - how do they think, what do they say and do. When you notice the way someone holds their coffee cup or the way they positio...