Ask the Author: Brm Stewart
Answered Questions (8)
Brm Stewart
It's 2024. President Trump has just been made president for life.
Brm Stewart
I would like to be in Jasper Fforde's world where Thursday Next and her team travel into books. I'd join her uncle Mycroft in the Sherlock Holmes stories, appearing unexpectedly as Sherlock's previously unknown other brother Brian.
Brm Stewart
You can create alternative lives for yourself, and do things in those lives that you would hate to do in real life! My hero Martin McGregor is a (younger) version of me, one that I could have become. It's fascinating to play that out.
Brm Stewart
It followed on from my first, Digital Circumstances. My wife said there was a sequel to be written, and other readers said that the female cop had a lot of potential. So I picked up their lives and gave them crimes to investigate. But they've done bad things in their pasts, so I've got someone investigating them. The first draft flowed out well, but I've had over a year editing it: the character who I thought was the main character actually isn't!
So, the idea just developed as I wrote, with that theme there: what are you prepared to do to uncover someone else's dark secrets while protecting your own?
So, the idea just developed as I wrote, with that theme there: what are you prepared to do to uncover someone else's dark secrets while protecting your own?
Brm Stewart
I have to write - I can't stop it. What drives me, I suppose, is the urge to tell a good story. In that story are important points about how I see the world, but that isn't meant to get in the way. I also want to have characters who are real and believable, but experience conflict: they're not good or bad, but they do their best. Sometimes they need to take action to protect themselves and their loved ones.
Brm Stewart
I have a second draft of a third 'Digital' book done, which I'm letting lie till I can look at it again critically. Meanwhile I'm working on a project I've been on for around three years now: set in an independent Scotland ten years in the future. It needs some work, and I'm strugging with what exactly isn't right about it yet.
Brm Stewart
I can only repeat the advice given by Iain Banks when I saw him at the Nairn Book and Arts Festival the year before he died. He said: persevere. Stephen King said that to be a writer you have to write, so that's a good start too.
And learn something about the craft. I did a short OU course on creative writing, and that was invaluable. I learned a lot, and got good marks, which convinced me I could write!
Read widely, of course. Read the best in your genre, not to repeat it but to learn what works.
And learn something about the craft. I did a short OU course on creative writing, and that was invaluable. I learned a lot, and got good marks, which convinced me I could write!
Read widely, of course. Read the best in your genre, not to repeat it but to learn what works.
Brm Stewart
I just sit at the computer and write - anything! It doesn't matter if it's rubbish and I delete most of the text later, I just keep going. I've often sat down with no idea in my head and found the characters start doing things.
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