Somebody emailed me the other day and said that he wanted to start writing but was unsure whether to write about his profession – he’d been a detective for many years – or about his love of the sea.
The answer to me seems to be to write about what you know, to start with. In his case he has many decades of experience to fall back on, and the public appetite for detective fiction is huge. Sit down and write, I say! He has a rich seam of plots to draw on – something that many writers of fiction struggle with.
Once you have developed the confidence that you can actually tell a story, then move your boundaries outward and explore in your writing.
What it does boil down to is your reason for writing – profit or pleasure. Most authors hope for a bit of both. I wish!
