Here I am, living in a fairly remote part of the British Isles - in the wilds of rural Norfolk where the population is thin - yet there are characters galore. Not that I ever take a complete character from anyone I know. That (IMHO) would be grossly unfair, as well as possibly leaving me open to law suits! No, I take bits from this person and bits from that person and weave them into a character. But amazingly, people tend to say, "I recognised myself in so-and-so," or "I know who you were talking about there." Actually you don't, because all the characters are composites. Honestly. Trust me, I'm a vicar.

Similarly, the plots - and especially my sub-plots - are taken from real life, but with twists and turns and lots of imagination thrown in. Again, it would be so unfair to take somebody else's story and simply repeat it as my own, but I think it's OK to take bits here and there and make them into a new story.

Quite often a plot is spawned just by thinking, "What if?" 

I was standing by a grave conducting a funeral one day, when the thought occurred to me, "What if I glanced down into this twelve foot grave, and saw a body already there? What on earth would I do?" That irrelevant thought (irrelevant and irreverent when you're in the process of conducting a funeral) spawned the plot for my third novel which is waiting to go to the publisher.

On another occasion I was walking through the fields (I like to walk, and we have plenty of glorious countryside around here to indulge me) when I found myself thinking, "What if I came across a body, or somebody jumped me? What would I do then?" A touch of simple daydreaming, and the plot begins to form.

So with all this wealth of plots and characters around me, I hope to be writing for many years!

Keep tuned!