About Tom Hindle
Originally hailing from Leeds, Tom Hindle lives in Oxfordshire with his wife and daughter, an overly opinionated cat and two surprisingly cunning tortoises. Specialising in contemporary whodunits, he is a Sunday Times bestselling author who has twice seen his novels chosen as Waterstones Thriller of the Month.
When he isn’t thinking about elaborate ways to murder imaginary people, Tom can often be found murdering houseplants instead, or helping to bring about the death of fashion by still insisting in his thirties on wearing the same Converse All Star he fell in love with at fourteen. He's even occasionally threatened with murder himself, often as a result of his inability to walk past a piano or a guitar without playing a tune.
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I think I can say quite honestly that it’s something I’ve wanted to do for as long as I can remember. I read voraciously as a kid, with one of my clearest memories being that of reading Roald Dahl in the armchair in our living room. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Fantastic Mr Fox were clear favourites, as I recall. And it was that love of reading and of imaginary worlds that made me want to write. I remember I would pen stories on sheets of A4, which I would then staple together to make a book. Sometimes I would even draw a cover, although I think I twigged quite early on that I was more of a writer than an illustrator.
After finishing at school I studied English Language at Bangor University, before spending my twenties working as a copywriter for a PR agency in Oxford. I was twenty-four when I decided to have my first proper go at writing a fully-fledged novel. That project would go on to become A Fatal Crossing, my first published book.
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I actually had the idea for A Fatal Crossing quite a few years before I decided to write it up as a novel. I was in sixth form, and I was planning to write it as a play that I would perform with some friends. The story plays out on board a 1920s cruise liner, bound for New York, and I think I chose that setting because I’d imagined that with some props and the right sound effects it would be quite easy for us stage. I was probably hopelessly wrong about that. In any case, we’ll never know. I wildly underestimated how much work it would take to write a play and I only ended up writing about half of it before we all finished sixth form and went off to university. It then spent a few years living somewhere in the back of my head before I decided in my twenties to try writing it as a novel instead.
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I reckon it probably looks a little less glamorous than people might imagine.
I start the day by getting my one-year-old out of bed, playing with her in the living room for a bit and making her breakfast before I take her to nursery. If I happen to be awake early I’ll try to get an hour’s work done before she gets up. Once I’m at my desk, I’ll start by responding to any emails that are waiting for me or picking up any admin that needs dealing with. Then, probably around mid-morning, I’ll start writing. I’ll usually be in the office at the end of my garden, but quite often I’ll move at some point into the kitchen or go to a café (I visit my local Costa Coffee so regularly that all of the staff know my order by heart). I find that going somewhere different acts as a sort of mental refresher if I’m stuck or I can sense my concentration starting to wane.
Throughout the day I’ll drink more cups of tea than is probably good for me, eat several baked items and fall down at least one rabbit hole on YouTube. Towards the end of the afternoon I’ll sort out any other admin that’s landed on my plate and then I’ll go collect my daughter. I aim to write 1,000-1,500 words per day but I try not to sweat it if I don’t hit that. I tend to focus more on writing scenes than a certain number of words. If I start the day with an idea for a scene or a chapter in my mind, I’ll do my best to get that written before I log off.
As I say, probably not as glamorous as people might imagine a full-time author’s life to be. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
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Nope! They’re all standalone, with a different character playing detective in each. So if there’s one in particular that appeals to you, dive right in. There’s no need to have read any of the others first.
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I try not to think too hard about theme. Or at least, I don’t when I’m first working on a new story. My goal is to entertain, and that’s what I have in mind when I’m writing a book. That said, for all of my efforts not to think too much about theme, legacy has become something of a recurring notion in my books. The idea of being giving something, like a business or a family tradition, and being forced to decide whether you’ll keep it going or branch off in a new direction. The more I write, the more I realise I’m actually quite fascinated by that dilemma, and by the decisions people make when they have to choose a direction.
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The next one! That joyful feeling of first putting pen to paper on a new story – when everything is possible and you aren’t yet trying to make timelines work or fix plot holes – is something that can’t be matched. In many ways I think it’s the most exciting part of the writing process.
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I’m not sure I have one place that would win out over any other, but I do love writing in a café. I think getting out of the house is incredibly important, especially when your work requires very little contact with other people. Whether I’m getting to know the other regulars or mining nearby conversations for titbits to include in a new book, cafés have become quite fundamental to my day-to-day.
If I had to choose one to work in forever, though, it would probably be Huskies Café, a place that I found during a research trip to Longyearbyen, the world’s northernmost town. It’s exactly what it sounds like – a café in which several criminally adorable huskies potter around looking to have their ears scratched. If I were ever lucky enough to live in that part of the world I’d work there every day.
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The advice that’s so often given is just to write. And the reason it’s so often given is that it’s the best piece of advice there is. An idea is doing nobody any good by living safely inside your head. If you have a story that you’re desperate to tell then there’s no way around it other than to just sit down and write. It’s how all of your favourite authors got started. It’s how you’ll get started too.
I can totally understand how that might feel daunting, though. Especially if you’re trying to write a novel for the very first time. So to ease the process, a few practical words of advice that I’d offer are...
One. Set designated times when you’ll write.
For me, it was on Monday and Wednesday evenings, when my wife had a gym class and I had the flat to myself for a few hours. Writing a book can take a while, especially if you’re trying to fit it around a job or other commitments. It took me two years to write my first draft, and having those writing sessions built into my week really helped me to keep going.
Two. Hide your word count while you’re writing.
This is something I’ve only recently started doing, but I wish I’d done it years ago. Having a target wordcount for a writing session or a chapter can be good, so long as you don’t let it dictate what you’re writing. You need to write a scene as it should be, not to fit a certain target wordcount. If a paragraph is really bogging a chapter down, you can’t be worrying about what cutting it will do to your daily target. It needs to go. Don’t get me wrong - I’ll still check my wordcount every hour or so, just to see how I’m getting on. But not having it constantly in view has really helped the words to flow.
Three. Don’t talk about your first draft until it’s finished.
This is another one that I wish I’d started doing years ago. I used to talk quite a lot about my first drafts before I’d finished them. I think I felt I needed to demonstrate that I did actually have a book in the works. Now, when people ask, I have a one-line summary that I’ve prepared ahead of time. For instance, with A Killer in Paradise my one-liner would be, “I’m writing about a group of old friends who gather for a reunion in a rainforest lodge.” Where possible, I would share nothing more than that until the first draft was finished.
The thing is – a first draft is all vibes, plot-holes and underdeveloped ideas. And that’s OK. The entire point of a first draft is to work through all of that stuff. But I think that talking about it before you’re ready makes those problems more daunting. You’ll find yourself trying to articulate things that you haven’t yet worked out. You’ll invite questions about your story that you don’t yet know the answers to. Some people might relish this or see it as a challenge. Some might even find that it helps resolve some of those problems. Perhaps you fall into that camp. But for most writers, I believe that talking about a first-draft-in-progress can have a disastrous effect on whatever confidence you may have in your story.
Write the first draft purely for yourself. When it’s complete, and you’re ready to start editing and taking on feedback, that’s the time to share it with people.
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I do! Although it has to be said that I’m not very good at them. My favourite board game is Cluedo but I never win. I love escape rooms but I’ve never successfully made it out of one within the hour. I bought a copy of Murdle when it first came out but I couldn’t make it past level two. It’s amazing, really, that I’ve ended up writing the books that I do.
Despite being rubbish at them, though, I do love puzzles. A couple of years ago my wife bought me “an escape room in an envelope” for my birthday. I had to solve a series of riddles and logic puzzles, with the prize being a QR code that revealed my actual present. It took me a good couple of hours but I loved it.
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The Hound of the Baskervilles. A whodunnit wrapped up in a ghost story, it’s my favourite Sherlock Holmes story, probably my favourite murder mystery and easily one of my favourite books. The atmosphere, the location, the final pay-off... It’s just perfect.
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The Beast of Exmoor. Growing up, a good number of my summer holidays were spent on a farm in Somerset, where the farmer would tell me stories about a big cat – thought to be a panther – that’s spent decades roaming the West Country. I can’t get enough of that sort of thing. Growing up I was riveted by stories of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, so naturally the Beast became an obsession of mine. Getting to the bottom of what’s going on there would be a dream. (Although with my track record on solving puzzles, I wouldn’t count on being successful.)
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It was Point Blanc, the second in Anthony Horowitz’s series about teenage spy Alex Rider. I can remember buying it on a Sunday afternoon, from a little independent bookshop opposite Oakwood clock in Leeds. I’d borrowed the first book from my school library and was desperate to get my hands on the second. Looking back now, in a funny sort of way that purchase feels like quite a key moment in my journey to becoming an author myself.