Mark D Richardson Interview Published on: 09, Nov 2020

As a child I had several interests as many young children have, but mine tended to be focused around reading, writing, football and cartoons.

The writing was to such an extent that I used to complete several exercise books with a full story when homework only asked for a short Essay. I read everything from encyclopaedias to Enid Blyton…and had a particular interest in Dragons and fantasy stories. I was a goalkeeper for the school football team from a child and I remained between the sticks throughout my youth and adult life until retirement at the age of 40.

Cartoons, comics and Graphic Novels are also a major interest, so much so that I am creating my own Fantasy graphic novel in between my Case Files novels.

I always found that I could communicate as a child, far better in writing than I could with the spoken word. I found words fascinating and I used to marvel in the fact that I could escape to any world I wanted with just a pen and a piece of paper. I was always the subject in my early childhood stories and would put myself in space, with dinosaurs, wizards and even as a cartoon character.

Music became an obsession of mine in my teens, favouring Heavy Rock, Metal and in the latter teenage years Punk and New wave. I would be at a concert every week seeing bands such as Black Sabbath, Slade, Iron Maiden and Motorhead. Football also became somewhat of an obsession although in my spare time…writing still became a great pastime and a way to relax.

I chose to self-publish to begin with as I knew I had a tale to tell and thought I would have a go at the whole process. It appears in the current publishing world it is now harder than ever to break through, particularly if your genre is not vogue and at 172,000 words The Eagle Legacy was an ambitious start. I have decided to continue the self-publishing route for my next novel Kiss of the Pharaoh but will look for a publisher during the process just to see if there is in fact greener grass.

I have always been a fan of action movies, thrillers and explosive adventures. I love the Spy thriller, along with the way technology has evolved from the old James bond days. I decided that I wanted a British all action hero (As they all seem to be American) and came up with an organisation in LARA who will provide the new technology to defeat the bad guys.

Kiss of the Pharaoh is my new novel which is due to be released in December 2020. Being about a pandemic, which I will say was started in June 2019 BEFORE anyone had heard of Covid19, I would have liked to have written another one of the 11 planned rather than a topical horror story. But as it is a Bacterium and not a virus, I’m hoping that people will be intrigued to see if it can be defeated.

Being my first Novel and one of the first competitions I had ever entered, I was delighted to know that I had won. The other satisfying part was the fact that it was judged by authors, editors and publishers alike. Totally unexpected and obviously a jump up and down moment.

The challenges of making a suspense story is the need to include twists and turns, unexpected moments and numerous plot sequences to keep the audience guessing. But it is important not to lose them. As a writer it is also important to remember each twist and make sure that it is justified, in other words even though it is unexpected, it has to be logical as part of the plot and not just thrown in with no explanation as to the reason why.

The setting of an idyllic Southwest of England village, the fictitious Mittand Burrow, gave me a setting which was ideal for my vision of an English ‘Agatha Christie’ type setting that would develop from a whodunnit to a worldwide espionage thriller. It was written in a very ‘cinematic’ way, which meant that the scenery was as important to the plot as the storyline itself.

I do not have the luxury of being a full time Writer as I have bills to pay. So during the day Monday to Friday I am a consultant in the business world of commercial interiors. As a night owl I tend to write between 6PM and 3AM every week day and most of the weekends when life will allow.

I believe the most important quality in a writer is self-belief. Believe in what you are trying to achieve and strive to achieve it. Spelling, Grammar, reasonable prose are always important for any story, but write it down first…correct later.

I found the Stephen King ‘On Writing’ a truly inspiring read for any author. Many pieces of advice are given, but one that always stands out is…plan your route but write, write and write again and edit afterwards….the story is the key part of any novel…spelling, grammar and errors can be fixed after the story is complete.

I watch thrillers, documentaries and if I get a time, when it isn’t happening for me, I research the next part of the story and plan an outline…by moving the story on in blocks makes it easier to go back and write the story and link everything together. So I see the bad days as research days which leads to focused writing on the good days.

My next book ‘Kiss of the Pharaoh’ is the second of eleven planned. This is set, as the title suggests, predominantly in Egypt as Jack Case must search for the cure for a Pandemic sweeping the world. It has action, espionage, power struggles and greed throughout, although the main plot is to find the location of the cure through an ancient scroll uncovered after 3000 years. I am hopeful of a December 2020 release.

All Author has been a fantastic partner in the promotion of my latest and new novel. The marketing has been superb and mock up advertising is second to none. It really feels as if All Author has my interests at heart. It’s like having my own PR team.