A strange thing occurred while I was taking the Professional Writing Academy’s Introduction to Writing Crime Fiction course.
I was working on an exercise for the first class—we had to write about a detective—when a woman walked into my office and sat on the pull-out sofa bed. She was slight and reserved, but commanded my attention. She crossed her legs and bounced one child-sized foot on the parquet, allowing me time to jot down a backstory that followed her like perfume.
At the time, I was also writing a novel, a domestic thriller that didn’t feature a detective, but as I settled down each week to tackle another exercise for the course, this woman came back. She wanted in on my novel.
For the rest of my guest post about how a crime-writing course helped secure my publishing deal, visit The Professional Writing Academy.