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About characters: what I love about Holmes & Watson, Morse & Lewis, Poirot & Hastings... is entering their world - a little soap opera, cosy in a peculiar way... this, for me too, is a major (perhaps the major) attraction of such books.
What is true, though, is that I don't 'pre-plan' the plot. In the novel I am presently writing, I have just worked out a probable scenario, at the 25,000-word mark. I hope that this approach makes the conundrum less obvious for the reader (on the assumption that is what the reader wants!). Certainly, for me, it is much more fun to write this way - and perhaps this is reflected in the characters' energy? And, of course, it provides flexibility for a better idea to come along - having spent my professional career 'inventing' ads, I know that such things often arrive late in the day!

Anyway, I do appreciate your explanation. I'm sure most authors would not have taken the time.


I enjoyed this article about present tense novels in The Guardian, and it mentions how many writers of historical fiction reach for the present tense to bring the past into the reader's present, to make it seem more immediate, not so far away from the reader: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015...
If you want to use present tense, just do it, and stop feigning that it's anything more than a device to gain a measure of interest (good or bad) from your readers. I read the books despite your awkward use of the present tense. Hopefully, that should tell you something.