Dave Bate asked Charlie Gallagher:

I am in awe of authors like yourself. What really intrigues me is how on earth do you devise your storylines? Do your ideas arise from variations of your police experience or is your imagination similar to the universe?

Charlie Gallagher Dave - thanks for the contact and the interest.

My wife always answers this one best: 'he's full of sh*t' she will say. I can't really better that to be honest and believe me, I have tried!

I'm what is known as a pantser - I wish it had a better name - which is where I make up stories as I go. I'll have a central concept, a single scene that I am working towards or a place I want characters to get to and I'll just bundle towards it. It's not a very efficient way to work (a lot of revisions!) but it works for me and I love it. It means I will start a book and have no idea of the twists and turns until they happen - and more often than not, I will have no idea how it ends. I do mix in some of my policing experience or life experience (or, more than once, the loud fella who's sat next to me in the coffee shop at the time I needed a new victim) as all writer's must.

So that's the long answer and I think is what my wife means!

And no need to be in awe or anything, it's a clumsy style of hits and misses, blind alleys, nonsense and constant revisions. But, like I said, I love it and I know how lucky I am that it is now my full-time occupation so I get to make a massive mess and then I can take my time fixing it.

Thanks again and I hope that answered your question.
CG.

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