Jake Woodhouse Writers Tip
Jake Woodhouse is the Sunday Times bestselling author of ‘After the Silence’, ‘Into the Night’, ‘Before the Dawn’ and ‘The Copycat’ is the fourth book in the ‘Amsterdam Quartet with Inspector Jaap Rykel’series.
Today Jake shares his writing tips for aspiring authors.
There’s an oft-quoted but of advice which is something along the lines of, write what you know. This is terrible advice. Write about what you don’t know, and learn something in process.
Read more about Jake and his writing journey
‘The morning was a fish in a net, glistening and wriggling at the dead black border of her consciousness, but she’d never caught a fish in a net or on a hook either, so she couldn’t really say if or how or why.’ Out of context it makes very little, if any, sense. But in the context of who the character is and what’s she doing it’s a brilliant evocation of her state of mind and serves as a perfect setup for the novel to come.
For more information about Jake Woodhouse go to his website You can buy ‘The Copycat’ from Amazon and will be available to buy from good bookshops.
Jake Woodhouse
Jake Woodhouse is the Sunday Times bestselling author of ‘After the Silence’, ‘Into the Night’, ‘Before the Dawn’ and ‘The Copycat’ is the fourth book in the ‘Amsterdam Quartet with Inspector Jaap Rykel’series
I got into writing after waking up from an emergency operation to find a nurse checking the clipboard hanging at the bottom to the bed. She said, with a name like that you should be writing thrillers. Which was really weird because the truth is I’d always wanted to but for some reason, fear probably, I’d done many things (musician, winemaker, entrepreneur) but never written a word.
‘The Copycat’ deals with two issues which are becoming hot topics and are often seen as being two sides of the same coin, mental health and drugs. However, in researching it, my opinions changed drastically and the novel is a reflection of this much more nuanced and less clear cut view.
Crime is universal really, most good stories whether they’re put in the crime genre or not have some element of ‘crime’ or disturbance against the natural order. That’s what all fiction is really about anyway.
Tough one, I’d say Johnny Utah in the original ‘Point Break’. He was a member of the establishment who goes through a personal transformation which puts him in contact with a world he never knew existed, and one he ultimately will sacrifice everything in his old life for.
T.C. Boyle, James Ellroy and Thomas Pynchon. Though I suspect it would be less of a book club and more of an all out wild ride.
I’ve never been asked this… I’m not really sure what book I’d want to rewrite, sounds like an arduous task which would inevitably offend the original author.
Everything which isn’t the writing!
The opening of Don Winslow’s ‘Savages’ (you’ll have to look it up). Can’t get better than that. Also T.C. Boyle’s opening to ‘Drop City’
Probably the Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer, hands down the most original, startling, weird and ultimately satisfying pieces of fiction ever to be committed to paper.
There’s an oft-quoted but of advice which is something along the lines of, write what you know. This is terrible advice. Write about what you don’t know, and learn something in process.
My dogs (though really at my feet is better, they tend to get in the way on my desk).
I do but they’re top secret so the old I-could-tell-you-but-I’d-have-to-kill-you thing would sadly apply.