If it’s a dramatic chapter with lots of action, between five and seven.

If there is a lot of research involved, maybe only three or four pages will get written. How many words a day do you normally write? I may want them to do one thing, but they want to do the opposite, which always makes for an interesting conflict in the story.

Generally, I would say that once I have created them, I leave it to the characters to do all the work. I know who the principal characters are going to be, but very often an incidental character will materialise whose interests and behaviour have an unplanned but very dramatic effect on the course of the story. If a reader actually knows the pub or coffee bar where the characters are meeting and talking, it gives them an extra sense of enjoyment and inclusion. I know where my stories are going to be set geographically, and this is very important, because a realistic and interesting setting gives a story depth and believability. Of course you need to have a strong central idea when you’re writing a novel, and usually I have a strong subplot as well, so that I can weave one through the other, and (hopefully) bring them both to a mutually satisfying conclusion. Are you one or the other of these, or does it vary depending on the type of story you’re telling?

Some writers plan their work out in great detail before setting pen to paper, while others wing it with no plan at all. He is now working on new horror and crime novels. Graham’s horror novels were introduced to Poland in 1989 by his late wife Wiescka and he is now one of the country’s most celebrated authors, winning numerous awards. This was followed by Broken Angels, Red Light, Taken For Dead, Blood Sisters, Buried and the forthcoming Living Death. More recently Graham turned his hand to crime novels and White Bones, set in Ireland, was a Kindle phenomenon, selling over 100,000 copies in a month. His first horror novel The Manitou was filmed with Tony Curtis playing the lead. He became a newspaper reporter at the age of seventeen and was appointed editor of Penthouse magazine at only twenty-four. Graham Masterton is mainly recognized for his horror novels but he has also been a prolific writer of thrillers, disaster novels and historical epics, as well as one of the world’s most influential series of sex instruction books.

The Pariah by Graham Masterton