Having launched my debut novel Bad Day in Byzantium upon an unsuspecting world, I took a break from congratulatory champagne sipping to contemplate the path I’d blazed to inevitable success. Did I and other luminaries of the literary world share similar masterful and innate writing techniques? So I checked the authorities.

Horror of horrors! I’d done it all wrong. So, with characteristic humility and realizing that I could no longer deceive my reader, I’ve confessed. Here is a careful selection of novel-writing advice which I compared to my own (deep breath) feeble efforts.

Read of my failings to understand or care about basic stuff like engaging story; drive and development; good guys and bad guys; plot strength; characterisation; dialogue; reaction and conflict; tight writing and … you get the idea. And it’s short and sharp - no lecturing here.

Although advice, suggestions, hints and commands on the subject of good novel writing comes by the truckload, this short summary should be of great help to you, the new writer, who surely thinks prior to scribbling. Wish I’d read something like this before I put pen to paper.