Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of writers' routine where this week we're chatting to Dan McDorman.

Dan works as a news producer for the TV channel in the States MSNBC. He's an Emmy nominated one too. And he's got a novel out,

which is quite remarkable really. It's called West Hart Kill. It's a murder mystery with a heavy

emphasis on the mystery. We talk about why he doesn't write linearly, which must be quite tough

with a puzzle at play. Also how producing news telly affects storywriting and the ideas that he has.

And you can hear why he wrote the book really to answer one question that his detective asked straight away.

The detective, when he arrives there, he sees this wall of plaques, each one marking the tenure of a past club president,

and he notices that one of the plaques is missing.

Dun, dunk, don't, don, you know, that sort of thing.

And I had no idea why, but that was the sort of seed of the plot.

And so it became a little bit of the tail wagging the dog.

I was constructing what turned out to be a fairly elaborate, complicated storyline

just to answer that one problem, that one riddle for myself,

which is why the hell is that plaque missing.

There is more with Dan McDormann on the way in this week's writer's routine.

Yes, welcome along. My name is Dan Simpson. This is writer's routine where we take a look through

an author's working day. Thank you so much for listening, for following, for streaming and sharing.

I am very excited. Our sponsors for this week's episode is Plotter. If you missed the fantastic offer

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