Heidi Perks, author of 'Someone is Lying' - Thriller Bestseller discusses underwriting drafts, throwing words away and starting over again

Writer's Routine

Dan Simpson

Arts, Hobbies, Books, Leisure

4.9 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 29 May 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Heidi Perks is the bestselling author of 7 novels, 'Now You See Her', 'Come Back for Me', 'Three Perfect Liars', 'The Whispers', 'The Other Guest', 'The Next Girl', and her new one, 'Someone is Lying'

It tells the story of Jess and her daughter, Issie. They have an unbreakable bond and for years it's just been the two of them. However, when a new boyfriend, Dylan, takes Issie travelling... and contact dries up, Jess needs to figure out who is lying.

The story is told through mixed media, merging true crime, podcasts and traditional prose, and we talk about the inspiration for that, and the practicalities of getting it done.

You can why she writes things over and over in a notebook, and why she always underwrites her first draft. Also, we chat about why, before writing, she went back to school and enrolled on the Curtis Brown Online Novel Writing Course, and you can hear why picking yourself up and going again really matters.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome along to a brand new episode of writer's routine where this week we're chatting to Heidi Perks.
0:15.7	Just published her seventh novel, Someone is Lying.
0:19.8	We talk about the time she went down a wrong path and had to
0:22.8	throw away thousands and thousands of words. I got so wrapped up in this was what the story was
0:31.0	going to be that you never really take, just take a step out and look at it from a different angle.
0:39.7	So like I said, I had this great setup that I was really happy and I knew how, whose voices
0:45.5	I was using and I knew how I was going to put the story down, that was what the plot was
0:52.0	going to be. And I think you become so focused on making that happen.
0:58.2	You kind of almost go down this tunnel and you, yeah, it is very, very hard. I mean, it is that old saying,
1:04.8	it's very hard to see the wood for the trees when you're in the middle of writing something.
1:08.3	Also, you can hear why she always underwrites her first draft,
1:14.0	and then what she does to build it up afterwards.
1:16.7	I think what I've done in the first draft is given my character a story and some things to do.
1:24.9	And then always at the start, before I go back into my second draft, I will spend
1:31.4	a week usually just writing backstories for them. And so I will pick out all of my main characters
1:43.1	and I will figure out what's got them to
1:45.1	this part in their lives. It's all on the way in a brand new writer's routine with Heidi Perks.
1:58.0	Yes, welcome along to the show. My name is Dan Simpson. This is writer's routine. It's a show where we take a look inside an author's working day. Nothing trickier than that. It does exactly what it says on the tin. If you're just finding us, thank you so much for pressing play. We'll try to discover so many secrets from the world's best, bestselling authors.
2:21.0	This week we're with Heidi Perks, probably best known for her. Now You See Her, which was a bestseller a few years ago.
2:31.3	Heidi's writing career started after enrolling in the Curtis Brown creative online
2:36.5	novel writing course, who have sponsored the show quite a few times, so I'm always keen to talk
2:43.6	about those. And it's gone very well from there, really, not after some tricky moments writing
	...

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