RR: I adore writing fast-flowing, rapid-fire dialogue with multiple characters each with their own voice, and I would gladly fill a whole book with that, but damn it, readers want pesky annoying things like plots and protagonists and antagonists and other stuff. TQ: What is the most challenging thing for you about writing? With The Undead (UK’s best-selling zombie series – woohoo! Get the plug in) I set the characters the end goal for the day / scene / plot, but how they do that, and what happens on the way is down to them. Likewise, sitting down to a white blank page and simply going at it with action / reaction and flying by the seat of your pants is just gorgeous, but aye, you are more likely to stall and write yourself into a corner that way. That sense of accomplishment is not to be underestimated. You cannot beat those days when you sit down with a plan and hit a mammoth word count. Mine mine mine…Įr, so I guess I do all three, and I can take equal amounts of pleasure from writing within each discipline.

They’re organised and ruthless whereas the Pantsers run free and lawless, going where the day takes them, having cray cray shenanigans and wild parties, and there, in the background skirting the fringes, are the quieter yet still playful Hybrids. The Plotters plot and scheme and work to the plan. Cor, blimey – sounds evil doesn’t it? A plotter, a pantser or a hybrid? They’re like the gang names of societal groups in a dystopian future that roam the skeletal remains of the cities and the vast wastelands. Are you a plotter, a pantser or a hybrid?

Rr haywood extracted book 4