Vanishing Point

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by Danielle Ramsay


  ‘Bugger me! It’s cold!’ he said as turned up his jacket collar against the cold, bitter air coming off the North Sea.

  Conrad didn’t reply as he made his way along the walkway towards his car parked on the tight bending road at the edge of the jutting cliff.

  Brady knew Conrad wasn’t impressed with what he’d seen. And Brady couldn’t help but agree with him.

  Danielle Ramsay’s Writing Tips:

  • Firstly, you will need determination, self belief and to be prepared for a tremendous amount of hard work. Competition is high (especially in the crime genre) and only a few manuscripts ever reach an agent or editor’s desk. But don’t give up. Keep motiviated by believing in your work and reminding yourself how badly you want to be a writer.

  • Character, plot and location are the key ingredients to a successful novel. BUT you must know your genre first and then apply the above three key ingredients. How do you get to know your genre? Read … read and then read some more. The more you read, the better the writer you will become.

  • Write about what you know. If you’re interested in writing crime then follow everything crime related. Absorb yourself in it. Same applies to location – know your setting. Live it, feel it – walk it. For that crucial characterisation – people watch. Interview professionals in the related area you want to write in, if at all possible. This will give you ideas about who your main character and how they operate. Understand the procedures they follow. And then, know your character inside out – what they think, feel and how they would act in any given situation. In other words, bring them to life!

  • You’ve researched your genre, you have a plot, a character and you’ve found that ideal location to set it in, now all you need to do is start writing. The key to staying on track is writing everyday for an hour an half to three hours maximum – regardless. Writing everyday means that you will not get tied up in knots and loose the thread of your plot.

  • Finally, be patient. Writing is a slow process. Very few writers publish their first draft – or even their first novel. So be prepared to re-write again and again. And don’t be precious – be prepared to take well-meaning advice and criticism from someone you trust. And remember that ‘those brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something’. (Randy Pausch, ‘The Last Lecture’ 2007.)

  Acknowledgements

  I would first like to thank all my family and friends. Especially Francesca, Charlotte, Gabriel and Ruby, who are without a doubt my inspiration. I extend the same gratitude to Jordan, Nathan and Lily Turnbull – thank you for being there. Thanks to Elaine and Pete Wilson for their constant encouragement and kindness – I am indebted to you. Thanks also to Dr Lynne Johnston and David Kenny for their invaluable advice. Thanks to Paul and Jacqui Treweek, and Suzanne Forsten for their endless support. And to Keith and Michelle Murphy for keeping me sane.

  I am eternally grateful, and always will be, to my literary agent, Jenny Brown. Thank you for believing and still believing in me.

  Thanks also, to all at Avon, Harper Collins, for being such a fantastic team, and in particular to Keshini and Helen. Finally, so much credit and heartfelt thanks go to my editor Caroline Hogg for all her patience and hard work in bringing this book about – thank you for persisting with me and for being such a visionary.

  About the Author

  Danielle Ramsay is a proud Scot living in a small seaside town in the North East of England. Always a storyteller, it was only after initially following an academic career lecturing in literature that she found her place in life and began to write creatively full time. After much hard graft her work was shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger in 2009. Always on the go, always passionate in what she is doing, Danielle fills her days with horse-riding, running and murder by proxy.

  Vanishing Point is her second novel. Her first, Broken Silence, is also published by Avon.

  By the same author

  Broken Silence

  Copyright

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

  The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  AVON

  A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

  77–85 Fulham Palace Road,

  London W6 8JB

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by

  HarperCollinsPublishers 2012

  Copyright © Danielle Ramsay 2012

  Danielle Ramsay asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  EPub Edition © April 2012 ISBN: 978 0 00 747839 2

  All rights reserved under International Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  About the Publisher

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

  25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)

  Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au

  Canada

  HarperCollins Canada

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  New Zealand

  HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited

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  Auckland, New Zealand

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz

  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  77-85 Fulham Palace Road

  London, W6 8JB, UK

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk

  United States

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  10 East 53rd Street

  New York, NY 10022

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com

  Table of Contents

  Title page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-
Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Read on for an extract of Danielle Ramsay’s compulsive debut novel, Broken Silence , out now.

  Danielle Ramsay’s Writing Tips

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  By the same author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

 

 

 


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