"The key to creating a character is in the detail": writing advice from best-selling author Jennie Godfrey

Jennie Godfrey is author of Sunday Times bestseller The List Of Suspicious Things, which has sold over 100,000 copies in paperback alone. Her debut was inspired by her childhood in West Yorkshire in the 1970s. Jennie is from a mill-working family, but as the first of the generation born after the mills closed, she went to university and built a career in the corporate world. In 2020 she left and began to write.

She is now a writer and part-time Waterstones bookseller and lives in the Somerset countryside. She is a judge for Good Housekeeping's 2025 writing competition, which is running until 31 August.

7 brilliant pieces of writing advice

1 The best opening paragraphs give a flavour of what's coming and why the reader should care, with a big dollop of voice. For me the voice is the most important aspect of the opening. If I am hooked by the voice, I am hooked full stop.

To read the full article on goodhousekeeping.com, click here