With her debut novel, How To Kill Your Family, Bella Mackie brought humour and wit to the crime fiction genre and the bestselling author has done the same with her second novel, What A Way To Go. Her new book is a hilariously dark and pacey mystery that follows the aftermath of the death of one wealth-obsessed man and the lives of his remaining children and widow. And no, his death is not as it initially seems.

Writing the second novel, Mackie got a little lost in the structure and has taken on a lot of learnings for how she’s approaching the writing process for her third book. “I was tying myself in knots because I didn’t have a proper structure and kept following characters down these dead ends. But I’m doing things differently for the third novel”.

She explained that her agent gave her a key piece of advice on the last day they were working together. “A book needs three things: plot, structure and character. Structure is the scaffolding of the novel and you need it in order for the story to make sense and for the book to succeed,” she said. “I mean, I wish my agent would’ve told me this before her last day of work!”

Mackie also had some advice for myself and other debut authors about how to overcome those frustrating but ever-present feelings of imposter syndrome. “The fear doesn’t ever really go away but you have to always remember that you are the only person who’s creating that story or narrative. Nobody else can do what you do.”

“Nobody else can do what you do”: Bella Mackie shares the one piece of writing advice she wishes she knew earlier