Category: Books

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 7

Day 7 – Dealing with contentious issues

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The Hot-Topic Tightrope: How to Take a Stand on Sensitive Issues Without Losing Your Following

You see it trending. A sensitive, divisive issue is lighting up social media, and a knot forms in your stomach. You have an opinion. A strong one. You feel a pull—a responsibility, even—to use your platform to say something.

But then the doubt creeps in. What if I say the wrong thing? What if half my followers unsubscribe overnight? What if I start a firestorm in my comments that I can’t control?

This is the modern public figure’s dilemma. You want to be authentic and engaged, but you fear the fallout. So, let’s get real about the question everyone is asking: Will taking a stand on a contentious issue cost you readers?

The uncomfortable answer is yes, it probably will. But that’s not the whole story.

The Inevitable (and Good) Loss of Readers

Here’s the thing about taking a stand on something that matters: it’s an act of clarification. You are drawing a line in the sand and saying, “This is what I believe in. This is what I stand for.”

The moment you do that, you create a filter. People who fundamentally disagree with your core values on that issue may indeed leave. They might unfollow, unsubscribe, or simply tune you out. And that’s okay.

In fact, it can be a good thing.

Chasing universal appeal is a recipe for being bland and forgettable. A smaller, deeply engaged audience that shares your values is infinitely more valuable than a massive list of passive followers who feel no real connection to you. The “readers” you lose were likely never your true community to begin with. They were just passers-by.

Think of it this way: you’re not losing followers; you’re refining your community. You’re attracting the people who will champion your work because they see themselves in it. You’re building a tribe, not just a crowd.

How to Avoid Problems: A 5-Step Strategic Framework

While losing some readers may be a natural consequence, starting an unnecessary war is not. You can engage with sensitive topics in a way that is thoughtful, constructive, and minimizes needless drama. The key is to be strategic, not reactive.

Before you hit “publish,” walk through this framework:

1. The ‘Why’ Check: Before You Post

Ask yourself a few critical, honest questions. Your motivation is everything.

  • Why do I need to say this? Is it to educate, to support a community, to share my unique perspective, or just to vent?
  • Am I adding value? Is what I’m about to say a new take, a personal story that illuminates the issue, or am I just echoing the noise?
  • Am I emotionally triggered? If you’re posting from a place of pure rage or fear, take a beat. A considered response is always more powerful than a knee-jerk reaction.

2. Know Your Audience and Your Brand

Context is king. A statement from a political commentator is expected; the same statement from a food blogger might seem jarring. This doesn’t mean you can’t speak out, but it does mean you should be aware of your audience’s expectations. Acknowledge the shift if you need to: “You know me for talking about baking, but today I need to talk about something else that’s on my heart…” This shows self-awareness and respects your audience.

3. Focus on Principles, Not Personalities

This is the golden rule of constructive debate. Frame your argument around your values and principles, not around attacking a person or group.

  • Instead of: “I can’t believe how ignorant Person X is!”
  • Try: “I believe in a world where everyone has access to healthcare. Here’s why that principle is so important to me.”

The first statement invites a fight. The second invites a conversation. It’s much harder to argue against someone’s deeply held principles than it is to hurl insults back and forth.

4. Embrace Nuance and Acknowledge Complexity

Few issues are truly black and white. Using absolutist, all-or-nothing language will immediately alienate people who might otherwise be receptive. Show that you’ve considered the complexity of the issue.

Phrases like:

  • “I know this is a complicated issue with many valid perspectives, but…”
  • “I’m still learning about this, but my current thinking is…”
  • “From my personal experience…”

These phrases don’t weaken your argument; they build credibility and show humility. They invite thoughtful discussion rather than a flame war.

5. Prepare for the Pushback (and Have a Plan)

Don’t post and run. Decide in advance how you’ll engage with the response.

  • Define the line: What constitutes a healthy debate versus harassment or hate speech? Have a clear comment policy in mind.
  • Decide your level of engagement: Will you reply to questions? Will you correct misinformation? Will you ignore trolls?
  • Protect your peace: It is 100% acceptable to block, mute, or delete abusive comments. Your platform is your home; you don’t have to entertain vandals.

Knowing your plan beforehand prevents you from being dragged into a draining, unproductive argument in the heat of the moment.

The Power of Knowing When Not to Speak

Finally, one of the most powerful skills you can develop is knowing when silence is the strongest statement. You do not have to comment on everything. Choosing not to speak is a valid and often wise strategic choice.

Consider staying silent if:

  • You are not deeply informed on the topic and would be adding noise rather than insight.
  • The issue doesn’t intersect with your expertise or lived experience, and your voice would end up centring yourself instead of amplifying those most affected.
  • You are not in the right headspace to engage constructively.

Your platform is a tool, not an obligation. Use it intentionally.

Walk the Tightrope with Confidence

Taking a stand as a public figure is a tightrope walk, but it doesn’t have to be a reckless one. Yes, you risk losing some followers, but in doing so, you gain something far more valuable: a clarified brand, a more loyal community, and the integrity that comes from speaking your truth.

The goal isn’t to keep everyone happy. It’s to build something meaningful around what you believe. Be thoughtful, be strategic, and be brave. Your right readers will be right there with you.

The first case of PI Walthenson – “A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers”

This case has everything, red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.

See below for an excerpt from the book…

Coming soon!

PIWalthJones1

An excerpt from the book:

When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.

Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone one of his captors had called Doug.

It was not the name that worried him so much, it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.

Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there was any number of sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.

But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and costly, mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt he would soon find out.

His mother, and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.

At the time he couldn’t help himself and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation which ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.

For several days he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.

Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.

Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, literally, it made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head trying to prevent a re-occurrence. It was to no avail.

Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.

It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.

It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.

Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.

Except, of course, when it came to Harry.

He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.

So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.

There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.

So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.

There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.

She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.

Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.

Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.

Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile Harry had considered doing it himself.

Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticized trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.

Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2024

In a word: Key

So, as we all know, a key is used to lock or unlock a door, gate, or something else.  It’s either made of shiny metal, brass, or rusty iron, it can be small, or very, very big, as is the key to a dungeon.

We can have one key or we can have many or even a master key that unlocks everything, very handy if you have a house full of locked rooms.

People always seem to want to steal them, especially in crime shows.

There is also an item called a key card.  Not the metal thing, but a plastic thing, that opens doors.  Odd that it’s called keyless entry!

Then there’s what is known as the key to something, i.e. you might have the key to his or her heart, metaphorically speaking.

And in that metaphorical sense, it opens up pandora’s box with a plethora of different meanings.

He had the key to the puzzle.

I wish sometimes I had the key to be able to write better, that that one particular key eludes me.

There are keys on a keyboard, the ones you use on computers and calculators.  They were originally on typewriters.  You can also find keys on a piano, or an accordion, and some other musical instruments.

A key can also be a master index field, or unique identifier, in a database, particularly those kept on computers.

And,

there’s a host of other uses for the word key, such as

roughening a surface

describing the shooting area on a basketball court

a group, or one, of small coral islets

matching words to pictures

or, you’re just too keyed up to sleep.

 

 

 

‘Sunday in New York’ – A beta reader’s view

I’m not a fan of romance novels but …

There was something about this one that resonated with me.

This is a novel about a world generally ruled by perception, and how people perceive what they see, what they are told, and what they want to believe.

I’ve been guilty of it myself as I’m sure we all have at one time or another.

For the main characters Harry and Alison there are other issues driving their relationship.

For Alison, it is a loss of self-worth through losing her job and from losing her mother and, in a sense, her sister.

For Harry, it is the fact he has a beautiful and desirable wife, and his belief she is the object of other men’s desires, and one in particular, his immediate superior.

Between observation, the less than honest motives of his friends, a lot of jumping to conclusions based on very little fact, and you have the basis of one very interesting story.

When it all comes to a head, Alison finds herself in a desperate situation, she realises only the truth will save their marriage.

But is it all the truth?

What would we do in similar circumstances?

Rarely does a book have me so enthralled that I could not put it down until I knew the result. They might be considered two people who should have known better, but as is often the case, they had to get past what they both thought was the truth.

And the moral of this story, if it could be said there is one, nothing is ever what it seems.

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Available on Amazon here: amzn.to/2H7ALs8

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The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to write a war story – Episode 29

For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.

Whilst I have always had a fascination with what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.

And, so, it continues…

 

They reached a point a few kilometers from what was known as Brenner Pass at four in the morning, having navigated their way through patchy snow, icy roads, and bitter cold.

Progress at times was slow and the roads were difficult, the driver, at times, nearly losing control of the car.

The checkpoint appeared almost when they were on top of it, one that hadn’t been marked on the map, so they had not been prepared for it. Too late to turn back, they had to stop.

Once again the soldier that came out of the hut beside the boom was an army Unteroffizier who was more concerned about the cold than those in the car.

The Standartenfuhrer once again explained the nature of their business, and again the sentry went back to his hut and made a call.

While he was there the driver was checking the number of other soldiers were in attendance and had pulled his weapon out from under the seat and had it ready to use.

The Standartenfuhrer had done the same, also having checked the extent of the staffing of the post.

Then the driver said, “This looks like one of several. I think we may have walked into a hornet’s nest. The Brenner Pass is very important to the Germans for supplies from Germany to its soldiers in Italy.”

“You think our luck has finally run out?”

They had both seen the guard change expression, from the languid guard worrying more about the cold than a lone car at night, to a soldier who looked like he was about to attend a Nazi rally.

“I think they’ve finally discovered that our friend Mayer is missing.”

“Which means we’re about to get a small platoon of soldiers down on us. OK. You keep them off as long as you can so Mayer and I can get into the woods.”

The Standartenfuhrer turned to Mayer. “This is it, then end of the line for driving. We’re about to get a lot of unwanted visitors.”

He thrust the folder of plans into Mayer’s hands along with a coat.

“Let’s go.”

“Where?” Mayer was almost panic-stricken. The situation was deteriorating with each passing second. He, like the others, could see six men jogging towards them.

Their only advantage was the lack of illumination.

The driver said, “See you on the other side.”

The Standartenfuhrer leaned over, opened the door, and said, forcefully, “Get out, now.”

Mayer tumbled out almost slipping on the icy surface, and the sudden cold hitting him hard.

The Standartenfuher was right behind him, closing the door, and then literally dragging him off the side of the road and towards the tree line about 50 meters away, just barely visible again the dark sky. Thankfully there was no moon peeking through the clouds.
But light snow just began to fall, and it would hide them behind an artificial white wall.

They made it to the edge of the forest just as the soldiers reached the car.

Mayer turned to look and could see the sentry now with a torch, probably checking the car which was now barely visible to them. He had seen three people before, now there was only one.

No time to see the inevitable, the Standartenfuhrer dragged him away with, “We have to go before they bring out the dogs.”

Further into the trees, and moving as quickly as they could through the trees and undergrowth, and at times slipping and sliding on both snow and ice, it was five minutes before they heard six shots in rapid succession, followed by the sound of a machine gun.

“Let’s hope he killed at least six of them before he died.”

The problem was, Mayer thought, there was probably another hundred others waiting to take their place.

 

Mayer had come totally unprepared for the snow, and the cold. At least he had a coat.

Another problem was that he was hungry and that only added to his discomfort. And now they had no means of transport, it was going to take a lot longer to get to Florence, or anywhere for that matter.

An hour passed as they worked their way steadily through the trees, and cover. The dreaded dogs had not been unleashed on them, but they had to assume that someone at the border checkpoint would raise the alarm that there were fugitives in the area, and probably wait until morning before looking for them,

They could calculate how far they had walked and sent in search teams from there.

Or not.

Four hours after they’d left the car, they stumbled upon a cabin. It was not much, having been abandoned quite some time ago and left for the forest to reclaim, but it was shelter and a place to rest. It was not long before first light, and then they could assess their situation.

It was also time for the Standartenfuhrer to give Mayer all the information he needed once he got to Gaiole because at some point they were going to have to split up and Mayer would have to go alone.

Just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse.

 

© Charles Heath 2020

A long short story that can’t be tamed – I always wanted to rescue a damsel in distress – 2

Two

I opened the door and was about to welcome them in when I saw a man, about six foot ten tall, 250 plus pounds, and tattoos leaking out of his overly tight collar and ill-fitting shirt.

Not the police.

“I think you have the wrong flat,” I said.

I went to close the door, but a size 20 shoe was blocking it.

“Where is Jake Mistrale?”

Heavily accented English, this man was a thug of the worst order.  There was nothing polite about his manner.  I needed to think quickly some way of getting rid of this man.  He was more than likely the one who tossed the flat before we arrived.

“I’ll tell you what.  We can keep talking, you could do something really stupid and break-in, and we can wait for the police to arrive.  I’m sure I’m not the only one who would like to know who you are, and who you work for.”

“You are bluffing.  There is no police.  Where is Jake?”

“I have a question, where is Cecile?”

He looked surprised.  “I do not know who this Cecile is.”

“I think she was Jake’s friend, and they are both missing, and I think you know where she is.”

We both heard the footsteps on the landing, just before reaching the floor.  The man looked sideways in the direction of the stairs, then, without waiting to see who it was, started walking in the opposite direction.  There must be another flight of stairs around the back.

Then two men appeared at the top of the stairs.  These men definitely looked like the police.

Both seemed to be surprised I was outside in the passage, perhaps to greet them before stepping into the room.  Another two, a man and a woman, dressed in protective clothing, followed them.

The first introduced himself.  “My name is Detective Inspector Chandler.”  The other man, now beside him, pulled out his warrant card, as Chandler said, “DS Williams.”

Hearing voices, or perhaps wondering what had happened to me, Emily came out into the passage.

“Ah, you must be Emily.  I spoke to your father about two hours ago, and he said you should be here.  Now, I will need you to remain outside while the forensic team does its magic.”

With that, the two forensic officers went in, and DS followed them, putting on a pair of rubber gloves.

“We didn’t touch anything, by the way.”  She then pulled a photo of Cecile out of her bag and handed it to Chandler.

I was waiting to see if she mentioned the note Cecile left.  If she did, I would hand it over, if she didn’t that would be our starting point.  If we didn’t make any progress, I would give it to Chandler and let him get on with the job.

He looked at it.  “I take it this is recent?”

Emily nodded.

“Anything else you can tell me?”

“We know she had a boyfriend named Jake who was not who she thought he was, that she was here a few days ago, and perhaps some of the others living here might know something.  We were going to start knocking on doors, but now that you’re here, we’ll get out of your hair and let you do your job.  I’ve put my phone number, and James too, just in case you can’t get me.”

Chandler turned to me.  “Where do you fit in?”

“Jake’s last name was Mistrale, by the way.  As for me, I’m an old family friend.  I received a text message a few days ago, which seemed rather odd, so we came over to see if everything was alright.  As you can see, when we saw this, things are not alright.”

“Do you have that phone with you?”

I did but I was not sure I wanted to give it up, but a glare told me I had to.  I found the text message and gave him the phone.

“Can we hang on to this until tomorrow?”  He gave me what looked like a business card with his address on it.  “You’ll be able to pick it up tomorrow morning.  I’ll get the tech guys to see if they can trace where that message came from.”

“No problems,” I said with a measure of reluctance.  Although it was unlikely, she might try to call or text again.

“Now, there’s nothing more you can do here.  I’ve got your numbers, and I expect I’ll see you tomorrow morning, by which time we should have made some progress.”

Nothing left to say, he went into the flat.

“Time to go,” Emily said.  “We have to get back to the hotel.”

It was loud enough that Chandler would hear her, but I knew what she meant.  Time to go to the hotel that featured in the note.

When we reached street level and outside of the block of flats, I had to ask, “Why didn’t you mention the note?”

“Because we would have to give it to him and lose the one clue we had.  If it doesn’t pan out then we can say we forgot about it, no harm done.  Telling him would only stop us from the investigation, and, if the police go there, anyone who might be able to help us would be less likely to help the police.”

I hadn’t thought of it like that, but it was a valid point.

“So, where is this hotel?” She asked with a touch of impatience in her tone.

“A fair distance away tucked away not far from Whitehall and past, if I’m not mistaken, Horseguards Parade.  We might get to take in a bit of British history in the process.”

…

©  Charles Heath  2024

The cinema of my dreams – Was it just another surveillance job – Episode 12

I’m back home and this story has been sitting on a back burner for a few months, waiting for some more to be written.

The trouble is, there are also other stories to write, and I’m not very good at prioritising.

But, here we are, a few minutes opened up and it didn’t take long to get back into the groove.

Was I working for a ghost?

 

I sat in that room for an hour.

I had no doubt someone was on the other side of the mirrored wall, watching me, analysing my body language.  I hoped I hadn’t given any indication that Nobbin was a name that I recognised, or knew, but I was still new to this game, and as much as I tried to perfect it, I still didn’t think I had a poker face.

More than likely I had a ‘tell’.

There was something else I had to worry about, and that was what approach this Dobbin would take.  For instance, did he know that I had met up with the man in the alley, and stretching that big if, did he know who the man in the alley was, and was he one of ours.

Of course, that was another problem I had, and that was recognising who ‘ours’ were.  It seems the people I knew, were not the same people who were really running the place.

Or, paradoxically, were these people, interlopers, trying to get intel on the group I was supposedly working for.  But they hadn’t disavowed me, so I must be working for someone they approved or knew of.

An hour and a half, and I was beginning to think this might be another game by my previous interrogators.  I was glad not to be on the other side of the mirror, trying to work out what I was ‘telling;’ them.  Once, I’d got up and stared directly into the mirror, thinking I might be able to see who was behind it.  I also thought of tapping it to see if I could get a reaction.

And, in fact, I was about to do that very thing when Nobbin walked through the door and closed it behind him.

I saw him do a quick check of the room, from the floor to the roof, and stopping briefly at the mirror, before sitting down.

“We probably have an audience for this discussion,” I said, inclining my head towards the mirror.

“You might be right, but I did ask for a clean slate, and if anyone is considering recording or viewing this interview, there will be dire consequences.”  Looking at the mirror, he added, “I made that very clear at the highest level.”

He then looked back at me.  “Your name, I believe, is Sam Jackson?”

“Yes.”  My current working name, that is.  Once deployed to the field we started using aliases, and my first and current alias was Sam Jackson.  But how they made the passport look old and used for that legend was interesting, yet not a question anyone would answer.

“You were recently assigned to a surveillance team, for this man.”

He’d brought a folder with him and pulled out a photograph of the man I’d cornered in the alley.

“Is that him?”

Was there a right or wrong answer here?

“Yes.”

“Who was leading this operation?”

“A man named Severin.”

“Describe him.

I did.

It evoked no reaction.  Nobbin had a poker face.  In fact, I was beginning to think it was etched in stone.

“Do you know who he is?” I asked.

“No.  But we will find out.  Thank you for your time.”

He stood, gave me one last look, and left the room.

I waited a minute, and then followed him out, where a security officer was waiting to escort me out of the building.

On the steps outside, security pass returned, I wondered if that was then end of my tenure with that organisation.  Or whether I actually had any tenure in the first place.

 

© Charles Heath 2019

365 Days of writing, 2026 – 6

Day 6 – Writing exercise

Writing exercise

You’ve got a habit of being in the wrong place, don’t you, Sam? But this time…

…

Everyone was busy.  

The morning meeting, where the boss sat at the head of a long table, and the writing staff sat, waiting for either a bollocking or an assignment, had travelled along the usual path.

The boss was the typical editor, loud, opinionated, and acerbic.  Very few could remember him being complimentary.

I sat at the end of the table, the opposite end, and as far away from him as I could get.  He hated me more than any other.

I looked around.

Whether or not they liked their assignments or the request for a rewrite, it was hard to tell.  No one wanted to be seen shirking.

Yes, he called it shirking if you were not pounding the keyboard, working on tomorrow’s news today.

And because he hated me, I was last, got the full-on death stare and then in those oily words dispensed with forced amiability, “Jacobs, you got the dead guy, what’s his name, Rickard, Richard…”

“Ricardo,” a mousey voice called out, his current ‘favourite’.

“That dead guy.  A thousand scintillating words.”

Then the expansive glare around the table, “Well, what are you lot waiting for?”

Al, just up from me, muttered, under his breath, “A written invitation.”  As he did in every meeting.

Another obituary.  Another nobody that needed life breathed into the corpse. 

A gopher dropped a file on my desk as he went past, not stopping.  Not worth the five minutes of hell from the boss about wasting time on idle chatter.

A single page, a name, and an address.  Several notes that highlighted a nothing life.  Too young to have a life.  Too young to die.  Too young for scintillating words.

Cause of death?  Heart failure.

His photo belied the notion that he had anything remotely wrong with his heart.  Adonis himself would be jealous.

Coroner’s report?  Heart failure, cause unknown.

Not obese, not too thin, none of the danger signs that he was heart attack material, I knew my way around a medical report and this one?

Something was not right.  Was the boss testing me, see if I could see if there was anything more?

Of course, I’d been down this path before and come a cropper.  No, the boss took anything I requested with a grain of salt.

“Just report the facts.  Don’t embellish, don’t add your suspicions, ten times out of ten you’re going to be wrong.”

And infurioratingly he was right.

Which meant I had to get creative.
…

The name Freddie Ricardo brought up 100,000 plus hits on the search engine, but I found one entry that pointed to an Instagram page that loaded, then disappeared.

Like completely disappeared, returning a 404 error when I tried to reload it.  Someone had deleted it just after I found it.

Why?

Who would care?

From the fleeting look I got of it, it was just a guy’s page that had photos of him and friends guzzling beer and either hunting, fishing or acting stupid.

Very unaccountant-like. 

Next step, go to the address.

A suburban street, quiet, an old house, run down and in need of repair, garden overgrown.  Two car wrecks in the front yard, and an antique car in the driveway.

I sat outside the house for an hour, not a creature stirred, not even a mouse.  The car suggested someone was inside, but they didn’t look out the windows, and they didn’t turn any lights on.

At the end of the hour, I got out of the car and walked over to the front door.  The fence was falling over, the gate off its hinges, held up by the weeds and growth around it.

The door had peeling paint, but the lock and handle were new.  The verandah boards were rotting and in places broken.  They creaked as I walked on them.

I knocked.  No answer. 

I checked the car in the driveway.  A fine film of dust covered it, telling me it hadn’t moved in days, maybe a week.

One of the neighbours came out and looked over.

“Who are you?”  It wasn’t a polite question.

“Does Freddie Ricardo live here?”

“Did.  Who wants to know?”

“I’m from the newspaper, asked to do a small piece on him.”

“No need.  He wouldn’t want it.”

“Anyone else live here?”

“His sister.  She ain’t here at the moment.  I’m keeping an eye on the place.  Now, I suggest you leave.”

A sister.  Rather a large omission in the briefing paper provided.  Research was slipping.

“Fair enough.”

A last look, I went back to the car.  I waited, but the neighbour didn’t leave his porch.  When he reached for his cell phone, I left.

…

Before going back to the office, I went to the city administration building and met up with an acquaintance who got me a copy of the deed for the house.

It had belonged to the parents, then was handed down to the elder daughter, Bethany.  There were only two of them, Bethany and Freddie.  He didn’t have a stake in the house.

I ran Bethany’s name in the search engine, and it brought back a few thousand hits, the first with a picture of a brother and sister on the front porch.

The second was a photo of her in a gondola in Venice with a man, Italian perhaps.  She didn’t look happy.

From what I could see, the brother and sister were not similar, so maybe step-siblings. 

Bethany also had titles to three other houses in the city.  Perhaps she lived at one of those addresses and let her little brother stay at the address I called on.

Another acquaintance looked up the car registrations, and for the other cars the siblings had, of which there were four, including one for Freddie.

It was not mentioned in the police report at the crime scene, nor was it at the house, so it might still be somewhere else.

I had another five pieces of paper to go with the photo of the victim and the coroner’s report.  It didn’t amount to much.

…

I thought about inventing a thousand words and making him a traitor, but the boss would see through it.

The alternative wasn’t much better; tell him I had nothing, well, suspicions.

I knocked on the door, and he growled something unintelligible.  Not a good day.

“What have you got?”  He didn’t look up.

“Missing car, expensive.  Job belies the income to have it.   Looks belie the cause of death.”

“And you infer?”

“Drugs, using, selling.  Has a sister in Italy, or not?  Needs a deep dive.”

“Is that it?”

“Been to the house.  Looks like a mess, but I checked the values.  It’s a gold mine for someone.”

“No one home?”

“Not for a week.”

“Talk to your police friends, see if they’ve got a rap sheet.  Police miss the car?”

“Not in their report, not where he died.”

He looked up.  “Find it, find the sister, talk to the neighbours.  Go.”

No third degree, so sarcasm, just barked orders.  But I wasn’t going to count the chickens just yet.

…

3am was always the best time to surprise people.  My father once said that the best time to get answers was when people were unprepared.

He had been a policeman and kicked doors in at or just before dawn.  Disorientation, gear, terror at dawn.  Worked a treat.

I wasn’t kicking the door in.  I was visiting.

And hopefully the house was still empty.

The back window was unlocked and opened easily.  I was able to get to the back because of a quirk in the planning of the estate.  The house had a narrow walkway behind it, a public thoroughfare.

At 3 a.m., no one would be about.

I hope.

There wasn’t.  The back fence was as bad as the front, with a gap wide enough to squeeze through.  The back yard was worse than the front, three cars hidden by undergrowth.

Tripped once and crashed into a car.  It hurt

It took a few minutes to get inside.  It smelled badly of wet paper and damp.  The floorboards creaked.  Several pilot lights were giving off just enough light to see by, once my eyes adjusted.

Signs of recent habitation.  Fast food wrappers, health drinks, cigarette butts, and beer cans.  Half-eaten food with mould.  A week, perhaps longer, since anyone was there.

Upstairs.

The reason for the bad smell.

A body, not the sister, but a woman. 

No sign of a bag.  Dead, checked while trying not to be sick, downstairs, found the bag, wallet, ID.  Jessie Walker.  This was the residential address; her car was outside.

Long enough to find nothing else.  If the place had been tossed, it was done by a professional.

I left.

Found a phone booth and called the police to report the body.

I got back to my car to find two men waiting.  There wasn’t much use in running.

“At it again, Sam?”

The two cops that my father had asked to keep me on the straight and narrow.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t insult us, Sam.  You know what we’re talking about.  You can’t be poking around crime scenes.”

How did they know where I’d been?  I’d only just called it in.

They knew.  I’d known my father had not exactly been clean, not as clean as he said he was, and besides, clean cops were not murdered in a mob hit. No, these were two acolytes.

“How do you…”

Lance, the more senior of the two, shook his head. “Tsk, task, Sam.  Wrong place, wrong time.  Don’t make a habit of it now, will you, son?”

I shook my head in that obedient fashion they liked.

“Good boy.”  Borg patted me on the head like I was a good boy.  I was anything but.  A chip off the old block.

“Good lad.  Leave this one alone.”

A parting pat on the back, and they left.  Was I going to heed good advice?  No.  I waited for an hour, and then I started searching for details on the internet.

Jessie Walker was famous.  Over a million hits in the search engine, and fascinating in death as much as she was in life.  For a police commissioner’s wife of three weeks.

She looked so much more interesting alive when splashed all over the front page of the city daily.  In death, she would barely rate a second glance.

And what did she have to do with Freddie and Bethany Riccardo?  Tomorrow was not going to be a good day.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

What I learned about writing – The art of effective self editing

Mastering Self-Editing: 10 Practical Techniques for Polished Writing

Self-editing is a vital skill for any writer. Whether you’re crafting a blog post, an academic essay, or a novel, the ability to refine your work independently can elevate your writing from good to exceptional. While peer feedback is invaluable, mastering self-editing ensures your drafts are clear, cohesive, and compelling before sharing them with others. Here are 10 practical strategies to enhance your self-editing process.

1. Step Away, Then Return with Fresh Eyes

Before diving into edits, take a break from your work. A few hours—or even a few days—can provide a new perspective. Distance allows you to approach your text as a reader, making it easier to spot inconsistencies, redundancy, or awkward phrasing. Rushing into edits while still in your “writing mindset” often causes you to overlook errors.

2. Read Aloud to Detect Rhythm and Flow

Reading your work aloud engages your senses differently. By hearing the words, you can identify clunky sentence structures, awkward word choices, and unintentional repetition. For example, a phrase like “The man who lived in the house was tired” might sound better as “The man in the house was tired.” Use this technique to fine-tune your writing’s cadence.

3. Leverage Technology, But Stay Sceptical

Grammar-check tools like Grammarly or Hemingway Editor are handy for catching typos and readability issues. However, these tools aren’t infallible. They might suggest grammatically correct but contextually odd changes. Use them as a starting point, then double-check with your own judgment. For instance, a tool might flag “I am” as redundant in a sentence when it’s actually necessary for clarity.

4. Tackle One Task at a Time

Editing is more effective when broken into focused tasks. Start with big-picture elements like structure and argument clarity, then move to line edits for sentence flow, and finally proofread for grammar and typos. This approach prevents overwhelm and ensures no detail is missed.

5. Trim the Fat: Delete Unnecessary Words

Concise writing is powerful. Remove redundant phrases like “in order to” (simply “to”) and vague fillers like “very” or “that.” For example, “She was a tall, slender woman” becomes “She was tall and slender.” A short list of common redundancies can help you systematically cut fluff.

6. Reverse Outline for Structure Checks

For longer pieces, summarise each paragraph in a separate document. This reverse outline helps identify plot holes, repetitive sections, or tangents. If your summary reads like a disjointed list, your draft likely needs reorganisation.

7. Maintain Consistency with a Style Sheet

Track key details like character names, technical terms, or formatting in a reference sheet. For example, if a character’s surname is “McGraw” in one chapter and “McGregor” in another, this tool ensures consistency. It’s especially crucial for novels or complex projects with recurring elements.

8. Seek Peer Feedback Strategically

While this post focuses on self-editing, one round of trusted feedback can illuminate blind spots. Share your work with peers who understand your goals and ask targeted questions: “Does the argument hold?” or “Is the tone consistent?” Use their insights to prioritise edits.

9. Use the Pomodoro Technique for Focus

Self-editing can feel marathon-like. Break it into shorter, intentional sessions: 25 minutes of focused editing followed by a 5-minute break. This method combats burnout and keeps your mind sharp for small details like punctuation or word choice.

10. Audit Passive Voice and Weak Nouns/Verbs

Overusing passive voice (“The cake was eaten”) can weaken prose. Replace with active voice (“She ate the cake”) unless passive is intentional. Similarly, swap weak verbs like “made a decision” with stronger alternatives like “decided.”

Conclusion: Sharpen Your Craft with Purpose

Effective self-editing is a balance of technique, patience, and critical thinking. By incorporating these strategies, you’ll refine your writing’s clarity, impact, and professionalism. Remember, even well-known authors like Maya Angelou and Stephen King relied on meticulous editing to shape their masterpieces. Start with one or two techniques, practice consistently, and watch your confidence—and your writing—grow.

What self-editing hacks have worked for you? Share your tips in the comments below!

This blog post blends actionable advice with relatable examples, offering writers a roadmap to polish their work independently. By prioritising structure, focus, and critical distance, you’ll transform self-editing from a chore into a rewarding part of your creative process.

An excerpt from “Echoes from the Past”

Available on Amazon Kindle here:  https://amzn.to/2CYKxu4

…

With my attention elsewhere, I walked into a man who was hurrying in the opposite direction.  He was a big man with a scar running down the left side of his face from eye socket to mouth, and who was also wearing a black shirt with a red tie.

That was all I remembered as my heart almost stopped.

He apologized as he stepped to one side, the same way I stepped, as I also muttered an apology.

I kept my eyes down.  He was not the sort of man I wanted to recognize later in a lineup.  I stepped to the other side and so did he.  It was one of those situations.  Finally getting out of sync, he kept going in his direction, and I towards the bus, which was now pulling away from the curb.

Getting my breath back, I just stood riveted to the spot watching it join the traffic.  I looked back over my shoulder, but the man I’d run into had gone.  I shrugged and looked at my watch.  It would be a few minutes before the next bus arrived.

Wait, or walk?  I could also go by subway, but it was a long walk to the station.  What the hell, I needed the exercise.

At the first intersection, the ‘Walk’ sign had just flashed to ‘Don’t Walk’.  I thought I’d save a few minutes by not waiting for the next green light.  As I stepped onto the road, I heard the screeching of tires.

A yellow car stopped inches from me.

It was a high powered sports car, perhaps a Lamborghini.  I knew what they looked like because Marcus Bartleby owned one, as did every other junior executive in the city with a rich father.

Everyone stopped to look at me, then the car.  It was that sort of car.  I could see the driver through the windscreen shaking his fist, and I could see he was yelling too, but I couldn’t hear him.  I stepped back onto the sidewalk, and he drove on.  The moment had passed and everyone went back to their business.

My heart rate hadn’t come down from the last encounter.   Now it was approaching cardiac arrest, so I took a few minutes and several sets of lights to regain composure.

At the next intersection, I waited for the green light, and then a few seconds more, just to be sure.  I was no longer in a hurry.

At the next, I heard what sounded like a gunshot.  A few people looked around, worried expressions on their faces, but when it happened again, I saw it was an old car backfiring.  I also saw another yellow car, much the same as the one before, stopped on the side of the road.  I thought nothing of it, other than it was the second yellow car I’d seen.

At the next intersection, I realized I was subconsciously heading towards Harry’s new bar.   It was somewhere on 6th Avenue, so I continued walking in what I thought was the right direction.

I don’t know why I looked behind me at the next intersection, but I did.  There was another yellow car on the side of the road, not far from me.  It, too, looked the same as the original Lamborghini, and I was starting to think it was not a coincidence.

Moments after crossing the road, I heard the roar of a sports car engine and saw the yellow car accelerate past me.  As it passed by, I saw there were two people in it, and the blurry image of the passenger; a large man with a red tie.

Now my imagination was playing tricks.

It could not be the same man.  He was going in a different direction.

In the few minutes I’d been standing on the pavement, it had started to snow; early for this time of year, and marking the start of what could be a long cold winter.  I shuddered, and it was not necessarily because of the temperature.

I looked up and saw a neon light advertising a bar, coincidentally the one Harry had ‘found’ and, looking once in the direction of the departing yellow car, I decided to go in.  I would have a few drinks and then leave by the back door if it had one.

Just in case.

© Charles Heath 2015-2020

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