Welcome to Ghostwriter North writing and editing services
Since confidentiality is paramount, we do not share clients' work without express permission. This may be given for some types of work you'd like to see, so please ask!
Attached below are a couple of samples of Linda's own writing - one is the opening chapter of her novel, Smother, published by Diva. The other is a one-minute movie script based on Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher.
If you'd like to see any other samples of work, or examples of our work for clients... please get in touch. We can't publish them, but we can ask permission to share certain anonymised pieces.
Here are just a few examples of things we've written or edited to a very high standard for clients:
A thriller novel
Bollywood movie screenplay and treatment
Autobiographies of - a soldier, a doctor, an air hostess, a spiritualist
A Hollywood rom-com screenplay
Six short film scripts
Business plans
Four vampire novels
An MBA thesis
Numerous funding bids, tenders and applications for grants
Self help guides for - entrepreneurs, women, and young people
Website content for several sites
Training course modules and materials
Publicity and flyers for local businesses
Stand-up comedy material and comedy sketches
Best Man speeches
It was a pleasure working with Linda. She is very professional and insightful. I was impressed with her knowledge and skills. Quick turnaround, honest and extremely detailed. Looking forward to working with her again. - A - Poetry editing
Highest quality and an ideal match for my writing project. I would recommend Ms. Innes for future work; she is a true gem! The last piece was incredible… G - Novel
Great work! Thank you so much! And very prompt too. Much appreciated. K - Training course module
Excellent. Creative, moving, and realistic. I don't know what I'd do without you! B - historical novel
This is excellent stuff! You really know how to tell a great yarn! F - historical romance novel
‘Linda’s script for ‘’Broken’’ has a wonderful cinematic quality – the balance between the visual aspects, the spoken and the unspoken, the intimacy of the central relationship, and the various layers of the disjointed narrative – that is the work of a gifted writer. She is very open to collaboration, incredibly keen and has the tenacity and staying power to see the job through to the end’.
- Ian Fenton, award-winning movie screenwriter and ex-Emmerdale writer
This is a hugely exciting debut novel; a passionate journey through a landscape of damaged relationships. Innes writes beautifully with a divine eye for detail. This is a powerful new voice, exploring difficult and important territory, and it's immensely readable too.
-Julia Darling (author of Crocodile Soup)
'A remarkable debut from a brilliant new writer.'
OUR OPINION: This is Linda Innes' first novel - and, without doubt, it heralds the debut of a major new writing talent.
This is a powerful story of two women; a dark comedy about the pains and pleasures of an ongoing love affair and the effect that each of their mothers has had on their lives and on that relationship. A common enough theme perhaps, but in Innes' hands Mary and Tanya almost walk off the pages… into your own mind, like people you know, people that matter to you personally.
Alternating the two voices, chapter by chapter, a story riven by conflict develops, with the shadows of the two mothers ever looming over them, and with friendship and illicit affairs on the side adding an extra depth.
Linda Innes has tackled a difficult subject with a rare eye for detail and considerable flair. And, as a result, she gives us a remarkable insight into the generational behaviour that affects us all to greater and lesser extents. What we do to each other and, perhaps, why we do it.
It is a simply brilliant novel and a privilege - as well as a joy - to read.
Libertas! Women’s bookshop review
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It is a great book. I can't heap enough praise on [Linda Innes’s] head. Poetic, humorous, dramatic, heartbreaking, beautifully written and structured, it absolutely involved the reader... The characters were real, I felt I knew them or could easily know them. I didn't want to put it down and the ending was heartbreakingly inevitable. I rarely use the phrase 'gutted', but that's how I felt at the end. Excellent.
From V. G. Lee (author of The Comedienne)
Review: Smother - Rainbownetwork
Rainbow Rating: 5*
At last - a lesbian novel that holds up as solid, convincing literature on its own merits, and which is a damned good read.
‘Smother’ charts the troubled relationship between Tanya, the child of an abusive mother and Mary, the product of a less extreme but ultimately more crippling form of maternal abuse.
Underneath this central storyline, sub-plots simmer and bubble between Clancy and Clare, Lindsay and Mary, Clare and Tanya. Small trains of events are set in motion which culminate in an ending that is always on the cards. Okay, the ending isn`t a complete surprise but Linda Innes skilfully sets up the reader for the fall.
The depiction of a mother`s abuse of a daughter is unusual and chilling. I waited for the physical mistreatment to tip over into sexual abuse, but it`s left to Tanya to take that step, most notably with Mary towards the end of the book.
‘Smother’ has strong, vibrant characters to dazzle the reader. Tanya is the archetypal stone dyke refusing closeness and commitment and priding herself on her fragile independence. Lesser characters are woven into the fabric, tightly and tellingly. You won`t forget Clancy, Christiane or the mothers. Especially not the mothers. Mother is everything in this novel and mothering and baby functions are frequently mentioned. It is strange how Tanya builds on her mother`s aberrant behaviour, and odd how Mary, afraid of turning into her own mother, eventually transforms into Tanya`s mother.
Dialogue is the usual slangy mix of insult and humour but it`s the narrative that drives this novel, sketching in terse, punning sentences the outlines of very dark secrets. Innes cleverly uses words and images to strike chords throughout: uncomfortable prickles feature in this book, including Mary`s tendency to compulsive counting and Tanya`s recurring nightmare. Umpteen turning-points and milestones mark deviations from the right way, the safe path, the happy ending.
So what is ‘Smother’? Is it a tragedy? Yes but the tragedy is already irrevocable by the opening line and continues after the closing page so that the reader is hopping on and off a moving emotional bus. Is it a comedy? Yes, that too, we all have friends like these, conversations like these, laughs like these.
But, fundamentally, it`s a study of a damage limitation exercise that fails. Damage is interesting when it isn`t happening to you and it is a fact that many gay women are damaged and/or damaging.
Read it and weep.
H.D. Masheter; Rainbownetwork Jan 02
Linda Innes’ novel rang many bells … The British writer succeeds in juxtaposing the painful childhoods of her main characters and how these experiences affect their adult relationships- Tanya, afraid of intimacy, yet needing it at the same time, and Mary: insecure & irritatingly obsessive… A great tale of relationship dramas, of friendship, betrayal and obsession- explored with the insight of a psychotherapist,one cannot help but empathise with both characters… a wonderfully emotive read.
G3 Dec 01/ Jan 02