Creating Fictional Worlds
Creating fictional worlds is one of Richard’s favourite parts of writing. Whether he is imagining life in the dusty streets of first‑century Jerusalem or deep underground in the hidden caverns of Under Arnhem, every world begins with a simple “what if?”. What if you grew up in a place where no one had seen the sky for generations? What if you were a market‑stall worker who happened to be there the day a miracle took place? From that starting point he begins sketching maps, listing everyday details (food, work, families, slang), and asking how faith, fear and hope would look in that setting. For Richard, a believable world is built from small, concrete details rather than long explanations. He thinks about noises, smells and textures first—the scrape of sandals on stone, the echo of water in a tunnel, the way lamplight falls on a crowded room—and lets these details hint at the bigger structures of society, technology and belief. He also pays attention to limits: what his characters can’t do or don’t know shapes the story as much as what they can. Above all, every world he creates has to leave space for encounter with God, whether openly named or quietly implied. In that way, his fictional settings become mirrors, helping readers see their own world, and their own walk of faith, from a fresh angle.
Biblical Themes
Richard’s stories grow out of a deep love for the Bible and a desire to help readers “stand inside” familiar passages rather than skim past them. Again and again he returns to themes of encounter—ordinary people unexpectedly meeting God in the middle of daily life. Whether it is a servant caught up in a miracle, a fisherman watching the storm fall silent, or someone in the crowd wrestling with doubt, his characters are shaped by the same questions many readers carry: Who is Jesus, really? What does forgiveness look like? Can broken people be restored? Grace and second chances thread through his work, alongside themes of fear, courage and the cost of following. Richard is particularly drawn to the way Jesus notices those on the margins—women, outsiders, the sick and the overlooked—and he often chooses such voices as his narrators. He also weaves in the tension between faith and uncertainty; his characters do not always understand what they are seeing, but they are changed by it. By exploring these biblical themes through first‑person storytelling, Richard hopes to nudge readers back to Scripture with fresh eyes and a renewed sense that the God of those ancient stories is still at work today.
Under Arnhem
Under Arnhem takes readers deep below the Australian outback into a hidden world very few on the surface even suspect exists. Far beneath the red dust and saltbush lies a network of vast caverns threaded around the Great Artesian Basin, where generations ago a small community went underground to survive a changing climate. In this enclosed world of recycled water, artificial light and strict traditions, every breath and every bucket matters. The story follows a young tunnel‑mapper, an ageing historian who still remembers the sky, and a water engineer who knows their lifeline is failing. When tremors and strange air currents hint that they are not alone beneath the earth—and that the surface might not be as dead as they were taught—the fragile peace of Arnheim begins to crack. Part survival tale, part exploration of faith, fear and hope, Under Arnhem asks what people cling to when the ceiling above their heads, and the stories they were raised on, both start to crumble.