Monthly Archives: April 2019

Crime Writing

The Detective as Shaman

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Crime writer P.D. James reckoned that:

‘What the detective story is about is not murder but the restoration of order.’

Her observation is something that I’ve kept in the back of my mind when writing my own Cornish Detective series.

My protagonist detective is as much a healer as he is an avenger. But, he’s considerably more vengeful than his boss, the Chief Constable, who worries about the image of the force. He’s willing to cover up investigative failures if it prevents holidaymakers from being scared off from visiting Cornwall, which depends on tourism for much of its income.

I’ve been confident about the stance of my protagonist, who is an unusual character, while still fretting a bit that he’s too freaky and also that he’s a bit boring. I rationalised this, by remembering that villains, the antagonists, are always easier and more fun to write. Also, even if I’ve written a truly frightening fight scene, it’s not going to scare me as I know exactly what happens!

It hadn’t occurred to me that I’d created a protagonist who’s in good fictional company. The article is written by crime novelist Jason Webster, whose Spanish detective Max Cámara is an unorthodox character. Webster is a maverick author, at least so far as Fatal Sunset, the sixth story in his series goes, for he seemingly kills his hero on the last page—leaving a mystifying cliffhanger, which made me eager to read the next novel to see how he gets out of it. It’s a useful technique, for it made me remember the author’s name more than if all of the loose ends had been neatly tied.

Image result for webster Fatal Sunset,

Webster makes some wise observations about what function a detective serves:

‘If nothing else, he (and, later, she) is a problem-solver; someone who can restore order where there is chaos. Faced with the worst crime (what could be more existentially troubling than a murder?), the detective gives us answers to the most pressing and urgent questions: not only whodunit, but how and why and what it means. He does all this by taking us on a journey, discovering pieces of evidence, seeking out hints and clues. In the best examples of this game, we see everything that the detective sees, yet we are unable to solve the crime ourselves. Only the detective, in a final display of mastery, can reach the correct conclusion. We need him, with his special knowledge and abilities, to make sense of it all.

In other words, a detective is a kind of priest. Throughout history, priestly castes have boasted a unique capacity to answer the great riddles of existence….’

My detective hero is a very wealthy man, owing to an inheritance, and he’s also a son of a farmer locked into the moods of nature. His love of art, music, books and the countryside keeps him sane, but he’s definitely weird when compared to the typical drug and booze abusing detective or private investigator, who also gambles and womanises. My protagonist is left-wing or liberal, believes in a Green approach to living and is Bohemian in nature from his love of art. He doesn’t smoke, do drugs and rarely drinks alcohol. He was also celibate for eight years, following the death of his wife, though I gave him a sex life in the latest story.

I deliberately wanted to create a different type of detective, not that I dislike the hard-boiled tough guy coppers, but they’re better suited to city locations. My stories are set in Cornwall, featuring dark and dirty deeds—poisoning, cannibalism, human trafficking, BDSM, illegal abattoirs and murder as a roleplaying game—but my hero solves the crimes using his cunning and intelligence.

Inadvertently, I’ve written stories that fit into a subgenre of crime writing known as Country Noir or Rural Noir, which is alright with me, for I’d rather create tales that scare the reader, than pen comfortable cosies they can enjoy on the beach; there’s nothing cosy about murder!

Thinking about famous fictional detectives, characters such as Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Lord Peter Wimsey and private investigators like Philip Marlowe and Dick Tracy, they share the trait of being recognisable by their appearance, in the same way that founts of wisdom such as Gandhi, the Buddha, Confucius, Mother Teresa, Einstein, Steve Jobs and Stephen Hawking all have an appearance that lends itself to being instantly identifiable, even in silhouette.

It’s certainly something to consider when describing the looks of your own detective protagonist.

Even rough diamonds can take on the role of priest, healer and shaman. I read a dozen Walter Mosley detective novels last year, and the heroes of his two main series of books, Easy Rawlins and Leonid McGill are both street tough brawlers, but they’re also well-educated and have a social conscience, going out of their way to help the downtrodden victims of the crimes they’re investigating. That’s not to say that they won’t take any casual sex that’s offered to them, or put a bullet in the head of a baddy, as that’s more justice than handing him over to the law.

They both remind me of the proverb quoted by Theodore Roosevelt when referring to American foreign policy: Speak softly and carry a big stick.

If you write crime stories, what kind of detective do they feature?

If you read crime novels, who are your favourite detectives?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Writing

Where Do I Begin?

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At which point in your characters’ lives do you begin your story?

Should your protagonist be the first person a reader meets? Or, as often happens in my chosen genre of crime, should it be the victim who appears first, fearful that they’re in danger and trying to escape, or perhaps they’re long dead and their corpse is laying undiscovered.

It’s long been said, in a jokey way, that a story should have: ‘A start a muddle and an end.’ Some famous novels use reverse chronology, beginning at the end of the story and working backwards to explain how the narrator got there. Martin Amis wrote Time’s Arrow through the eyes of a protagonist who can apparently bring people back to life, though it’s revealed that he’s actually a doctor at Auschwitz concentration camp who’s killing inmates in medical experiments.

Ambrose Bierce wrote a famous short story called An Occurrence At Owl Creek, which begins as the narrator is about to be hanged by the neck, but there are flashbacks and a twist ending.

Timing is all, and it can affect not just the start of a story, but each subsequent chapter.

William Goldman admitted: I never enter scenes until the last possible moment…and as soon as it’s done I get the hell out of there.

Blaise Pascal reckoned that: The last thing one knows in constructing a work is what to put first.

I’ve rewritten all of my first chapters, after typing The End, to include foreshadowing that I wasn’t thinking of as I set out on a new writing adventure.

Poet Vickie Karp said: When we read, we start at the beginning and continue until we reach the end. When we write, we start in the middle and fight our way out.

Looking at my own Cornish Detective novels, I see that I always begin my stories in the here and now, describing the crime victim as their body is found or as they die or as they are released from danger.

In Who Kills A Nudist? the titular murder victim was killed the night before the story starts

The Perfect Murderer begins on the day that the third victim of a serial killer is found, a murderer who took his first target two months before.

An Elegant Murder starts in the present, but, in the mind of a deluded woman who is about to be murdered. Mentally, she is living forty years ago, having just escaped incarceration in the mental health system.

Sin Killers starts in the here and now, as seen through the eyes of a five-year-old boy who’s just been released by his kidnappers, who held him for two days.

The fifth story, written in 2018, The Dead Need Nobody begins a few minutes before a young painter is thrown to her death. The murder happened three weeks before the rest of the story starts.

I never reveal from Chapter One who the killer is, though he usually appears early on. In the two novels I’ve written from a multiple POV, the murderer gets his say. My crime stories are how-catch-’ems rather than who-dun-its. Although they begin in the present, all of the investigations involve delving back decades into the childhoods of the antagonists, to unravel the motivation for their crimes.

When do you begin your story?

Do you use a prologue describing the dim and distant past, when something significant occurred, with repercussions for your modern day characters?

Have any of you ever written a tale that begins at the end of the events that make up the bulk of the story?

Querying

Dealing with Critics

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Most of us are still in the unpublished manuscript stage of being an author unless we’ve self-published an ebook online.

I’m a member of The Colony, on the Litopia website, where we’re fortunate to be able to get our writing critiqued by fellow writers, including Agent Pete, in a calm, considerate and constructive way. But, nastier criticism may erupt should your book ever be published, to be reviewed by hired guns working for newspapers and journals, as well as by everyday readers posting their comments online.

Ambling around the internet recently, I came across this well-considered article on bad reviews.

(The link in the article to Alice Hoffman’s meltdown is broken, so try this one.)

Writer of the article, Canadian novelist Emily St John Mandel has previous form as an astute commentator on publishing trends.

I think that the best attitude to have with reviews is that of Joanna Smith-Rakoff, who doesn’t read any of them—good or bad.

I have a jaundiced attitude towards reviewers, born of experience and an enquiring suspicious mind. Recently, I was puzzled by a favourable review of a novel, which had been panned by other critics, and a bit of research showed that it was printed by the same publisher that handled the reviewer and that both were represented by the same literary agent!

As for reviews and comments left by members of the public on sites like Amazon and its book review arm Goodreads, some are thoughtful, while others are the demented rantings of trolls. I helped to manage a community centre for four years, which had a free computer suite. One of the regular users was a creepy dude who spent a lot of time posting inflammatory comments online—he hadn’t even read the thread concerned. Eventually, he was banned for trying to access prohibited sites. I could never work out how his mind worked, for he lived in a world of hate, trying to drag everyone down to his pitiful level.

Some brilliant observations of critics have been made over the years:

*Gene Fowler: Don’t be dismayed by the opinions of editors, or critics. They are only the traffic cops of the arts.

*Anonymous: Critics are like eunuchs at an orgy.

*Channing Pollock: A critic is like a legless man who teaches running.

*Christopher Hampton: Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post how it feels about dogs.

*Kenneth Tynan: A critic is a man who knows the way but can’t drive the car.

*Erin Andrews: I think what I try to do with all of the naysayers, negative comments, or even people that think you can’t do it, is I’m trying very hard to use it as motivation and to add that chip on my shoulder.

I think, that if a book reviewer is also an author, then their opinion might have more validity, though there have been plenty of literary feuds.

My attitude towards self-doubt, while writing a novel, and towards any criticism that may come my way when it’s published, mirrors the advice given by Hilary Mantel:

The most helpful quality a writer can cultivate is self-confidence—arrogance if you can manage it. You write to impose yourself on the world, and you have to believe in your own ability when the world shows no sign of agreeing with you.

I decided long ago, that there is zero point in beating myself up. Such an attitude is ideal for being a writer. In five years, I’ve been told “NO!” 650 times through rejected queries, so my already thick hide is now bulletproof!

It may be because I’ve gone through so much shit in my life, that I’ve developed a mindset where I really don’t give a toss what people think of me—apart from a few valued friends. I’m more concerned with pleasing myself, by producing stories that are of high quality. What I’m finding hard to come to terms with, is that I’ve actually entered a Popularity Game, in which I have to appeal to lots of people—agents, publishers, potential readers, actual readers who’ve bought the book + all of the attendant publicity twerps, like journalists and media reporters who I’m meant to cosy up to in an attempt at favourable publicity.

As for critics, I really don’t have the time for them. I’m reminded of something that Edgar Rice Burroughs had his hero Tarzan of the Apes say when he was criticised:

“Does a lion listen to the yapping of the jackals?”

What is your attitude to being criticised?

Does it destroy you, or do you use it as a basis for improving…or, do you dismiss it as jealousy?

Writing

What Books do your Characters Read?

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I’ve just finished reading Henning Mankell’s An Event In Autumn, a Kurt Wallander thriller. It includes a 14-page afterword, in which the author reflects on how he came to start writing novels about a Swedish detective.

I was pleased to see that he chose crime fiction, as a way of exploring the problems in society, which is one of the main reasons that I began my Cornish Detective series. He quotes a Danish-Norwegian novelist Aksel Sandmose, who said ‘The only things worth writing about are love and murder’, though, Mankell reckons that money should be added, to create a perfect trinity. After all, the old adage in criminal investigations, of ‘Follow the money,’ often leads to the culprit.

Apparently, Mankell is frequently asked what books Kurt Wallander reads. In the eleven Wallander novels, he regularly listens to music, usually classical, but books are rarely mentioned. Mankell thinks his fictional detective would be a big fan of Sherlock Holmes.

It made me wonder about my own protagonist Chief Inspector Neil Kettle, who is a left-wing, Green and Bohemian copper. He’s unlike the normal rogue detective or private investigator, who are heavy drinkers, gamblers, and drug-takers with women problems; I’m bored with that old trope. My hero is eccentric, and though the son of a farmer, is rather cerebral, painting watercolour landscapes and reading books on art. I briefly mentioned in Book 1, Who Kills A Nudist?, that he prefers American crime novels (as do I), but perhaps I should say which authors he likes.

He could share my reading tastes—James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane, Walter Mosley and Lawrence Block—but, not Lee Child, James Patterson, Dan Brown, Tom Clancy or Stephenie Meyer.

In creating a rounded character for my protagonist, it’s important to include his preferences in music, art, clothing, food, vehicles, cinema and his attitude to the natural world. Interestingly, Mankell’s readership increased when he gave Wallander diabetes. My detective worries about going bald, went through two years of severe depression and needs to attend massage therapy to treat old injuries. It’s important to remember that readers bond with characters as much for their weaknesses as their strengths.

Fictional characters who read books include Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series, Elizabeth Bennett from Pride & Prejudice, Scout Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird, Holden Caulfield from The Catcher In The Rye, and Walter Mosley’s private investigator Leonid McGill is a real bibliophile.

Do your fictional characters read books?

Is their choice of reading matter a surprise, or does it fit their character and their profession?

Writing

The Getting of Wisdom

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There are a million writing advice sites online—actually, 436,000,000 if you search Google—everybody knows what you should be doing as a writer, (though, the easiest thing to do in the world is live someone else’s life!).

Here are three things that I’ve learned, and which I frequently remind myself of:

1) Do It! Your story won’t exist unless you write it.

Even if you don’t feel in the mood for reeling off pages of creative writing, do something: jot down ideas, edit what you’ve already written, research facts, especially those you’re sure are correct, and try looking at what you’ve penned from the point of view of another character—which may reveal something you’ve forgotten to mention.

Writing is always a long hard slog, but you’ll feel better about yourself if you’ve typed only a few words. Mind you, thinking about writing also qualifies as writing!

2) Don’t Beat Yourself Up! Everyone is a critic, including you, but be your own ally, rather than an enemy.

Writers can be self-defeating, not believing in themselves, which isn’t the way to get anything done. Face it, from the start, you’ve entered into a creative act that illiterate, disinterested non-readers will ignore, while others love books, but not yours! From literary agents, to book publishers, editors, publicists, marketers, book reviewers, bookshop owners, ebook websites, browsing readers and readers who actually pay for your title, your book will have nasty things said about it + courtesy of the internet, the insults may well be personal. That’s the battlefield: bring bandages, you’re going to get hurt!

Why inflict pain on oneself, when so many others are ready to save us the trouble?

George W. Pacaud

Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

Haruki Murakami

3) Write Stuff Down! Sounds obvious, but recording ideas stimulates more ideas, and there’s evidence that the pen is mightier than the keyboard.

I can’t imagine writing an entire novel by hand, but I do jot down ideas on pieces of card and leave them sticking out from beneath my laptop, which subtly stimulates my brain into working on the word, phrase or plot twist—more so, than if I’d simply typed it into a document on-screen.

If you don’t write stuff down, there will come a time when your book is finished when you suddenly recall what you forgot to include, as the neglected detail flaps into sight like a vulture with greasy wings!

I’ve got dozens of folders containing notions, conversations and names for characters that may appear in future stories. It’s a great way of saving time and making yourself feel good about yourself if you rediscover a brainwave you had the year before.

Also, keep stuff! By that, I mean don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, when you’re editing a manuscript. You may decide to dispense with a conversation between two characters, as being overly fussy for the thrust of your narrative, but it could be ideal for a future project.

Who’s to say that great writers didn’t almost ditch some of their most famous words?

Writing

Are Writers Selfish?

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It’s undeniable, that to get a book written, an author has to be selfish.

We have to make the time to be alone in our creative space, to open the channels into the fictional world we command. That’s one of the joys of writing, for however confusing things become, we authors are at least able to decide how our stories will play out—unlike real life!

Not that it’s always pleasant to be confronted with a blank page. Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe compared writing a novel to being imprisoned:

It is like wrestling; you are wrestling with ideas and with the story. There is a lot of energy required. At the same time, it is exciting. So it is both difficult and easy. What you must accept is that your life is not going to be the same while you are writing. I have said in the kind of exaggerated manner of writers and prophets that writing, for me, is like receiving a term of imprisonment — you know that’s what you’re in for, for whatever time it takes.

Prisoners are occasionally visited by family and friends, and like a prisoner the writer needs to make a conscious effort to shake off the hidden world that occupies their thoughts, attempting to return to the reality of everyday living to interact with normal people.

That’s not to say, that writers constantly take pleasure in excluding loved ones, and even strangers, for sitting alone working, tussling with your imagination and confronting your own humanity has a way of throwing you back on yourself. Solitude may help creativity, but it helps to be happy in your own skin.

The commitment we need to write a book is assailed by doubts about its lack of commercial worth. We’ve created something, but if it doesn’t interest anyone and fails to sell itself, we’re effectively non-productive. It helps to have admirers among your relatives and friends, to buoy up your ego.

George Orwell said in Why I Write:

“All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane.” 

In 2016, Irish novelist John Banville stirred up a hornet’s nest of recriminations, after declaring that writers are bad fathers.

It’s undeniable, that the 20th-century’s best-selling children’s author, Enid Blyton, was a terrible mother, bringing misery to her daughters. Her writing came first, and she preferred the idea of happy families, rather than making one herself.

We have to be self-centred as writers, but does that make us selfish?

I live a solitary existence, happy to be reclusive. I don’t have a family and no friends who live locally. I made a deliberate decision to leave a town where I’d lived for 15 years, to move to an area new to me, so that I could write without distractions. This could be seen as selfish or egocentric or devoted to my craft.

I’m in regular contact with half a dozen friends, in the U.K., New Zealand and the U.S.A., and three have graciously acted as readers for me. As I’m happier than I’ve been in years, they don’t worry about me being stupidly selfish by doing something that’s frivolous and potentially harmful. I like the devotion and discipline required to be a writer, and freely admit that it’s addictive…but, it’s an addiction that enhances me, and which may benefit readers if they ever discover my stories!

Do you ever worry about being selfish?

What have you given up, to be a writer?

Writing

Creativity in Sleep

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I like to think that I’m quite a capable director of my dreams. I alter the angle from which I view the action, zooming in for close-ups and panning across the scene. I’ve become adept at recognising when a dream is straying into nightmare territory, waking myself up and consciously thinking of something else as I re-enter sleep.

In the summer of 2013, I began to dream of imaginary scenarios that were plainly meant to be sections of a story or poetry. I’d been through a long and debilitating period of depression, during which I didn’t do very much at all, although my waking hours had become enlivened by titles for stories, phrases and characters’ names popping into my consciousness. That this creativity intruded into my sleep gave me hope, and I was compelled to record some of the ideas. These rapidly expanded into the plots for short stories and novellas. I also began to write poetry, with some verses arriving unbidden while I slept. I can honestly say that writing has been my salvation.

It wasn’t all joy and light, however. In researching the events that went into the back story of a serial killer in my first novel The Perfect Murderer, I read lots on the atrocities committed in Serbia in the 1990s. My villain’s attitudes towards relationships and the taking of lives were formed then, for he was a boy soldier when he first killed. The war crimes that happened then, reawoke my memories of what the Nazis had done. I’d learnt about the Holocaust as a young child, my first realisation of man’s inhumanity to man.

My serial killer is called The Watcher, a nickname that was awarded to him by his fellow soldiers for his patience and observation skills as a sniper. He’s transferred his stalking and camouflage expertise to the fields of Cornwall, and is tracking down and killing victims as part of a bizarre role-playing game. I guess that we’re all a bit paranoid about being watched these days, as we’re all under surveillance of some sort or other. I became even more nervous as The Watcher started to watch me, his creator, as I slept.

I was vaguely aware of his shadowy presence while I dreamed about sections of the novel, my work in progress, but on three occasions he intruded into dreams that were nothing to do with his story. Possibly because I never gave an accurate description of him while writing, he appeared as a silvery wraith form—but he was of menace and about to attack me! I’m a peace-loving man, but can be combative if confronted—so I attacked him back!

This would have been fine, had my belligerence been confined to the dream, but I acted physically. The first time I rolled out of bed, strangling a cushion that I’d been cuddling. Round two, a couple of weeks later, could have damaged my precious laptop, for I head-butted the coffee table that it rests on – I woke as it slid to the floor, just catching it. The worst incident of nocturnal fighting, prompted by my creative mind, involved me kicking The Watcher – or rather the wall next to my bed.

I was rather pleased with my aggression as I drifted back to sleep, though I thought that my big toe would be sore in the morning, as I’d given my assailant a full-blooded punt in the privates. When I went to get up in the morning, I couldn’t put any weight on that foot and the toe was double the size that it should be. Initially, I thought that I’d damaged some tendons or ligaments, but realised after a few days that I’d probably broken a bone. There was a half-inch deep divot in the wall plaster, so this was quite likely. There’s not a lot to be done with such a break, so I rested up for a couple of weeks while limping around pathetically.

Image result for dreaming writer painting

The Nightmare by Henri Fuseli, 1781.

Thankfully, the nightmares never came back, though after recently returning to creative writing following seven months of submitting to agents and publishers, I have had pleasant moments of inspiration while sleeping.

I suppose that at the very least, I could use my night-time fighting as part of the blurb for The Perfect Murderer—“Writing this book scared the author so much that he broke his big toe!”

Have any of you found inspiration in sleep? Various famous authors have been inspired by what they saw in their dreams, including Stephenie Meyer with Twilight, Stephen King with Misery, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Richard Bach and his Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

King, in particular, uses dreams as inspiration. He’s been quoted as saying, “I’ve always used dreams the way you’d use mirrors to look at something you couldn’t see head-on, the way that you use a mirror to look at your hair in the back.” He credits his dreams with giving him the concepts for several of his novels and for helping him to solve troublesome moments in the writing of his novel It as well. 

Image result for dreaming about book cartoon

Writing

The Ice in a Writer’s Heart

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In his autobiography, A Sort of Life, Graham Greene famously said that there was a ‘splinter of ice in the heart of a writer,’ which allowed them to contemplate tragedy in a dispassionate way and turn it into art. Such self-possession might well repulse people who don’t write.

Ethical considerations must bother many writers: how can we write about tragic and distasteful subjects, without being moved? Are we monsters who exploit unhappiness? Revealing family secrets, even if it’s done in veiled fictional form, could be seen as a shocking betrayal.

Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz reckoned that “When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.” In recent years, Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgaard has published a series of six autobiographical novels, titled My Struggle, which have dissected his relationships with family members and friends, leading to deep hurt and rifts. The morality of what he did is open to question—what price fame?—how far is a writer prepared to go in selling his soul down the river?

An ex-girlfriend who he knew for four years, was referred to by the anonymous name of Gunvor in book five. She said, in a newspaper interview: “It was as if he said: Now I’m going to punch you in the face. I know it’s going to hurt, and I will drive you to the hospital afterwards. But I’m going to do it anyway.”

He’s not the sort of person to strike up a friendship with unless you fancy seeing your character shredded on the pages of one of his books!

Any author writes to achieve a certain private emotional satisfaction and to take a stance on difficult aspects of life. We hope to produce a reaction in the reader, while not revealing too much about ourselves, which demands abstraction. I’ve written about some repulsive crimes in my novels, including murder, kidnapping, rape, torture and slavery. I do so, to make points about the state of society, rather than out of a morbid relish for the agony and pain caused by the criminals; some readers may like my stories for those reasons, but that’s out of my control.

I’ve become upset by some of the dreadful atrocities I’ve researched, so much so, that I broke my big toe!

But, it would be remiss of me to write as if I was upset, for the story wouldn’t ring true. My detective protagonist’s response to the crime he’s investigating may well influence the reader. Enough space has to be left, for the reader to decide how they feel.

I deliberately hold back from giving too many gory details, but I’m sure that I’ll offend some people who’ll suggest that I’m exploiting real-life victims in a cold-hearted way. As the old saying goes, “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”.”

Nevertheless, there are moves afoot in publishing to make books politically correct, through the use of sensitivity readers.

This sounds like a great way of producing homogenised writing, where none of the characters does anything that’s likely to offend anyone, no matter what their race, gender, sexuality, politics, disabilities or ethics. No story will be too hot or too cold, and nor will they be ‘just right‘ (thanks Goldilocks) they’ll just be lukewarm and insipid.

A certain amount of coldness, even political incorrectness and moral ambiguity is essential to bring a chill to the reader, to make them react, to want to know what happens next, to read on….

How cold-hearted are you, when you write?

Do you worry about what people will think about you?

Does your conscience do battle with your desire to tell a story?

Have you ever read anything that made you wonder if the author was a psychopath?

Image result for someecards writing you into my book

Humour, Writing

Do Writers Look Like Their Books?

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You know how it’s said, that people look like their dogs, and vice-versa?

The same can be said of cat owners.

Well, I was wondering if authors resemble the books that they write…could you pick out the sci-fi writers from romance authors and those who pen historical sagas (with a goose quill pen) should you be at a writers’ conference?

I don’t think that I look particularly homicidal, though I’ve been writing crime novels for the last five years. If anything, my long curly hair and beard might lead people to suspect that I’m a sci-fi author or someone who churns out dire outlaw biker thrillers, or maybe non-fiction about counter-culture and rock musicians.

Guessing what someone does for a job is occasionally easy, especially if you’ve hung around with that crowd. It hardly needs Sherlock Holmes’ powers of observation, to identify which people are farmers in a pub bar—their clothing, weather-beaten complexions, footwear and unkempt hairstyles all give them away. I once worked as a barman in an inn that was close to a police station and Crown Court: it was simple to tell the difference between the coppers and the legal eagles, even in plain clothes. There was also a town pub notorious for being fraternised by criminals, and I observed many similarities between ever-watchful and cynical law-breakers and their pursuers, the observant detectives who believe no one’s story.

An author’s appearance can be crucial in helping to market and sell their books. I’ve previously ranted on about how some literary agencies and publishers have a roster of clients that looks like a modelling agency.

All the same, it’s impossible for any of us to escape a tendency to have a stereotypical image of how a genre writer should look. As I contemplate creating an online persona to market my Cornish Detective series, I’ve been wondering daft things, such as should I acquire a long wax-proof coat for my author picture, along with a sturdy walking pole—my protagonist detective has both—for me to be artfully posed on a Bodmin Moor granite crag? Shoot me, now! 

Image result for bodmin moor

These are the sort of things that authors agonise over, as this article about famed photographic portraitist Marion Ettlinger reveals. Sadly, the article doesn’t show her photographs, but here’s a link to her website.

Some of her images hint at what sort of books an author writes, or, at least their stance and clothing suggest their style.

One aspect of marketing that amuses me, is how the dust jacket end flap shows a photograph of the author from 20 years ago, back when his skin was tight and his hair profuse and he didn’t look like one of the Walking Dead. I wonder if the choice is at the author’s insistence (I’m forever young!) or the publicity department is blatantly conning the reading public.

So, do you look like the author of your book?

Could a reader guess that you write fantasy stories?

Do all writers of children’s books look friendly and approachable, open to new experiences—like adult-sized children?

Writing

Stealing Book Titles from Great Literature

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I recently read Richard Flanagan’s 2014 Man Booker Prize-winning novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North, and curious about the title, I did some investigating and found it comes from a 17th-century Japanese work by poet Matsuo Bashõ, which is considered to be one of the major texts of Japanese literature.

Image result for poet Matsuo Bashõ

It’s a common practice, for authors to lift titles or quotations from literature as titles for their works. There’s a Wikipedia page on the subject.

Quite often, the new book overshadows the source of inspiration. For instance, many more readers know of Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings than the title’s source, Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem Sympathy.

In my own writing, I inadvertently almost stole a book title. I called my second Cornish Detective novel The Perfect Murderer, which was partly a teasing piece of misdirection made by one of the sinister characters, who described a serial killer in this glowing way when it was actually him who’d perfectly evaded detection.

I was thinking what a clever boy I’d been, when I read a guide to writing by H. R. F. Keating called Writing Crime Fiction, in which he mentioned his first Inspector Ghote novel, that was called The Perfect Murder. It was first published in 1964, but I realised that I’d read it, as well as several other stories in the series while working as a librarian in London in the 1970s. I’d forgotten about it, but perhaps a part of my subconscious stored the title away as being eye-catching.

Since then, I’ve been diligent in checking that my chosen titles aren’t the same as previously published novels—as well as finding out if my characters’ names already prowl the pages of famous works of literature.

Having a book title that lifts a familiar phrase can be an effective ‘hook’, (even if it’s only subliminally), to make people remember it. A good example is John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, which was suggested by his wife Carol after he had difficulties thinking of something. It’s taken from The Battle Hymn of the Republic, by Julia Ward Howe:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

Having exactly the same book title as a bestseller can have unexpected sales benefits, as the startled author of a military history book recently discovered.

Have you used quotes, lyrics from songs, lines from verse or existing book titles as inspiration for your own novel’s title?