Michelle Dee enters the grisly world of crime fiction, a place where a black inkwell resides at the heart of every writer, and attempts to piece together, from the thoughts expressed by a select gathering of authors, a rough guide to crime writing.
On the panel alongside host Nick Triplow were Nick Quantrill promoting ‘The Crooked Beat’ the third title following Private Investigator Joe Geraghty, author David Mark with ‘Original Skin’ his second in the series featuring Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy and blogger and online crime reviewer Luca Veste, whose debut novel ‘Dead Gone’ is due out January next year.
Nick Triplow stated very clearly how and why a crime title works. “There is a question posed to the reader,” he began, “A question that demands an answer, and at the end you hope to have provided an answer that is engaging, and will satisfy the reader.”
Read
All of the writers on the panel stated how important it was to read, and not just other crime titles but work from any genre. Each author had a story about reading a particular book that had inspired them, stirred them and had ultimately played a role in their career path. David Mark read from ‘Being Dead’ by Jim Grace exulting the power of the forensic detail of the body. As he reads an excerpt from his first novel ‘Dark Winter’, the opening where his hero McAvoy, first lays eyes on the victim’s body, the humanity behind the attention to detail comes across. The sense of life as a precious thing, rather than a means to an end. A character’s life as not just a plot device to be pushed into the firing line and then wheeled out on a gurney…
Place
Nick Quantrill has Ian Rankin to thank, for showing him the importance of place when describing the Hull streets filled with past lives, which his flawed hero Joe Geraghty lives in and operates. Rankin has such a strong sense of place, the old stone streets and alleyways and the outlying estates of Edinburgh are given just as much time and thought as the killer or crime. Nick describes Rebus and his world, as leaping off the page and setting the benchmark for his own stories. He freely admits that writers are magpies: as he himself, reads different writers, he will pick up on certain aspects, tools, devices, approaches and experiment with them in his own work.
Triplow suggested that for him it was BAFTA award-winning documentary ‘The Tower – A Tale of Two Cities’ filmed on a Deptford estate in S.E. London, that really drove home the importance and authenticity of place, where as Luca Veste chose something other than place as the linchpin for his pending title.
Luca spoke about the importance of pace; the sense of creeping horror, that he first encountered reading Steve Mosby’s ‘The 50:50 Killer’. A story where it wasn’t so important, where the narrative was taking place, but that the narrative moved inexorably forward, and that the reader is drawn slowly and surely into a nightmare world. Triplow said, that one of the things that can draw him in is the tension afforded by the secrets that family keep from each other, and the potential for gripping story telling that allows.
Character and Voice
What is that mystery of finding your own voice? When you write for yourself, not tailoring, manipulating the work perhaps thinking about it fitting, appealing to an audience is that it? Or perhaps it is when you draw a character to the nth detail and only allow them to say and do things that they really would do.
Triplow talked about the power of a character who is dead, a character who although is not physically in the story directly affects the narrative. Reading from ‘Last Orders’ by Graham Swift he caused quite a stir on the panel as they all agreed and reaffirmed how well he draws his characters and develops atmosphere.
As Veste read from his Mosby game-changer he made reference to the author’s usage of religious iconography in this case the devil thus making connections with and drawing battle lines for the eternal struggle between Good and Evil. The killer the embodiment of evil and the police/detective as representing the good.
The mystery or secret behind finding your own voice can only be revealed over time and perseverance which we look at in the next segment. On the subject of voice Triplow stated categorically he wanted to get as far away from the modish one dimensional London gangster tone put forward by Lock Stock Dir. Guy Ritchie and repeatedly and ridiculously portrayed by the actor Danny Dyer and his ilk.
Perseverance
The idea of writing filled me with dread Veste says, “Coming from Liverpool I started with an idea for a gangster on the estates,” although some within the online community – where Luca is a prominent and respected figure – thought the character had potential, his Editor thought it wasn’t right. Luca went away and continued reviewing others work. It wasn’t until he started researching the animal experimentation conducted by eminent psychologist Harry F. Harlow, he had his moment of revelation and for me the most chilling moment of the entire session. ‘What would happen if you did this to a person?’ Thus the idea for ‘Dead Gone’ was borne.
The panel members talked about getting numerous rejections letter for previous titles and the need to develop a thick skin that all writers must, and continue to send out manuscripts to publishers. Coupled with this need for perseverance was the key importance of finding a good agent to represent you and your title. Agents can be found in the Writers and Artists Year Book. Although finding an agent can be pot luck you should choose one who is already representing writers similar to yourself.
Luck
All writers have a ‘good luck’ story, that moment of being in the right time and place that allowed something incredibly auspicious to happen. And all though it is possible to wax lyrical about the existence of luck, good or bad, to talk of chance and coincidence, as many have done before, you can increase your chances of having a stroke of good fortune.
By attending the many and varied crime events on the calendar, new writers can learn tools of the trade from best selling authors, share their work with those similarly minded, perhaps find an agent or publisher or walk into a life changing situation.
There are undoubtedly more that you could add to the list but the importance of those outlined above was highlighted time and again by the writers at the Crime Writing event – part of Hull’s Heads Up Festival
Thanks Michelle for a first rate summary of the author perspectives and discussions.