The Intel: Kate Medina

 

Kate Medina received widespread acclaim for her debut thriller, White Crocodile – written as KT Medina – set in the minefields of Cambodia. Now, with Fire Damage, Kate’s started an explosive new series featuring army psychologist Dr Jessie Flynn.

When asked to treat a severely traumatised four year old boy, Jessie has no idea that she will soon becoming embroiled in something much bigger – involving family secrets, army cover-ups and a killer on the loose.

They say write what you know, and Kate has combined her experiences in the Territorial Army as a Troop Commander in the Royal Engineers with the knowledge she gained studying for a degree in psychology to write the novel.

A generous and fascinating interviewee, Kate tells us about the genesis of her new portage Jessie, why she made the painful decision not to continue with the heroine of her first novel – and how a writing course may be just the ticket to help unlock the talent in all of us.

Plus, I love the way she name-checks a writer who I don’t think has been mentioned in The Intel before, but who has surely sowed the seed of inspiration at an early age in many a crime writer down the decades… Enid Blyton.

Can you tell us about Dr Jessie Flynn … ?

Dr Jessie Flynn is a twenty-nine year old clinical psychologist with the Defence Psychology Service.  Her need to understand the ‘whys’ of human behaviour drove her to become a clinical psychologist, and yet there are huge swathes of her own personality that she struggles to understand, let alone to control.

Women are often portrayed as victims in crime literature.  I wanted to create a character who reflects the huge number of strong, funny, clever, independent women that I know.  Jessie is complex and conflicted, and my new series will be written from her intense, brilliant, flawed, but moral perspective.  I hope that people remember Jessie and the issues raised through her long after they have finished reading.

Fire Damage, the first novel to feature Jessie, is set in both England and Afghanistan – tell us about it.

In Fire Damage, Dr Jessie Flynn is counselling Sami Scott, a deeply traumatised four year-old-boy, whose father, a Major in the Intelligence Corp, was badly burnt in a petrol bomb attack whilst serving in Afghanistan.  Sami is terrified of someone or something called ‘The Shadowman’ and tells Jessie Flynn that ‘the girl knows’.  However, there are no girls in Sami’s life.  Sami also carries a huge black metal Maglite torch with him wherever he goes, clutching onto it like a loved teddy bear.  Sami’s parent insist that his trauma stems from seeing his father in hospital burnt beyond recognition, and that Major Scott is ‘The Shadowman’, but Jessie feels that that something far darker explains Sami’s trauma.

Fire Damage is first and foremost a story about families: love and hate, kindness and cruelty and the destructive nature of some relationships.  The fear and helplessness experienced by a child trapped in a dysfunctional family was, for me, a very powerful emotion to explore, as was its flip side – intense love and an overwhelming desire to protect.

You did a psychology degree and served in the Territorial Army, but what other research did you have to do for the novel?

My degree in Psychology sets me in very good stead to write about a character who is herself a psychologist, so for Jessie’s professional life I needed to do very little research beyond the knowledge and experience that I already have.

Likewise, my experience as a Troop Commander in the Territorial Army and as head of land-based weapons at global defence intelligence publisher Jane’s Information Group set me up well to write about people who serve in the Army and also about the political situation in the middle-east.

The ‘star’ of Fire Damage is Sami Scott, the deeply traumatised four year-old-boy.  I have three children, the youngest of whom is a four-year-old boy and so I suppose you could say that my poor son was a living, breathing research subject for the character of Sami.  However, I can assure my readers that my son’s life is wonderful compared to Sami’s!

What’s the biggest challenge in establishing a new series?

For me, White Crocodile, my debut thriller was hard act to follow, firstly because it was very personal to me, as it was based on time I spent working in the minefields of Cambodia, and secondly because it got universally fantastic reviews, being called variously, ‘a stunning debut’ in the Sunday Mirror, ‘an ambitious thriller’ in The Mail on Sunday, ‘a powerful, angry book’ in The Times, and being compared to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness in The Independent.  The biggest challenge in establishing the Jessie Flynn series, was therefore to find characters and a subject matter that readers would enjoy even more than White Crocodile.

I knew that I wanted to write a series because, although many readers of White Crocodile wanted to see Tess Hardy again, her job as a mine clearer and the subject matter didn’t really allow for her return.  I also wanted to write a series that used my expertise – as a psychologist and my military experience – and one that was a little out of the ordinary in the crime genre.

In Jessie Flynn and the two other key characters, who appear in Fire Damage, Captain Ben Callan and Detective Inspector ‘Bobby’ Marilyn Simmons of Surrey and Sussex Major Crimes, I really believe I have developed characters who my readers will love and want to live with in many future novels.

Before writing your first novel White Crocodile you did an MA in Creative Writing – was that an experience you would recommend for wannabe writers?

Most novelists I meet are former journalists, but I had no previous writing experience beyond school essays, just a strong desire to write White Crocodile.  Writing a novel is a real challenge, not just in terms of crafting great sentences, but also in terms of developing believable, empathetic characters and sufficiently complex and surprising plots.  I found the MA enormously helpful and would definitely recommend some kind of formal writing teaching for wannabe writers, if they have as little experience as I had when starting out!  However, there are many ways to skin a cat and reading widely in the genre in which you write is a great way to learn how to write well in that genre.

What’s the hardest lesson you ever had to learn about writing?

The hardest lesson I’ve learnt is to be self-aware and to take feedback from people who are more knowledgeable than myself.  Writing a novel is a huge commitment in terms of time and emotional energy and with White Crocodile I had to throw away and rewrite about a third of it on the advice of my agent.  At the time, it was heartbreaking, but the experience taught me so much about how to write a great crime novel and neither White Crocodile nor Fire Damage would be nearly so good without the very painful lessons I learnt from my agent right at the beginning of my writing career.

Who are the authors you admire, and why?

I have always loved to read and much of my childhood was spent immersed in stories.  Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series was one of my favourites and in common with many other tomboys I wanted to be George.  Two other books that really captured my imagination as a child were Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird.  They are both fantastic psychological thrillers for young people, with great story lines and incredibly vividly drawn, memorable characters.  I have read both of these novels a number of times over the years and never fail to appreciate them.

I am still an avid crime and thriller reader, which is why I choose to write in that genre.  I love writers such as Jo Nesbo, Stieg Larsson, Martina Cole, Mo Hayder and Lee Child.

Mo Hayder, generates fear in a novel like no other writer I know.  Jo Nesbo’s novels, particularly my favourite which is The Snowman, are also terrifying and he is fantastic at developing very complex plots that make it impossible to put the book down.  I must have read all 500-odd pages of The Snowman in two days.  Martina Cole is gritty and realistic and Lee Child just writes enjoyable and very easily readable stories.

I also love Khaled Hosseni, because he blends fact and fiction so well, taking readers into a very traumatic real word, through incredibly empathetic fictional characters.

What’s your best advice on writing…

My best advice is to read widely, particularly in the genre that you are interested in writing in, to take advice and be self-aware and most importantly, to enjoy yourself.  Enjoyment and passion will transfer itself to the page.  I love Jessie Flynn, Sami Scott and the other characters in Fire Damage, and really enjoyed writing about them, and I think that this love and passion really makes the novel work.

What’s next for you and Jessie?

I have already completed a first draft of the second Jessie Flynn novel and sent it to my publisher, Harper Collins, so I am waiting with baited breath to see if they like it.  Jessie Flynn is a hugely compelling and multi-dimensional character, and as such is a gift to an author, and I am looking forward to developing her, Captain Ben Callan and Detective Inspector ‘Bobby’ Marilyn Simmons of Surrey and Sussex Major Crimes, in many future novels.

***

Fire Damage, the first Jessie Flynn novel, is out this Thursday — March 24th – in hardback, published by Harper Collins.

The Intel: Leigh Russell

Some people have crime authorship sequenced into them at a genetic level. Take Leigh Russell. An incredibly prolific author, she can write two, perhaps three crime novels a year. She’s the author of the Geraldine Steel and Ian Peterson crime series, and her first novel Cut Short was shortlisted for for CWA Debut Dagger Award for Best First Crime Novel.

Now she’s begun a series starring a brand new, globe-trotting heroine – Lucy Hall. In Journey To Death Lucy arrives in the Seychelles determined to leave her worries behind. The tropical paradise looks sun-soaked and picture perfect – but as Lucy soon discovers, appearances can be very deceptive. A deadly secret lurks in the island’s history, buried deep but not forgotten. And it’s about to come to light…

For many years Leigh taught pupils with specific learning difficulties. She guest lectures for the Society of Authors, universities and colleges, and runs regular creative writing courses. She also runs the manuscript assessment service for the CWA. She’s even got her own YouTube channel. Oh, and she only wears purple.

Leigh’s an enthusiastic and fascinating writer, and a generous interviewee – so Crime Thriller is thrilled that she gives us the intel on Lucy, her extraordinary writing routine and how a writer must nurture their own voice…

Tell us about Lucy Hall…

At twenty-two, Lucy Hall is struggling to recover from a broken engagement. Hoping to cheer her up, her parents invite her to accompany them on a holiday to the idyllic island of Mahé in the Seychelles. The trip takes a dark and twisted turn as a secret threatens to destroy them. As she fights for her life, Lucy learns that she is far tougher and more resourceful than she had realised. 

Where did you get the inspiration for Journey to Death?

I was intrigued by a first hand account of a political coup that took place in the Seychelles in the late 1970s. This true account was the inspiration for my story. Apart from the historical background, the narrative is fictitious, as are the characters. Like all my books, it started with the question, ‘what if?’, this time set against a beautiful tropical island background.

The novel is set in the Seychelles – what kind of research did you do on the tropical paradise?

My story was virtually written when I went to the Seychelles to check on the location. We spent two weeks walking along sandy beaches watching the fishing boats setting out at dawn, swimming in the warm ocean, and watching the sun set over the Indian Ocean. It was a magical trip. I spent time at the British High Commission, visited several police stations, walked around the market in the capital, Victoria, and went up into the Cloud Mountain, all of which feature in the book. Everyone I approached was incredibly generous with their time and expertise, and it all helped to add depth and credibility to my narrative.

You’re incredibly prolific, you write two or three books a year, and yet you’ve said you have no writing routine – how do you manage to fit it all in?

I ask myself that question all the time! The only answer I can give you is that I love writing. It’s fitting everything else in that’s the problem. I spend a lot of time on research, and also appear at literary festivals along with all the rest of the promotional activities required of authors. It’s great fun, but I am often exhausted. My typing is quite fast, but a book is not about putting words on the page. It’s about thinking and ideas, backed up by working out and research. Once my story is in place, off I go. My schedule is incredibly busy but I like to work hard, so as long as the ideas keep coming, I’ll keep writing.

You run the manuscript assessment service for the Crime Writers Association – what’s the one piece of advice you would offer aspiring crime writers?

The one piece of advice I would give is to trust yourself. Other people will challenge and question what you do all the time, and it’s vital for a writer to be able take advice on board when it feels right, but you need to have that inner core of belief in yourself as a writer or your voice will be lost.

What’s the hardest lesson you ever had to learn about writing?

A number of negative reviews appeared on amazon shortly after one of my books reached number one on kindle, but you have to learn to take negative experiences like that on the chin. I try to focus on the many positive reviews, and the encouraging messages fans send to my website, which I find really inspiring. I think most authors worry that readers might not like their books, so it’s important to be reminded that there are fans who appreciate what you do. So far I’ve been thrilled by the positive response my books have received. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Lucy Hall is also well received.

Who are the authors you admire, and why?

Having spent four years studying English and American Literature at university in the UK, my reading taste is quite varied. I admire so many authors, it’s very hard to pick just a few, but names that spring to mind are John Steinbeck, Harper Lee, Edith Wharton, Kazuo Ishiguro, Charles Dickens, Emily Bronte… I could go on. Among contemporary crime writers Lee Child, Jeffery Deaver and Peter James, all of whom are fans of my books, Val McDermid, Ruth Rendell, Michael Robotham, Alexander McCall Smith… again I could go on. There are so many great writers around, we are spoilt for choice, thank goodness!

Give me some advice about writing…

The late great William McIlvanney wrote: ‘I didn’t tell people how to write. I encouraged them to write and to see that defying my advice was possibly as valuable as following it.’ To my way of thinking, this is excellent advice. There are no rules in writing, other than to make your writing work. If you want to try something that has never been done before, of course there might be a reason why no one else has attempted it, but why not give it a go? If you don’t try, you will never know if you could have succeeded. And challenging yourself is part of the thrill of writing.

What’s next for you?

I’m currently working on the second book in the Lucy Hall series. This one sees Lucy in Paris, which of course required more research. We stayed in several locations near the centre of the city, visiting sites like the Eiffel Tower, and exploring fascinating areas off the tourist map. While we were there, we tried out different sorts of French food and wine…  Yes, all this research is hard work!

***

Journey To Death is available now as a paperback and in ebook, published by Thomas & Mercer.

The Intel: Richard Davis

Readers can’t get enough of those FBI guys who travel the length and breadth of the States. Going off the grid, getting embroiled in mayhem and conspiracies, going mano-a-mano with diabolical forces. We love it when they’re mavericks — rule-breakers fuelled by a burning sense of justice.

Saul Marshall is one of those guys. He’s the protag in a new, high-octane series by Richard Davis. In the first, False Prophet, Marshall takes on a psychotic cult leader who has taken his son hostage.

Richard grew up in north London. He graduated from UCL and Cambridge University, and his fascination with the US stems from a series of childhood holidays there – touring the east and west coasts – and as he went from state-to-state he developed a taste for American thrillers. Richard’s writing career has started early, he’s still in his twenties, so you can expect plenty more Saul Marshall adventures to come.

He’s kindly agreed to give us the intel on his enigmatic conman hero, scary cults and how a young man from North London came to start a US-set crime series. And he talks about the punishing candle-burning sessions that allowed him to study for a Masters and write a action-fuelled thriller. You’re really going to want to read this…

Tell us about Saul Marshall…

Saul Marshall is a tough-talking New Yorker. In his late teens and early twenties he landed himself in a world of trouble when his ambitious – and wildly successful – confidence tricks put him firmly on the FBI’s radar. But once the FBI finally hauled him in, they realised it’d be a waste to let him rot, and so he joined their ranks. Fifteen years on, a reformed Saul is still living with the fallout from his past. But though he’s now on the straight and narrow, the Bureau has only enhanced Saul’s capacity for deception and mayhem – meaning that should he once again be forced to work outside the law, he’d be all the more formidable…

Saul is analytical, passionate (at times to the point of recklessness), loyal, and graced with an absurd sense of humour. He loathes injustice, always sticks up for the little guy, and inspires powerful emotions in those who cross his path.

In False Prophet, Marshall takes on a deranged cult leader – why are crime readers so fascinated by cults?

Crime readers are fascinated by cults because they’re fascinating!

In November 1978, over 900 occupants at a cult settlement in Guyana took their own lives at the behest of their messianic leader, the infamous Jim Jones. In March 1995, Aum Shinrikyo, a cult headed up by a man self-styling as Christ reborn, released sarin gas into five subway carriages in Tokyo, killing fifteen. These, of course, are extreme examples, but they demonstrate what cults are capable of – and I think what people want to know is: how and why do some cultists end up behaving in these ways? These are questions I explore in False Prophet.

I think the fascination is also fuelled by the relatively recent prominence of extreme Islamic groups, because they share many similarities with violent cultic movements – a fact not lost on my deranged cult leader, who draws direct inspiration from Islamists.

You’re a guy from North London – some people may be surprised that you’re writing a new high-octane thriller series set in the States…

I hope so – it’s always good to surprise people.

The truth is, there is a long history of outsiders writing about the States. And that stands to reason, given that America was a nation founded by – and made into the preeminent world power that it is – by outsiders and immigrants. And America’s founding philosophy is deeply democratic, and so, by the logic of the New World, absolutely anyone is eligible to write about it. Arguably an outsider writing about the American experience is the very definition of an American writer.

I find it no surprise that the biggest writer of American thriller fiction today is the British, West Midlands born Lee Child, and that the Brixton born David Bowie felt at home enough in the States to call himself a child of New York.

What kind of research did you do to get a detailed sense of location?

I am lucky enough to have travelled a good deal around America: I have visited some 14 states, and have been to most major locations featured in False Prophet – New York, Boston, Washington DC. In fact, I have stayed in a couple of the hotels I write about, as well as the address in the Prologue. And though I’ve never visited Mineral, Virginia – the small town that makes a big appearance – I have visited other towns in a similar neck of the woods.

When it comes to familiarising myself with the exact geography of a location – even a place I’ve been to a number of times – Google Maps is a godsend. But I also try to read up on locations I write about: I found an interesting essay on the history of DC’s architecture, for example, which deepened my understanding of a place I’d already visited.

Not many people have authored a new crime series at such a young age – you’re still in your mid-twenties – what has been your writing journey?

I’m not sure I’d consider myself particularly young – after all, Saul Marshall accomplished far more than me by 25!

I started writing my first novel in my third and final year at UCL – when I was twenty-one – and completed it the following year, during my Masters at Cambridge (where I specialised in, you guessed it, American Literature). I’d aim to get the academic stuff done by 1 a.m., then would work on my own stuff until 3.30 – 4 a.m. After university, I decided to write a new book – something that I would attempt to get published – and that’s when I started dreaming up Saul Marshall.

First came the research – which led to a document of well over 100,000 words of notes – and then came the seemingly endless rounds of writing and rewriting. I immersed myself in the world of the FBI, cults, and weaponry, and, in doing so, pretty much fell off the grid. I wrote it to a soundtrack of David Bowie and Alabama 3 (a London-based band that has appropriated the sound of American gospel and country music), and drank so much coffee that I nearly hospitalised myself.

I should add that it would have been impossible to make the journey to publication without the support of my incredible agents, Harriet Poland and Maggie Hanbury, and the vote of confidence from the threesome running Canelo, the best publisher anyone could ask for.

What’s the hardest lesson you ever had to learn about writing?

There are no short cuts when it comes to writing a novel. The hard way is the only way if you want to produce something worthwhile.

Who are the authors you admire, and why?

G.K. Chesterton, for his ingenious plots. Patricia Highsmith, for her supreme sense of timing, and her unrivalled ability to evoke place. Paul Auster, for his crisp, effortless prose, and outlandish ideas. Lee Child, for showing me the dark potential of small-town America.

I can’t really provide an exhaustive list here, because it’d go on forever – but those are a few of my favourites.

Give me some advice about writing… 

I feel strange offering advice, because I’m still learning myself…

If I had to say something, it would be this – plan your novel meticulously. I reckon that knowing where you’re going enormously increases your chances of seeing the thing through.

What’s next for you and Saul?

Work has started on a sequel – and, unfortunately for Saul, it looks like he’s about to be sucked into the orbit of another deadly and shocking conspiracy. I don’t want to give too much away, but I’m introducing a very different set of antagonists in the sequel: I don’t want Saul, or my readers, getting too comfortable.

***

False Prophet, published by Canelo, is available to download as an ebook right now.

 

 

The Intel: Nadia Dalbuono

The American is the follow-up to Nadia Dalbuono’s acclaimed Rome-set thriller The Few, which featured  her compromised detective, Leone Scamarcio. So we’re dead excited at Crime Thriller Fella that Nadia has agreed to spill the beans about her conflicted hero, as part of The American Blog Tour.

The son of a former leading mafioso, Scamarcio has turned his back on the family business and joined the Rome police force. When he is called to investigate an apparent suicide on the Ponte Sant’Angelo, a stone’s throw from Vatican City, the dead man’s expensive suit suggests yet another businessman fallen on hard times.

But Scamarcio is immediately troubled by similarities with the 1982 murder of Roberto Calvi, dubbed ‘God’s Banker’ because of his work for the Vatican Bank. When, days later, a cardinal with links to the bank is killed, and the CIA send a couple of heavies to warn him off the case, Scamarcio knows he is on to something big …

A documentary filmmaker for Channel Four, Nadia these days devotes more time to writing in Italy. She gives us the intel on Scamarcio, the beautiful shadow world of Rome, the real life mystery that fuels her new book –  and how, if you’re a writer, you’re going to have to take criticism on the chin.

Tell us about Leone Scamarcio…

Leone is a good man but he’s very difficult. He’s plagued by feelings of shame, insecurity and frustration as a result of the family tragedy that befell him as a teenager. It is now over twenty years since that day but he still hasn’t managed to shake off these issues. Unfortunately he is highly attractive to women and those that find themselves in a relationship with him face a very bumpy ride.

What was the inspiration for The American?

I’ve always been intrigued by the death of Roberto Calvi who was head of Banco Ambrosiano, a bank in which the Vatican was the main shareholder. He died in highly mysterious circumstances on Blackfriars Bridge in London in 1982 but the questions surrounding his death have never been answered. His suicide/murder was the primary inspiration for the book.

What is it about Rome and about Italian society that so attracts you?

I think it’s the complexities and ambiguities of Italian society that so appeal. You have these picture postcard settings: the landscapes, the architecture, the artistic treasures but beneath it all there’s so much darkness, so much suspicion, paranoia and mistrust. It’s a cauldron of nefarious activity and I like the contrast.

Italy is home to two of the world’s most-secretive organisations – the Mafia and the Vatican. As a crime writer, you must be like a kid in a sweet shop…

That’s it really. The lunchtime news often makes your jaw drop and I find myself struggling to keep up sometimes.  Frankly, the UK seems somewhat bland in comparison. I grew up there but I don’t really have a great desire to write about the place.

Has your own career as a documentary film-maker influenced your writing, do you think?

Yes I think it has. When you work in documentaries you come across such a colourful cast of characters all with their own unique stories to tell. Inevitably they give you ideas for characters or plots. I also think documentaries give you quite a good feel for dialogue because you spend so much time in the edit listening to how people express themselves.

You love TV crime dramas – what’s kept you gripped recently?

I loved the American version of The Bridge and although it’s more of a spy than a crime drama, I think The Americans on Fox is really strong. It just seems to improve with every series.

What’s the hardest lesson you ever had to learn about writing?

You have to be your own worst critic. If you think something doesn’t quite work, it’s no good thinking that it’s probably just you and nobody else will notice. They will. Also, you need to learn to take criticism on the chin. It really stings at first but you need to let the emotion dissipate and then focus on the point that is being made. You should ask yourself if they could be right and if it’s something you should be working to improve.

Who are the authors you admire, and why?

Michael Connelly for his extraordinary insider knowledge of the court room which makes his books so compelling. Lee Child for his pacing and Dennis Lehane for his ability to create an atmosphere. For me, Lehane is the master.

Give me some advice about writing…

Try to write every day if you can. Writing is a muscle and if you don’t use it, it grows slack. I am a mother to two small children and it is not always possible for me to sit down at my desk so I’ve learnt this the hard way.

What’s next for you and Scamarcio?

I’ve just finished book three in the series which takes Scamarcio into the world of Rome’s showbiz set. I’m now about to start book four which will be quite a departure and sees him involved in a crisis he would never have expected to be asked to assist with. His role threatens to place him at the centre of the global media spotlight which is the very last thing he wants…

***

The American, published by Scribe, is out now in paperback.

The Intel: Kevin Murray

Plenty of crime reporters become genre writers, perhaps because they get to see the effects of crime and violence on a day-to-day basis. Kevin Murray worked on The Star, Johannesburg’s biggest daily newspaper, and became Chief Crime Reporter in what was considered to be the crime capital of the world.

Since then, his varied career has spanned magazine publishing, public relations and strategic communications, and he’s written two bestselling business books on leadership. Kevin’s novel Blood Of The Rose is available from Urbane Publications, so check that out.

Kevin gives us the lowdown on journalism, his writing process and one spectacular month of Crime…

Tell us about Blood Of The Rose…

Having started my career as a crime reporter, and having been passionate about reading crime novels all my life, I had long  dreamed of writing my own thriller.  But, how could you write something different?  That was what drove me – the search for a new and different angle on a page turning thriller, when I had read so many brilliant  crime stories from true masters of the genre.

One night, driving home from work, I wondered how you would tell a story that enabled a reader to be in the mind of  a killer, but without knowing who he was.  I had already been trying to think of a plot that involved forensic crime detection, when a breakthrough thought struck me. If you were able to read excerpts from a killer’s diary, interspersed with the narrative, how would that work?  That is the construct of Blood of the Rose. You get to know what the killer is thinking and planning,  through his diary, but you still have to try and work out who he is.  His own dreadful back story unfolds in the diary and  compels his actions  throughout the main narrative.  Both his own story and the main plot have terrifying conclusions. But I’ll say no more…

Blood Of The Rose features investigative journalist Jennifer Chapman – why do journalists often make such compelling protagonists?

Like police detectives, journalists are trying to discover the truth, albeit without the same tools and powers of the police. They are often rebellious, brave, and driven – all of which attributes make for interesting characters. In the case of Jennifer,  she is even more driven than normal, because one of the victims is her own father. Any mystery novel is about a search for the truth, and my idea was about how two different philosophies – that of journalists and the police – would clash or aid each other if in pursuit of the same truth, Especially where  one persons desire for the truth was even more  overwhelming than normal.

There tend to be less journalist heroes and heroines, these days — why have journalists fallen out of favour with crime writers, do you think?

I’m not sure they have  fallen out of favour with writers – there are plenty of TV series involving journalists, such as House of Cards, or The Newsroom –  but perhaps so with crime writers. I am thinking about using a journalist as the main character in my next novel – unless Detective Alan Winters become so popular I’m asked to write a sequel to Blood of the Rose…

Has the close relationship between journalists and police been irrevocably altered following recent scandals?

In real life perhaps, but I can see all sorts of interesting dimensions to fiction that would involve journalists and the police in light of all of these scandals. Modern social media has  often been behind these scandals and hasbrought about the advent of what is called citizen journalists. You could see some terrific plot elements involving the use of social media to uncover crimes and secrets.

While working in Johannesburg, you once achieved a record of more than 30 consecutive days of front-page crime stories, including an aircraft hijacking, several murders, numerous armed robberies and drug-related gang wars. It must have been like attending crime writing finishing school…

I have kept many of the newspaper clippings of the stories I wrote during my time as a crime reporter, and even today I still find it hard to believe that some of those stories actually happened. All of them have potential for novels, though some of them would seem a little far-fetched if you were to try and write them as a crime story. They often say the truth is stranger than fiction, and I saw more than my fair share of that as a crime reporter.

Take us through a typical writing day for you?

I really don’t have a typical writing day – most of my writing is done at night. This is because I still hold down a day job, and have to indulge my passion for writing outside of normal office hours. I have recently also written two management books on leadership and communication, both of which became bestsellers and are now being translated into languages around the world. Very different, I know, but all of them took absolute discipline to complete.

No matter what, I would always sit down and around 8 o’clock and write until midnight to get the book out of my head and onto the page. Rather like a hunter proudly brings back food for his family, I would proudly bring my wife whatever pages I had managed to complete that night  and we would devour them together before going to sleep.

What’s the hardest lesson you ever had to learn about writing?

I work really hard to keep my writing style from getting in the way of telling the story. I was trained to keep it simple as a journalist, and that is still in my blood. I see myself as a storyteller, not a writer. My whole design, even in  my management books, was to try to keep the reader turning the pages. The best feedback I have been getting on Blood of the Rose is that it kept people up at night! I love that they found themselves unable to put the book down until they had managed to read all the way to the shattering conclusion.

How do you deal with feedback?

I welcome it, both good and bad. The good feedback fuels my desire to keep writing, and the bad opens my eyes to mistakes but I won’t make again if I can help it. Sometimes you get bad feedback that is just plain nasty, and I’m able to laugh at it. But when readers have genuine points to make, I know there are bothering because they care, and I try to give them a darn good listening to.

Who are the authors you admire, and why?

Many. I am a voracious reader, especially on holiday, but I really do tend to concentrate on crime thrillers. Everything from South African crime writer Deon Meyer, to Lee Child, Michael Connelly and John Grisham. I love them all.

Give me some advice about writing…

All my life I dreamt of writing a book and walking into a bookstore one day to find my offering on a shelf, on the top shelf where the bestselling books are kept. I’ve been a writer now for more than 40 years, and it is only in the last three years that my works have been published and made it onto the shelves. I now often talk with people who tell me about the book they are planning. I  give them all the same advice: “Sit down and write it.  The only difference between you and me is that I sat down and wrote mine. You probably have more talent than me and your stories could do much better than mine. But you’ll never get there if you don’t sit down and write.

When you are writing, don’t allow the search for perfection to bog you down. Get the story out – all of it.You can polish it and edit it later, but don’t slow yourself up by trying to make every sentence perfect. That will happen after you’ve got your story on to a page.  That search for perfection, sentence by sentence, could result  In your book suffering and dying in translation from head to paper.

What’s next for you?

At the moment I am busy with two book projects. I have a third leadership book underway. And I am one chapter into a next novel. Which one gets finished first will depend on what deadlines my publishers give me. And then there’s also the day job…

https://twitter.com/kevinmurray

 

The Intel: Tom Grass

We reviewed Tom Grass’s high-octane re-imagining of Twist last week. It’s a clever heist thriller full of jumping and climbing and driving set on the streets and rooftops of London, as Twist, Fagin, Dodge and the gang take down some greedy art dealers.

We described it as Oliver Twist meets GTA, Grass describes it as Oliver Twist meets Point Break — we’ll split the difference.

Grass is a fascinating man, with a career in movies and computer games, and he’s got some interesting things to say about updating a classic novel, about the evolution of London — and about reimagining The Smoke all the way from Rwanda,

And, of course, he gives the lowdown on his writing process. Tom Grass gives the intel on Twist…

Where did you get the idea for a contemporary version of the Dickens classic?

While I was working at Pure Grass films with my brother, TV producer Ben we were always looking for good stories to turn into web series and films. At that time we met a pair of young creatives called the Lynch Brothers who had had the idea of combining ‘Oliver Twist’ with ‘Point Break.’ I worked with them brainstorming how that could actually work. Substituting the big wave surfing of the with parkour and armed bank robberies with art heists was the easy bit. Far harder was bringing Dickens characters to life in contemporary London in a way that made sense.

What is it about those characters – Twist, Dodge, Fagin, Sikes — that makes them ripe for updating?

Jaguar cars did an ad recently that asked why the best Hollywood villains are played by Brits? No surprise that my favourite actor in the ad is Ben Kingsley who played Fagin in Roman Polanski’s film version of ‘Oliver Twist.’

In Sebastian Faulks’ book on fiction, he selects a whole section on villains and chooses Fagin, that “loathsome reptile” as his favourite because he displays those traits that he finds most despicable in himself;  the laziness, the greediness, the lies, the squalor…

So there’s something in that self recognition but also in the relationship the boys have with their false father figure which transcends national boundaries so that the archetypal British villain has become a template for gang masters everywhere (just re-watch Slumdog Millionaire if you don’t believe me!).

And he’s one of our best loved villains because he’s not all bad (as compared with say; Sauron or Richard III). A survivor/scavenger whose function is to redistribute wealth in a grossly unequal society.

The counterpoint to his low down ways in the original story is Oliver. As a character Oliver is too young in the original to be much more than a foil. An innocent child whose innocence and good nature act as a touchstone to the villainy around him.

But by making him older I had to be sure that the audience would identify with him. Not by making him a cool graffiti kid but as someone who is alone and hungry and desperately wants to belong. To be part of a gang – to be a member of a family.

Who hasn’t needed a father figure at one time or another to bring us in out of the cold and give us a job and put a bottle of gin in our hand?

As in the Dickens original, the London in your novel is a place of huge contrasts in wealth – the action roams from Newham to Mayfair. Do you seem many similarities between modern London and the city from Dickensian times?

I was nervous about setting Oliver’s squat in an abandoned council estate in Newham because I didn’t want to upset anyone, but a year on my choice seems to have been vindicated.

The young mothers of Focus E15 who are fighting for their right to live in decent, local social housing in Newham, the place where they grew up are not alone. People are being displaced every day from boroughs across London and being told that if they can’t afford to live there, they’ll have to go.

At the same time in Mayfair, you have big properties owned by foreigners who never live in them standing empty and artificially buoying house price rises while young people sleep rough on the street.

So to answer your question – has London changed? Yes, in many extraordinary and good ways (just think about the London Underground and the sewage system) but the song remains the same in terms of the gulf between the rich and the poor as those on low and middle incomes are being driven out in a relentless wave of gentrification.

Twist is also a heist thriller about the robbery of lost artworks – how difficult was it to come up with a clever scam?

Planning a good heist involves team work and I was lucky enough to work with a great British crime screenwriter called John Wrathall plotting the set ups in the novel.

Research was very helpful but also posed a big question of authenticity. I read an excellent book called ‘Hot Art’ which described the career of the character who most resembled Fagin, a poacher turned gamekeeper who now advises clients and police forces around the world when they seek to recover stolen works of art.

His own career describes a threshold of value for art work at around the £100,000 mark above which it’s impossible to sell on work without being detected on one of the international missing art databases.

The notion of stealing priceless works is a bit of a tall order in real life so when it does happen, like the theft of Munch’s ‘Scream’ from Oslo’s ‘Munch’ museum, it is rare and tends to be carried out by armed robbers who then try to either claim a reward or get the owner to pay a ransom.

And because I wanted to move away from violent crime we had to think about using confidence trickery to pull off something more subtle, the kind of thing audiences’ loved in ‘Ocean’s Eleven.’

Getting the plans for Losberne’s art gallery from the architect across the road was a good place to start and involved some play acting from Fagin and Dodge then Nancy seducing the gallery owner.

The actual parkour isn’t actually useful in breaking and entering the buildings but in getting away from the cops after the thefts have taken place. This is especially true of the end of Twist when Dodge and Twist have to use the elevator shafts to escape detection before zero jumping from the observation floor.

Take us through a typical writing day for you?

When I was working on ‘Twist’ I was living in Rwanda. I used to get up at 6am every day and be at my desk with a big pot of coffee by 7am at the latest. The work would carry on until mid afternoon when I’d clock off and send emails and manage my other projects.

What’s the hardest lesson you ever had to learn about writing?

Whereas in film, the director imposes his own vision on the script, in which character is expressed in action and dialogue, in a novel one is forced to describe everything in words (including the thoughts that are going on in your characters head).

This is hard work especially on bad days when what you put down on paper bears absolutely no resemblance to the idea that is in your head!

How do you deal with feedback?

Feedback from the publisher on Twist was amazing but sometimes it can be so unhelpful.  The worst kind is when you get lots of issues but no solutions to these problems.

Who are the authors you admire, and why?

When I started to write Twist I read a lot of Elmore Leonard. He’s a genius at dialogue. Read: Killshot.

I also read a lot of Lee Child as preparation. He says he never plots his books and writes each page fresh as if he were reading it for the first time. He also says he’s written all his books stoned, but please don’t try this at home kids.

I’m a big fan of Stephen Pressfield. An American military historical novelist who fought in Vietnam as a US marine and really understands how and why armies fight from the grunt’s eye view up. Read: Gates of Fire (the story of Thermopylae). Superb research that lets you into the mind of a Spartan warrior.

Give me some advice about writing…

When asked the secret of his success, the legendary Lancashire fell runner and sheep farmer Joss Naylor would say:

‘Just gid on wid it.’

A little regularly is better than big lumps late at night or at weekends. Of course not having children helps.

What’s next for you?

I’m working on a TV treatment for Twist. I’ve also just finished the script of my first comic – a Viking supernatural adventure called ‘STORM’ which I’m co-creating as a TV series with Jake Michie (creator of BBC’s ‘Merlin’).

History is full of stories. You just have to know where to look.

The Intel: Mason Cross Reloaded

Crime Thriller Fella is taking a much-needed summer break. But, chin up – we’re going to meet up again right here sooner than you could possibly hope. However, in the meantime, do keep coming back. Over the last year there’s been all sorts of stuff we’ve enjoyed plonking on the internet, and which you may have missed, such as this Intel interview with one of the talented new kids on the block… Mason Cross.

We love it when there’s a buzz about a new author. Thriller writer Mason Cross is picking up all sorts of great reviews for his gripping story of a FBI manhunt for a deranged sniper.

Crime Thriller Fella reviewed The Killing Season only last week and now, as promised, Cross gives us The Intel on new-hero-on-the-block Carter Blake, and on his own path to publication. If you’re a writer quietly plugging away at your craft, I strongly suggest you take a read…

Give us the lowdown on Carter Blake – he’s kind of a mysterious guy…

Ahh – that would be telling! He is indeed a mysterious guy. Suffice to say that he has a past that has furnished him with the skills and experience he now calls upon to do his job. That past occasionally comes back to haunt him, and we’ll find out a little more about it in the next book…

Blake hunts for a deranged sniper in The Killing Season – what is it about random killers that so fascinates us?

I think we do have a morbid fascination with serial killers. It’s probably because, while we can perhaps understand acts of violence committed in the heat of the moment, the impulse to cold-bloodedly take a human life is utterly alien to most of us. Thankfully, most of us don’t have that faulty gene. A sniper is particularly chilling, because they can strike from afar and you’ll never see them coming. It’s also the only type of cold-blooded killing that can be a legitimate profession: the military will actually train you up and pay you to do it.

How do you get inside the head of a man like that?

I suspect there may be some crossover in the psychological profiles of serial killers and crime writers; a little more overlap on the Venn diagram than is normal. Again, there’s a grim fascination for a writer in the idea of plotting and getting away with murder, although fortunately for society, we tend to keep our murders on the page.

In The Killing Season, I found that writing the villain was similar to writing the hero in a lot of ways: both are very driven, very methodical, very professional. They’re intelligent, capable men doing what they do. Blake would probably make a very good serial killer if he was that way inclined.

How did the idea of The Killing Season come about?

The initial idea was to pit two equally matched adversaries against one another. A hunter who can find anybody versus a lone wolf who’s adept at evading capture. I was interested in this idea of a very personal one-on-one contest amidst the backdrop of a massive multi-agency manhunt. The rest of the plot developed from that.

What kind of research did you have to do?

I read widely about serial killers, snipers, and police and federal manhunts. I read a book about the Washington Sniper case from 2002, and a couple of other books that dealt more with the history of snipers and the psychological warfare aspect of killing from a distance. A book I happened to read on J Edgar Hoover and the birth of the FBI turned out to be unexpectedly useful. I did a lot of local research into the locations I wanted to use. I spoke to my American friends to pick their brains and run ideas past them, and called on my own experiences visiting the States.

Perhaps as importantly as any of the direct research, I read a hell of a lot of thrillers, from the old masters to the authors who are in the bestseller charts today. I got to know the clichés to avoid, I stole some techniques I liked, and generally learned to avoid some of the common pitfalls. It’s interesting that the core elements of what makes a great thriller haven’t changed too much over the course of a century.

The Killing Season is your debut novel – what was your journey to getting published?

It involved a huge amount of luck! I’d been submitting stories to various magazines and competitions for a few years with occasional success. My story ‘A Living’ was published in the Quick Reads Sun Book of Short Stories, which encouraged me to keep at it. Some of the stories I posted on Harper Collins’s Authonomy site. A few months later, they got in touch to tell me that an agent, Luigi Bonomi, was interested in getting touch with me based one of the stories I’d posted.

I was sceptical at first, as it sounded too good to be true. But when I did a bit of Googling, I quickly realised that not only was Luigi the real deal, he was one of the top agents in the business. Luigi and his colleague Thomas Stofer were really encouraging about my writing and suggested I develop a novel. Fast forward a couple of years and we were ready to send The Killing Season out on submission.

Fortunately for me, Jemima Forrester at Orion read and loved it, and they offered me a deal. I was particularly pleased about signing with Orion because they have such a great track record on thrillers, and publish so many of my favourite authors.

Take us through a typical writing day for you?

I have a day job, so I normally have to fit the writing in around my other commitments. Luckily, I’m able to do that fairly easily – I’ve trained myself out of the habit of sitting around waiting for divine inspiration. I can write anywhere: planes, hotel rooms, cafés, pubs, libraries, park benches… I’d say my ideal writing environment is actually a quiet train carriage with no wifi. I would be unbelievably productive if I lived on a train.

Who are the authors or you love, and why?

Too many to mention them all, but off the top of my head I’d have to include Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Raymond Chandler, Michael Chabon, Ian Rankin, Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Tom Wolfe. All of the above have one thing in common – it’s a physical effort to stop reading them once I’ve started.

What’s the hardest lesson you ever had to learn about writing?

Sometimes you have to get rid of the bits of a book you really like, either by editorial mandate or because you know it just isn’t working. It’s tough, but often necessary. The other really difficult thing for me is, once I’ve got what I think is a reasonably finished version of the book, to let anyone else read it. That’s the most terrifying moment, because you’ve spent months flitting between thinking the book is fantastic and thinking it’s terrible, and you know you’re about to get an outside opinion on exactly where it falls on that scale.

How do you deal with feedback?

Generally pretty well, as long as it’s someone who knows what they’re talking about. I’m possibly unusual in that I quite enjoy the editing process – stepping back from the book, messing about with it, deciding what works and what doesn’t and reassembling it so that it runs as smoothly as possible.

I’m lucky to have an agent and an editor who both have excellent instincts about what makes a thriller work. It’s rare that what I’ve written can’t be improved by listening to some knowledgeable advice and having another go at it – it’s always better after a rewrite. I also like to get reviews from readers – a book either works or doesn’t for someone, and it’s useful to know why in either case.

How have your own experiences shaped your writing?

Friends, family, work, travel, death, love, children, good experiences, crappy experiences – it all feeds in. Another writer told me it’s essential to have spent some time doing a regular job and having a life before you can be a writer, and I’d definitely agree with that. It all comes down to writing convincingly about people and places, and to do that you need experience of as many different kinds of people and places as possible.

Give me some advice about writing…

Keep going. Try to write every day, even if it’s only 500 words. Finish things. Invest some time in plotting, but be open to change – it’s important to have a path from which to wander. The internet should be avoided during writing and embraced during research.

And read a lot! Everybody says that, but that’s because it’s true – not just to learn from the best, but to learn why some things don’t work so well so you can try to avoid making the same mistakes.

What’s your best advice for an author looking to get into the marketplace?

Be lucky! I’d definitely recommend trying to get an agent, as mine has helped me so much beyond the usual business of dealing with the publisher; giving me support and encouragement and invaluable feedback on early drafts. Think about the market, but try not to over-think: don’t write something you don’t like just because you think it will be marketable, because it probably won’t end up being very good. Play to your strengths. Try to be pleasant to work with and professional – it only started to happen for me when I began treating writing as a job. Read a lot.

What’s next for you?

Right now, I’m really looking forward to launching The Killing Season at Waterstones in Glasgow and doing the whole reading and signing thing. The next Blake book – called The Samaritan – is just about done (there’s an excerpt in the back of the first book) and I’m thinking a lot about book three, where we’ll learn more still about his shadowy past.

Aside from that, I’m really excited that one of my stories is going to be published in a forthcoming issue of Ellery Queen, which was one of my long-standing ambitions. I’m going to be on three panels at Crimefest in Bristol, and I have a couple of other festival appearances later in the year that I’m not allowed to talk about yet. When I get the okay, I’ll be sure to let people know at my blog.

 

The Intel: M. Sean Coleman

We all love a bit of fictional cyber crime.

All that frantic keyboard tippy-tapping just flies off the page. People bark clever acronyms and codes names at each other and discuss server logs and Intrusion Detection protocols, surveillance code, and bits and bytes. If, like me, your knowledge of computing goes as far as turning on the Playstation, it’s all terribly exciting –  like a portal into a secret world.

The rise of the Deep Web, cyber attacks and espionage is opening up whole new narrative frontiers. And yet, of course these cyber thrillers are written in the oldest data delivery system in the world:  a story. You may hold in your hand an ebook, the words may be backlit, but it’s still a good, old-fashioned story.

Or maybe it isn’t.

Netwars: The Code is a series of six ebook episodes, described as a unique global project. As well as an ebook series, it’s an interactive web documentary and Graphic novel apps, a fusion of fact and fiction about the increasing threat of cyberwarfare.

It features characters such as the cyber avenging angel Strider – mild-mannered computer geek by day, ruthless executioner by night – and his deadly nemesis Nightshade. It features the tall, beautiful and intelligent computer whiz Rebecca MacDonald, who’s caught up in the cat-and-mouse war between the both of them. Netwars has the galloping cartoon energy of a Saturday morning cartoon serial – but updated for the 21st century.

Each of the six-episodes of Netwars: The Code is only 100-pages long, and is written by London-based author M. Sean Coleman, who also wrote the script for the graphic novel app. Here’s the link to the first ep.

It’s ambitious stuff, and I’m not sure I’ve explained it properly. Luckily, Sean has agreed to give us The Intel on the Netwars series, about the dangerous evolution of new technology, and, of course – because this is The Intel, after all – he’s got lots of fabulous thoughts about the writing process.

Tell us about The Code – what’s it about?

It’s a crime thriller set in the seedy and little known world of the Deep Web – a place where, under the cloak of anonymity you can buy drugs, weapons, porn, even order a killing, just by knowing where to look. The Code tells the story of a rogue vigilante who uses the Deep Web to find his targets – picking out those who have broken his unique code of practice, and who have escaped justice. He makes it his business to ensure that they pay properly for their crimes. To further complicate matters he is also a consultant to the National Cyber Crime Unit.

When his latest target turns out to be closely connected to the underworld bosses of the Deep Web, he realizes that he has been betrayed by the one person he thought he could trust – his mentor. And now, that same person is coming after him, and he is the most powerful and dangerous man in the Deep Web.

At least, that is how the plot kicks off. Partly, the book deals with the fact that none of us really stop to think about how almost everything we touch and interact with these days, from our cars, to our houses, to the pumps and monitors in hospitals, could actually be used to kill us if a malicious actor was that way inclined. I wanted people reading the book to think twice about getting into an elevator, or driving a car that can park itself, or allowing their smartphone to report where they are and what they are doing at every moment of the day.

Netwars is an ambitious cross-platform project – what does that mean?

I think it genuinely means that if we had ever tried to pitch the whole project as it exists now from the outset, people would have laughed us out of the room. Netwars has evolved into the beast that it is now, but it began as a slightly smaller scale project. The project now comprises a TV documentary, an interactive web documentary, a three part graphic novel series for iPads and Android Tablets, and a six-part serialized novel, which also happens to be an audiobook. And that’s not all, we are still developing extensions of the Netwars world in other formats and on other platforms.

How do the narratives of all the different platforms connect?

We had a mantra throughout the production process of all of the parts of the project which was that everything should be possible, but nothing needed to be done. Basically, what that meant was that we wanted the audience to be able to find the content on any of the platforms and fully engage with the stories there, but we didn’t want anybody to feel that they had missed something by not, for example, reading the novel, or graphic novel, or only seeing the documentary. Our other guiding principle is that nothing could happen in any of the fictional parts of the project that weren’t based in reality.

We created a character, usually known as The Salesman, who appears in all of the fictional parts of the project, including the narrative backbone of the interactive web documentary. He is the glue. For the web documentary, it is he that lures the viewer in and makes them part of his dark world. He features in the graphic novel series, as a minor but important character, and he appears in the novel as the main character’s mentor, and eventual nemesis. In each case, you are introduced to him in context, meaning that you can enjoy one part of the project in isolation without feeling that you are missing any information.

How have your own experiences prepared you for working on the Netwars project?

Well, as an assassin myself… No, I’m joking. I thought about applying to be an Mi5 agent once, but I think I am both too indiscrete and too impatient. Plus, I know it would be nothing like James Bond. In reality, the only experience I could draw on for this project was my passion for technology and my casual worries that we are allowing machines to take over too many angles of our life. There we are worrying about whether the machines will become sentient and kill us all, nobody seems to have considered what would happen if somebody wanted to turn those machines against us.

A lot of what I researched kept repeating the statement that most of the systems we rely on were designed before we had terrorism. Which sounds stupid, but I know what they mean by that. An airplane is not a weapon unless it is used by terrorists to make a political or religious statement. In the same way that a screwdriver or a hammer are not weapons unless used that way – it’s just that we have legislation for carrying hammers around the place, whereas our essential infrastructures are often running on a machine less powerful than our TV. It’s a looping answer to your question. I have always been interested in how technology helps us be more efficient. Working on Netwars has made me research, in great detail, what the risks of relying on those technologies are.

Do you think the way we are consuming narratives is changing?

Yes and no. I think, at heart, we still want to be told a bloody good story. I think audiences, readers and consumers are all less worried about where that content comes from or how they get to see or read it. Just looking at myself, I still resist watching Netflix on my iPhone, but I am more than happy to watch on my iPad. I read on a kindle now, even though I have shelves full of books which I have an almost fetishistic relationship with.

Last year I would have said that I could only read non-fiction, especially for research, in an actual paper book, but the Netwars project research changed that, as there were some books that were only available digitally. I think we all want to be swept along, excited and impressed – we want characters we can trust, characters we can fall in love with and be excited for or disappointed by. The main difference is that we expect to find them all over the place, wherever we happen to be. We are as comfortable following a character on twitter as we are watching them in a drama series.

When we read a book, we often expect to see the TV series or the film of the same story, or at least the same world. I think there is more blending between the platforms, and as our viewing and reading experiences become increasingly connected, that will continue to develop.

Do you think authors need to start thinking about new ways to get their work onto the marketplace?

I don’t know. I worry that we head into a world where the cart leads the horse. I think, as a writer, you should ask yourself what your idea would be best as: a novel, a short story, a film, a TV series, a radio play, theatre, mime, a series of magazine columns, a web series, a blog, an art installation… I think the days are gone of being able to say: I am an author, or I am a screenwriter, or I am a playwright, or whatever.

I think the boxes have changed shape, and writers limit themselves if they think only in one category. That being said, I think the dawn of self-publishing, blogging and the whole digital age opening up readership again, means that there are wider opportunities for writers to build an audience without being beholden to the publisher, commissioner and producer. I think if someone has a passion to tell the story that they have brewing inside them, they should just get on and do it, the best they can, and if no one will take it, self-publish and prove them wrong. Right?

Take us through a typical writing day for you?

I’m pretty organised about my schedule. Some people are not, and prefer to let the creativity flow as and when it hits them. For me, if I don’t trick myself with a schedule, I get nothing done.

I work at my home, I have a wonderful office there, that is only for writing and it is a place that I can shut the door on at the end of the day, which is also important. I usually hit the desk at 8.30am, when my partner leaves for work, and I spend an hour replying to emails and doing bits of admin and invoicing. I realised that, even with the greatest self-control, the Internet was too distracting so from 09.30 until 13.00 I use a cheap program called Freedom, which shuts off my router and, unless I completely restart my computer, keeps me off the web.

I have a little notepad beside my keyboard and I jot down all of the questions that come up or things I need to research as I go along – I would otherwise spend about 30 mins or so finding out which park they were running through in the scene I was writing, only to cut the whole scene later. I just put a red X in the manuscript and plough on. I’ll go back and fill it in later.

Between 13.00 and 15.00 I have lunch and walk the dog. That is usually my background thinking time – I try to clear my head of what I’m doing and just look around me. Quite often, if I’ve been wrestling with a scene or character element, I will talk to myself (or the dog) as I walk and usually by the time I get home, there is a solution. I also use that time to answer any emails that may have come in, or reply to calls that I’ve missed (I also put my phone an airplane mode while I write – all pings and beeps must be silenced!)

I am back at my desk by 15.00 and I work through with everything off again until 17.00 usually, but 18.00 on bad deadline days. I like to leave a scene unfinished so that I can pick up straight away the next day and not have to start a new scene from scratch. It always helps to knock off a few hundred words quickly at the start of a session, it makes you feel like your achieving something.

At the beginning of every project I make a soundtrack using Spotify, of about 200 songs. This is all I listen to when I’m working, and it has nothing to do with my taste in music, it is about getting into the mood of the piece you are writing straight away. My writing is not always at the computer, either – I could be on the sofa in my office with record cards, fleshing out ideas, or scribbling all over the whiteboards on the walls – the music is always on – it stops me listening to the neighbours or being distracted by the people on the street outside.

When I finish for the evening I leave my desk ready to start straight away and then I go downstairs and start cooking, which is my other passion. That is pretty much my routine. If I do it right, I shouldn’t have to work later than 18.00 and never on weekends. Life is important too.

What’s the hardest lesson you ever had to learn about writing?

Writing is bloody hard. Especially, finishing is hard. Having the ideas are fine, and you’re really excited to start, but do yourself a favour and make sure you plot out what’s going to happen the whole way through. Make sure you read your plotting again and again, before you start writing. During your plotting, if you are really excited, by all means, write out the scene in your head, but don’t just dive in. Completion anxiety really freaks me out. Even when you have finished one piece, and know you can successfully do so, when you start the next one, there is always a time when you think: I don’t think I can do this. Embrace that neurosis. That’s what makes you a writer!

I think the other hard thing is finding your own voice and having confidence in it. I had help with that. My old friend and mentor, Neil Richards – an excellent writer himself – struggled with me as a young writer, some 20 years ago, to help me figure out what kind of a writer I was going to be! Through his patient, intelligent criticism, I stepped out of the shadow of those I was trying to parody, and eventually, believed that I had a voice too. It was never going to be for romantic comedy though! Or even comedy full stop. We laughed a lot at some of my early writing, but the truth was, we were laughing at how bad it was. He had the ability to make me see how bad it was, but without making me give up hope. He found the good bits and pushed them hard.

I guess the thing with finding your voice is that it has to come from you, but often, it needs someone who knows what they’re looking for, to see that spark, and help you to ignite it. Whenever I write now, I assume Neil will be the one reading it, and I try to imagine what he will think. Usually, I imagine he’ll tell me I can do better. Fortunately, these days, he’s a friend, and too polite to tell me he hated it!

How do you deal with feedback?

If it’s good, I love it. I copy and paste it and put it on my website! Feedback is tough. I learned through a lot of my producing work that you can’t get into personal conversations over feedback. There will be people who love what you do, and people who hate it. The thing about feedback is that somebody has taken the time to write a review or offer and opinion about your work, and that means a lot. Even if that opinion was negative, usually people are able to justify their feelings. If they felt a character was underdeveloped, or a theme was too uncomfortable, or the piece was badly researched, whatever, it’s a perfectly valid feeling. If we had the time and strength, we would go back and re-read and think about our work with those comments in mind, but we have to charge forward with the next thing.

The point is, readers aren’t wrong about their own opinions. I have read books by authors I love, that I didn’t enjoy on that occasion. I have read books that I loved that other people hated. The fact that people read your work and take the time to comment, whether negatively or positively is amazing. As a neurotic writer, the more positive comments the better. But then, the more pressure on the next book…

Who are the authors you admire, and why?

William Gibson, for his amazing creativity, intelligence, imagination. William Boyd for his incredible characters. I love most crime thrillers, and I really admire anyone that can create a character that returns again and again with a new adventure. Lee Child, for example, nails that with Jack Reacher – you know what you’re getting. It’s a great skill. There are some stand out books that I have just loved – like The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall. When I read it, I just thought it was such an individual and interesting concept.

I could go on, I read every day. For me, if your book is on a shelf, somewhere, you’ve made it. It’s a fantastic achievement, to have finished a story and put it out there for everybody to see. It’s a terrifying thing knowing that everybody is reading the words you wrote, and wondering whether they like them or not.

Give me some advice about writing…

If you’re going to do it, do it every day – even if it’s just a bit. Writing is like training – the more you do, the quicker, stronger, better you get.

Plan, plan, plan. Then write.

Don’t be too precious about getting it right the first time – learn to draft. I often have lines in first drafts like: ‘He says something really funny about her shoes. She doesn’t think it’s funny.’ I don’t need to know what the funny thing is there and then, because that’s not what the scene is about, it’s an emotional moment and I can come back to the detail of it. If I spend too long figuring out what the joke is, I’m out of the emotional moment anyway.

Get somebody who knows about story to read your work. If you can find other writers and offer a you-read-my-work-and-I’ll-read-yours kind of deal, that’s ideal. Your family and friends love you too much to tell you they didn’t like it, and don’t have the tools to tell you why. Unless they’re an editor, writer or agent, in which case it’s too close to home. Of course they must read it, but don’t be surprised if they are disturbed by the darkness within you…

What’s next for you?

I have an interactive storybook for pre-school children, called Milli’s Adventures on Apple-Tree Hill, coming out in the summer on iPads and Android tablets. It’s about a little snail called Milli who doesn’t know how to be a snail and has wonderful adventures trying to find out. It was created and illustrated by the wonderful Jana Schell and I am honoured to have been able to write the stories for it. I love it. Meanwhile, I have just begun writing the sequel to The Code, so keep your eyes open at the end of the year for the second book.

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Once again I’m blown away by the detail authors are willing to share with us about their writing process – I hope Sean’s interview gives you as much inspiration as it did me.

By the way, Sean mentions his mentor, Neil Richards. You may recall that Neil’s already done his own fascinating interview for The Intel, and you can see that here.

The Intel: Mason Cross

We love it when there’s a buzz about a new author. Thriller writer Mason Cross is picking up all sorts of great reviews for his gripping story of a FBI manhunt for a deranged sniper.

Crime Thriller Fella reviewed The Killing Season only last week and now, as promised, Cross gives us The Intel on new-hero-on-the-block Carter Blake, and on his own path to publication. If you’re a writer quietly plugging away at your craft, I strongly suggest you take a read…

Give us the lowdown on Carter Blake – he’s kind of a mysterious guy…

Ahh – that would be telling! He is indeed a mysterious guy. Suffice to say that he has a past that has furnished him with the skills and experience he now calls upon to do his job. That past occasionally comes back to haunt him, and we’ll find out a little more about it in the next book…

Blake hunts for a deranged sniper in The Killing Season – what is it about random killers that so fascinates us?

I think we do have a morbid fascination with serial killers. It’s probably because, while we can perhaps understand acts of violence committed in the heat of the moment, the impulse to cold-bloodedly take a human life is utterly alien to most of us. Thankfully, most of us don’t have that faulty gene. A sniper is particularly chilling, because they can strike from afar and you’ll never see them coming. It’s also the only type of cold-blooded killing that can be a legitimate profession: the military will actually train you up and pay you to do it.

How do you get inside the head of a man like that?

I suspect there may be some crossover in the psychological profiles of serial killers and crime writers; a little more overlap on the Venn diagram than is normal. Again, there’s a grim fascination for a writer in the idea of plotting and getting away with murder, although fortunately for society, we tend to keep our murders on the page.

In The Killing Season, I found that writing the villain was similar to writing the hero in a lot of ways: both are very driven, very methodical, very professional. They’re intelligent, capable men doing what they do. Blake would probably make a very good serial killer if he was that way inclined.

How did the idea of The Killing Season come about?

The initial idea was to pit two equally matched adversaries against one another. A hunter who can find anybody versus a lone wolf who’s adept at evading capture. I was interested in this idea of a very personal one-on-one contest amidst the backdrop of a massive multi-agency manhunt. The rest of the plot developed from that.

What kind of research did you have to do?

I read widely about serial killers, snipers, and police and federal manhunts. I read a book about the Washington Sniper case from 2002, and a couple of other books that dealt more with the history of snipers and the psychological warfare aspect of killing from a distance. A book I happened to read on J Edgar Hoover and the birth of the FBI turned out to be unexpectedly useful. I did a lot of local research into the locations I wanted to use. I spoke to my American friends to pick their brains and run ideas past them, and called on my own experiences visiting the States.

Perhaps as importantly as any of the direct research, I read a hell of a lot of thrillers, from the old masters to the authors who are in the bestseller charts today. I got to know the clichés to avoid, I stole some techniques I liked, and generally learned to avoid some of the common pitfalls. It’s interesting that the core elements of what makes a great thriller haven’t changed too much over the course of a century.

The Killing Season is your debut novel – what was your journey to getting published?

It involved a huge amount of luck! I’d been submitting stories to various magazines and competitions for a few years with occasional success. My story ‘A Living’ was published in the Quick Reads Sun Book of Short Stories, which encouraged me to keep at it. Some of the stories I posted on Harper Collins’s Authonomy site. A few months later, they got in touch to tell me that an agent, Luigi Bonomi, was interested in getting touch with me based one of the stories I’d posted.

I was sceptical at first, as it sounded too good to be true. But when I did a bit of Googling, I quickly realised that not only was Luigi the real deal, he was one of the top agents in the business. Luigi and his colleague Thomas Stofer were really encouraging about my writing and suggested I develop a novel. Fast forward a couple of years and we were ready to send The Killing Season out on submission.

Fortunately for me, Jemima Forrester at Orion read and loved it, and they offered me a deal. I was particularly pleased about signing with Orion because they have such a great track record on thrillers, and publish so many of my favourite authors.

Take us through a typical writing day for you?

I have a day job, so I normally have to fit the writing in around my other commitments. Luckily, I’m able to do that fairly easily – I’ve trained myself out of the habit of sitting around waiting for divine inspiration. I can write anywhere: planes, hotel rooms, cafés, pubs, libraries, park benches… I’d say my ideal writing environment is actually a quiet train carriage with no wifi. I would be unbelievably productive if I lived on a train.

Who are the authors or you love, and why?

Too many to mention them all, but off the top of my head I’d have to include Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Raymond Chandler, Michael Chabon, Ian Rankin, Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Tom Wolfe. All of the above have one thing in common – it’s a physical effort to stop reading them once I’ve started.

What’s the hardest lesson you ever had to learn about writing?

Sometimes you have to get rid of the bits of a book you really like, either by editorial mandate or because you know it just isn’t working. It’s tough, but often necessary. The other really difficult thing for me is, once I’ve got what I think is a reasonably finished version of the book, to let anyone else read it. That’s the most terrifying moment, because you’ve spent months flitting between thinking the book is fantastic and thinking it’s terrible, and you know you’re about to get an outside opinion on exactly where it falls on that scale.

How do you deal with feedback?

Generally pretty well, as long as it’s someone who knows what they’re talking about. I’m possibly unusual in that I quite enjoy the editing process – stepping back from the book, messing about with it, deciding what works and what doesn’t and reassembling it so that it runs as smoothly as possible.

I’m lucky to have an agent and an editor who both have excellent instincts about what makes a thriller work. It’s rare that what I’ve written can’t be improved by listening to some knowledgeable advice and having another go at it – it’s always better after a rewrite. I also like to get reviews from readers – a book either works or doesn’t for someone, and it’s useful to know why in either case.

How have your own experiences shaped your writing?

Friends, family, work, travel, death, love, children, good experiences, crappy experiences – it all feeds in. Another writer told me it’s essential to have spent some time doing a regular job and having a life before you can be a writer, and I’d definitely agree with that. It all comes down to writing convincingly about people and places, and to do that you need experience of as many different kinds of people and places as possible.

Give me some advice about writing…

Keep going. Try to write every day, even if it’s only 500 words. Finish things. Invest some time in plotting, but be open to change – it’s important to have a path from which to wander. The internet should be avoided during writing and embraced during research.

And read a lot! Everybody says that, but that’s because it’s true – not just to learn from the best, but to learn why some things don’t work so well so you can try to avoid making the same mistakes.

What’s your best advice for an author looking to get into the marketplace?

Be lucky! I’d definitely recommend trying to get an agent, as mine has helped me so much beyond the usual business of dealing with the publisher; giving me support and encouragement and invaluable feedback on early drafts. Think about the market, but try not to over-think: don’t write something you don’t like just because you think it will be marketable, because it probably won’t end up being very good. Play to your strengths. Try to be pleasant to work with and professional – it only started to happen for me when I began treating writing as a job. Read a lot.

What’s next for you?

Right now, I’m really looking forward to launching The Killing Season at Waterstones in Glasgow and doing the whole reading and signing thing. The next Blake book – called The Samaritan – is just about done (there’s an excerpt in the back of the first book) and I’m thinking a lot about book three, where we’ll learn more still about his shadowy past.

Aside from that, I’m really excited that one of my stories is going to be published in a forthcoming issue of Ellery Queen, which was one of my long-standing ambitions. I’m going to be on three panels at Crimefest in Bristol, and I have a couple of other festival appearances later in the year that I’m not allowed to talk about yet. When I get the okay, I’ll be sure to let people know at my blog.

 

The Intel: Lee Weeks

I do believe we reviewed the page-turner Cold As Ice by Lee Weeks earlier in the week. As you know, we like writers here, and we’re keen to learn from them, and Lee has kindly agreed to allow us to take the temperature on her writing process.

Lee spent seven years working her way around Europe and South East Asia. She returned to settle in London, marry and raise two children. She’s  worked as an English teacher and personal fitness trainer and her Sunday Times bestselling books include the DI Johnny Mann series and her new DC Ebony Willis series. She now lives in Devon.

What’s your writing process? What comes first – plot or character?

Definitely plot for me. I think of the ending first. I tend to visualize things in a filmic way: scenes rather than chapters.

Take us through a typical writing day for you.

I’m up and showered between 7-8am. I check my emails first then I start writing. I write basically till I go to bed about eleven, but I will stop during the day to walk my dogs and to go to the gym.  When I stop to watch telly in the evening I will continue working on my Ipad.

Who are the authors you love and why?  

I find this such a tricky question because I don’t have particular favourites. I like John Burdett, Elmore Leonard, Jo Nesbo, Lee Child. So many people are good at certain things but not good at others. I think being an author has spoilt my enjoyment of reading.

What’s the hardest lesson you ever had to learn about writing?

When I tried to let a story grow organically – big mistake. I have too many ideas in my head! I need to stick to a strong outline and refer to it constantly. It’s another case of knowing your strengths and recognising your weaknesses.

How do you deal with feedback?’

If it’s constructive  I learn from it and welcome it. After all, I am striving to be the best I can be.

How have your own experiences shaped your writing?

I don’t think that I am even aware of the extent that they shape it. I have a massive resource library of emotions and physical experiences that I can call on. It is invaluable.

Give me some advice about writing.

Think of your book as a product rather than a baby.

What’s your best advice for an author looking to get into the marketplace?

Don’t wait to write whole books – send agents a well thought out synopsis and  few first chapters.

What’s next for you?

I have a contract with Simon and Schuster for at least two more Willis/Carter books. During which time I will resurrect Johnny Mann 😉