Words with JAM
Contents
Find it Here, Buy it Here - Catriona Troth on Indie Bookshops, and JJ Marsh interviews Julia Wieler, the marketing manager of Orell Füssli The Bookshop, Zurich.
The Good, The Bad, and The Muddled - Libraries at the start of 2012, with The Library Cat
Mary Sue, Is That You? by Danny Gillan
Book V Television - A conversation with Thorne crime series author Mark Billingham
Julie Myerson - JD Smith interviews author of both fiction and non-fiction, columnist for the Guardian and the centre of a media controversy, Julie Myerson
Less Than Nothing - procrastinating with Perry Iles
So, tell me about your book or, how not to get an interesting interview - by Dan Holloway
Just the Facts, Ma’am Just the Facts ... by Derek Duggan
The Vital and Rich World of Non-Fiction. The personal view of an unwitting aficionado by Anne Stormont
Bad Parent, Good Writing? by Patrick Toland
Carver’s Couch on Gender-Related Differences in Reading Habits
A Cheery Little Tale by Helen Summer
Competitions
Comp Corner - be in with a chance to win a copy of Julie Myerson’s Then
Quite Short Stories and Poetry
Pencilbox
The Agent’s View with Andrew Lownie and Meg Davis
What Editors Want - Twenty-four editors have kindly explained what they are looking for this year, giving a fascinating insight into the commissioning mind
Submitting Non-Fiction - by Helen Corner
Hello, I’m Here to Help by Dan Holloway
Whose Story is this? A look at viewpoint with Sarah Bower
Scripts: Stranger than Fiction - by Ola Zaltin
Question Corner - Lorraine Mace answers your questions on writing
Synopsis Doc - with Sheila Bugler
Some other stuff
Dear Ed - Letters of the satirical variety
The Rumour Mill - sorting the bags of truth from the bags of shite
Horoscopes - by Shameless Charlatan Druid Keith
If in Doubt, Invent Your Own - a new initiative
The Team
Sarah Bower is the author of two historical novels, THE NEEDLE IN THE BLOOD and THE BOOK OF LOVE (published as SINS OF THE HOUSE OF BORGIA in the US). She has also published short stories in QWF, The Yellow Room, and Spiked among others. She has a creative writing MA from the University of East Anglia where she now teaches. She also teaches creative writing for the Open University. Sarah was born in Yorkshire and now lives in Suffolk.
Cli nical psychologist Sue Carver is serving a long apprenticeship in novel-writing. Her aphorism is: it takes as long as it takes. Her first novel is set in the world of psychological therapy and her second takes her far out of her comfort zone. She has published poetry under her maiden surname: Leppard, but she wasn’t made in Sheffield and, although she has wide tastes in music, she much prefers Raymond to Def.
Helen Corner founder of Cornerstones Literary Consultancy and co-author of Write a Blockbuster.
Derek Duggan is a graduate of The Samuel Beckett Centre for Theatre Studies at Trinity College Dublin. He lives in Spain with his wife and children and is not a tobogganist.
Danny Gillan’s award-winning Will You Love Me Tomorrow was described as one of the best debut novels of 2008. Now, for entirely cash related reasons, Danny’s novel Scratch is available for Kindle readers (‘users’ sounds a bit druggy). It’s so funny it’s made people accidentally wee, apparently. Really, actually wee in their pants. True story..www.dannygillan.co.uk
Gillian Hamer is a full time company director and part time novelist. She divides her time between the industrial Midlands and the wilds of Anglesey, where she spends far too much time dreaming about becoming the next Agatha Christie. http://gillian]wordpress.com/
Dan Holloway In June Dan’s novel The Company of Fellows was voted “favourite Oxford novel” in a poll of readers from Blackwell’s bookstore. On July 28th he took part in Blackwell’s Rising Stars panel alongside authors Naomi Wood, Nikesh Shukla and Stuart Evers, and on October 18th is being handed the use of the Oxford store’s world-famous Norrington Room to host the spoken word event This Is Oxford.
Perry Iles is an old man from Scotland. If he was a dwarf, he’d be grumpy. He lives in a state of semi-permanent apoplectic biliousness, and hates children, puppies, kittens, and periods of unseemly emotion such as Christmas. He pours out vinegary invective via a small writing machine, and thinks it’s a bit like throwing liver at the wall. He tells anyone who’ll listen that this gives him a modicum of gratification.
Andrew Lownie is a member of the Association of Authors’ Agents and Society of Authors and was until recently the literary agent to the international writers’ organisation PEN. In 1998 he founded The Biographers Club, a monthly dining society for biographers and those involved in promoting biography, and The Biographers’ Club Prize which supports first-time biographers.
Lorraine Mace is a columnist with Writing Magazine and co-author, with Maureen Vincent-Northam, of The Writer’s ABC Checklist, has had her work published in five countries. Winner of the Petra Kenney International Poetry Award (comic verse category), she writes fiction for the women’s magazine market and is a writing competition judge. www.lorrainemace.com
JJ Marsh - writer, teacher, newt. www.jjmarsh.wordpress.com
Matt Shaw - author, cartoonist, photographer, hermit, Billy-No-Mates. www.mattshawpublications.co.uk
Anne Stormont - as well as being a writer, is a wife, mother and teacher. She is also a hopeless romantic, who likes happy endings.
Kat Troth grew up in two countries, uses two names, and has had two different careers. One career she has spent writing technical reports for a non-technical audience. In the other, she attempts to write fiction. She tries always to remember who she is at any one time, but usually finds she has at least two opinions about everything.
Ola Zaltin is a Swedish screenwriter working out of Copenhagen, Denmark. He has written for both the big screen and the small, including episodes for the Swedish Wallander series. Together with Susanne O’Leary he is the co-author of the novel Virtual Strangers, (available as eBook).
Editor’s Desk
Is it ever too late to say Happy New Year? We’re now at the end of January/early February, depending on how quick the Royal Mail is and how long it takes you to reach my editor’s note. The team at WWJ Towers has been busy. 2012 is our year (they all are, let’s face it) and we’re going to give you even more.
Not only do print subscribers now get a free and incredibly cool WWJ mug, but they also get six pages of exclusive content. And fear not, if you have a free online subscription, there’s still plenty to be had in the magazine, so much so you’ll notice my editor’s desk has shrunk to just one page in order to accommodate the wealth of articles we have lined up this issue.
I first came across our cover author Julie Myerson, not through the media controvery surrounding her book The Lost Child, as many of you will have, nor because of her Guardian column Living with Teenagers. In October last year the Deputy Ed and I did our usual wine-pizza-steak-chips and nachos fuelled weekend at the Wigtown Book Festival. At one of the events Julie chatted to the host about her previous work, her current book, and how she dealt with the explosion of media headlines dubbing her ‘the worst mother in Britain’. Listening to Julie talk not only about her writing but how it has affected her life, the judgement of others, and the people who wrote telling how much her book and the honesty of it helped them, it seemed to me only fitting that we should ask Julie to participate in this, our first non-fiction themed issue.
As always, it doesn’t stop there. Crime novelist Mark Billingham is in conversation with Gillian Hamer, we have 60 Seconds with the Guardian’s literary editor Claire Armitstead and children’s author John Hudspith. Plus an interview with author of Peter Pan in Scarlet Geraldine McCaughrean. Catriona Troth gives us the first library update of 2012. Perry Iles procrastinates some more and Derek Duggan goes all factual. Andrew Lownie has kindly let us reprint his list of what editors are looking for in 2012 in a special What Editors Want feature. Synopsis Doc is back with Sheila Bugler. And Helen Corner talks about submitting non-fiction.
There’s more, but not enough room to list it all here, so check out the contents. Enjoy!
Podcasts
Diary of a Small Fish by Pete Morin, read by the author
Our first podcast of 2012 is the opening of Pete Morin’s fabulous legal thriller, Diary of a Small Fish, read by the author.
When Paul Forte is indicted by a federal grand jury, everyone suspects prosecutor Bernard (don’t call him “Bernie”) Kilroy has more on his mind than justice. Then the FBI agent in charge of Paul’s case gives him a clue to the mystery: Kilroy is bent on settling an old family score, and he’s not above breaking the law to do it.
Paul is already dealing with the death of his parents and divorce from a woman he still loves. Now, with the support of an alluring grand juror, Paul must expose the vindictive prosecutor’s own corruption before the jury renders a verdict on his Osso Buco.
Diary of a Small Fish is published in paperback and as an ebook.
Santa Never Made It, by Liza Perrat
Christmas Day, 1974.
Australians woke to the news that tropical cyclone Tracy had devastated the town of Darwin in Northern Territory. 71 people had been killed and over 70% of Darwin’s buildings destroyed.
But for 12 year old Wendy, the storm was to have quite different consequences.
Kimi’s Secret by John Hudspith, read by JJ Marsh
Wanna hear something really scary?
When death comes knocking on your door there is really only one place to hide. Dragged screaming to the paranormal world of Heart, where ghosts are real, big cats prowl, aliens are greylians, monkeys rule, trolls troll, fairies are vermin, the Adepts always know best, magic is mojo and roasted dodo is the dish of the day; Kimi Nichols is handed a secret that must never be revealed. To do so would mean the end of mankind.
WARNING: contains imploding toads, gravity-defying clowns, liquefied brains, a sadistic dentist and a deformed taxidermist; great dollops of blood and bogies, half a million crows, and a giant with OCD.
Gothic horror meets supernatural sci-fi; Kimi’s Secret will leave you gagging, breathless and sleeping with the light on. Suitable for grinning little monsters aged 10 to 100.
To find out more, find Kimi’s Secret on Facebook or you can buy the book from Amazon, as a paperback or for Kindle.
Find it here, buy it here
by Catriona Troth
For one day, just before Christmas, Amazon US ran a campaign. Customers were offered a five percent discount off certain items if they scanned the price in a bricks-and mortar-shop and then shared the price and the shop location with Amazon. Though the campaign did not explicitly include books, independent booksellers were outraged. The American Booksellers Association called it “a cheesy marketing move.” Bookshops across the country hit back, offering deeper discounts if customers would buy from them.
Back when Amazon was new and shiny and we still had an independent bookshop on our high street, I used to do things the other way round. Amazon’s search engine was so good, I could find the books I wanted with a few clicks of the mouse. But then I would take title, author and ISBN number down the road to the bookshop, and they would order it for me. Then first Ottakers and then Waterstone’s took over. And I began to find that, when I took my ISBN number to the till, the assistants would look at their computers, shake their heads and say, ‘Sorry, we don’t have that.’
And thus began my slide into bad habits.
Yes, I admit it. I’m an Amazon user. I try to resist. I look for books in my local branch of Waterstone’s. I check the online catalogue for my county library. But if I want a book that’s been published more than a couple of years ago, as often as not, I won’t find it. And Amazon just make it so easy. A couple of clicks and the book can be on its way to me. Obscure books. Books that have been out of print for years. And that’s before I even get started on ebooks.
So I am part of the long decline that has resulted in a net closure of more than 380 independent bookshops in the UK in the past five years – 25% of the total – and more than 800 high street bookshops altogether*. Just in the last six months, iconic bookshops such as The Travel Bookshop in Notting Hill (made famous by Richard Curtis’s film) and the Harbour Bookshop in Dartmouth (once owned by Christopher Robin Milne) have closed. According to Experian, by last summer 580 towns in the UK had no bookshop at all – a figure that continues to rise week on week.
*according to figures published by the Booksellers Association in August 2011.
And it’s not just in the UK. Toronto may have partly won its fight against library closures, but it is about to lose its oldest independent bookshop, The Book Mark. According to figures from the American Booksellers Association, 500 independent bookshops have closed in the past decade (more than one in five). In Australia, the loss of both Borders and Angus & Robertson has left many areas without a bricks and mortar bookshop.
The details vary from country to country but broadly, there are three distinct pressures that are contributing to the squeeze on booksellers around the English-speaking globe.
Firstly, there is cut-throat competition within the industry itself. In Britain, this began around 1995 with the collapse of the Net Book Agreement, which used to set fixed prices for books. This opened the door for the discounting of books and, to begin with, gave an advantage to book chains, who could negotiate deals with publishers for bulk sales. Then the chains began to have to compete with supermarkets, who only sold best-sellers but who could discount even more. And then along came Amazon, with a global reach and the capacity to out-discount everyone.
Secondly, bookshops, like other high street stores, are finding themselves subject to ever higher rents and rates/property taxes, while out-of-town stores like supermarkets often get better deals. This has been cited as a major factor in closures of shops in Britain, the US and Canada. Writing in the Guardian last summer, Nick Gorecki of Housman’s Bookshop said, “The frankly insane rental prices in London may be great for landlords, but are crippling many small businesses, and workers alike.”
Thirdly, into this toxic mix, you now throw ebooks, which many high street bookshops are unable to sell.
I wanted to find out for myself how some of the remaining 1100 or so UK independent bookshops are surviving.
Janet Stewart is the manager of the Gerrards Cross Bookshop in Buckinghamshire, which featured on the Sky Arts Book Programme last year as Robert Lindsay’s favourite bookshop. Stewart began in the trade eighteen years ago, in the last days of the Net Book Agreement.
“The business has changed massively in that time. When I began we sold just books, nothing else. Now we’ve diversified into selling gifts and cards. That’s a huge part of our business.”
They usually have their cards on display outside the shop, which draws people in. “There will always be people who are daunted by an independent bookshop, because it’s small and they feel as if they are there being judged (which of course they’re not). But then you talk to them and they realise they are not going to have to have a conversation with us about Proust!”
One comparatively recent change she has seen is the range of customers who are now internet shopping. “Everyone from five to eighty-five is going on-line and looking for the best deals, or buying ebooks. This year, for the first time, we saw the impact on our summer reading market. Amazon are every bookshop’s biggest competitor, without a doubt. You can’t beat them. You can’t even begin to compete.”
Where they can still compete is through personal service. They know their customers and tailor their stock to match their interests. And they build up personal relationships with them. While I am there, a customer comes in who has recently lost her husband. Both the staff members immediately go and talk to her, and their condolences are clearly heartfelt.
Gerrards Cross Bookshop uses both the two main UK book wholesalers, Gardners and Bertrams. I wonder how easy it is for them to supply books published by one of the small independent publishers; so we test a few. Those we look for are not listed on Bertrams at all. Most are listed on Gardners, but shown as out of stock. Stewart explains that they could place a special order with Gardners, which would take about ten days to come, but if she were only ordering one or two copies, the terms would be so poor she would make next to nothing from the sale.
Small wonder, then, if – as Boyd Tonkin pointed out in the Independent – some independent bookshops are resorting to sourcing individual books from Amazon or Abebooks, because they can get them more cheaply that way than if they buy directly from publishers or from suppliers like Gardners or Bertrams.
Down the road in Chorleywood, Hertfordshire, Gerrards Cross’s sister bookshop is owned and run by Sheryl Shurville and Morag Watkins. The Chorleywood Bookshop has been open for 40 years and (by chance) always been run by women. Shurville has been at the shop for ten years, and was joined by Watkins (a former librarian) five years ago.
One impact they have seen from aggressive discounting is an increasingly narrow focus on bestsellers and bestseller lists. The effect of this is particularly stark in children’s literature. Publishers are now reluctant to sign anyone who isn’t going to produce a blockbuster. “The range is closing in all the time.”
Amazon, they admit, is good if you know exactly what you want. “But what if you just want to buy a book for an eight year old?” Without independent bookshops, they say, “there will be no showcase for new writers, or for new books from midlist writers.”
Daniel Johns, the owner of University Bookseller in Plymouth, writing in the Guardian, made a similar point: “The number of books being published has increased exponentially and there is no way that the customers will discover all of the books that become available. The media will only cover the limited number that the publishers can convince them the market will go for in a big way.”
All of which makes it easy to understand why writers who have failed to make the big time are finding themselves dropped once their initial two book contract is complete.
One of the joys of an independent bookshop is the quirky individuality that comes from being free to choose your own stock.
“All the books that sold really well for us last year were books that our staff recommended themselves,” Shurville tells me. “If the big chains recommend something, it’s because the publishers have paid them to do so. When we recommend something – it’s because we’ve read it and we like it.”
They do a lot to promote new and local authors, in the shop and through Literary Festivals. But when I ask them about self-published authors, the look they exchange is telling.
“We do take books from self-published authors, on sale and return,” Watkins admits. “And some are very good. But some are awful, just dreadful. You could never promote them. The look of some of the books… We try to be encouraging, but it’s hard.”
eBooks are another problem. “We’d love to be able to sell ebooks for download, says Watson. “But the publishers make it very difficult. And nobody’s devised a way to let a customer download an ebook while they’re in the shop.”
“Independent bookshops are being squeezed out of all sorts of deals,” Shurville says. “Publishers are offering books for sale on their own websites more cheaply than we can buy them. The same applies to the special editions sold by discount chains like The Book People.”
“We used to sell a lot of books to schools,” adds Watson, “but there again, the publishers now go directly into schools and offer them more discount than they offer us.”
Their answer is to fight tooth and nail to remain a vital part of the community. They run author events, including an annual literary festival. They do book promotions in schools and old people’s homes, deliver regularly to disabled customers, and organise and participate in two – soon to be three – book groups. They’ve had authors (and, once, an editor) come to the book groups. Once they organised a Meet the Author event via Skype with a writer in America.
“We’re always looking for new ways to reach people and build relationships.”
That willingness to reach out to the community doesn’t stop with the bookshop. They were the driving force behind the village’s Christmas late night shopping event, and they’re now trying to organise a French market.
“We don’t sleep. We don’t stop. It’s quite tough, really,” Shurville jokes. It sounds like an understatement.
There is no doubt that times are hard for independent bookshops. But maybe, just maybe, there is a little change in the wind. According to the Booksellers’ Christmas Trading Survey, many shops reported that customers, influenced by the Portas Report and the Indiebound scheme, were making a point of buying from their high street shops in the run up to Christmas. 2012 will no doubt be another difficult year. But if those of us who can afford it make a point of shopping locally where we can, maybe we can make it just a little less hard.
The Bookseller has announced the search for the best independent bookshop of 2012. Over the next few editions, we’ll be writing about some of our favourites, and we’d like you to let us know about yours. If you submit a short review and we publish it, we’ll give you a £5 national book token – to be spent in your local bookshop, of course.
JJ Marsh Interviews ...
Julia Wieler, the marketing manager of Orell Füssli The Bookshop, Zurich.The largest English bookshop on the European continent
Can you start by describing your job?
I’m Marketing Manager. I’m responsible for the four print catalogues we produce each year, for contact with publishers in Britain and America and for the window displays. (The bookshop windows stretch around one of the busiest corners of central Zürich, always attractive and intriguing – think Harrods or Bloomingdales, but books.) The whole management team decide on what themes or books we like and brief the decorators. We sometimes sell window space to publishers we meet at the London or Frankfurt Book Fairs, but we keep the big windows because we like to be free to do what we like in there. I do our online marketing; the newsletter to 7,000 readers and updating our Facebook page with news, competitions to win signed books and gadgets.
How do you decide which books to buy?
The book fair, and our distributor here is OLF, based in Fribourg, which is where we order most of our stock. Their sales rep visits and presents all the forthcoming titles. UK publishing reps also visit and we meet those from the US at the fairs. We’re eager to discover debut authors, which is why we have a special window spot – our Pick of the Month – we sell those at a discount because people are taking a risk. We’ve discovered a lot of brilliant books this way.
Which book has excited you most this year?
The Night Circus. I usually read crime, but I was really amazed by this. It’s such a magical story, I couldn’t stop reading. I was enchanted by it and sad when I finished. A big discovery for the publishing house and for us. All the staff here are all so different, but everyone liked it.
The publishing world is undergoing some major changes at the moment. Which elements make you optimistic, and which make you depressed?
Hmm, the optimistic part is hard. I read so much that depresses me. Amazon is a big threat to bookshops and also to publishers. If authors decide to publish with Amazon, these books will never be available through regular bookshops. That’s sad. Not everyone orders online and people will miss out on great books.
What’s exciting is the concept of e-books. Although they’re a rival to the regular book, I love the idea of carrying 3000 books in your pocket. Technology is now advancing and we could sell e-books at the shop, advising readers who come in with their device, who can buy it there and then. That way, you still need staff who’ve read the book and have opinions. We have to evolve with the times rather than being scared of new developments.
Do you ever stock self-published books?
We do. We get approached by a lot of authors, but there’s rarely a book that excites me. Very often, the covers are just not appealing, no sparkle, no reason to buy it. It’s always difficult for me to say no because I know there’s a lot of work involved, even if it’s not good. And after all, it’s a question of taste. It’s not my place to tell the writer if it has mistakes, if the language is horrible, but I can’t stock it. What we sell reflects on us as a bookshop.
But I do have a soft spot for these writers, so I sometimes take a consignment for three months. We don’t guarantee it’s always on display, but it’s available to buy. After that, I contact the author and say I need more, or, I’m sorry, they’re not selling. Some understand, others get angry because they feel we haven’t pushed it enough. I get upset when people don’t realise that we have a small shop, thousands of titles but give someone a chance who’s only sold two copies in three months.
Currently, Tasneem Ahmad’s Indian-Pakistani Cuisine Made Easy is selling well. In fact, she’s doing an event here tonight. A success story.
What kind of books do you read for pleasure?
I think I have male tastes. I love books by Lee Child, Vince Flynn, John le Carré, Daniel Silva, whenever it’s a spy story or the hero has the touch of the lonesome cowboy the books appeal to me. For me, reading their books is like watching a movie.
Look out for Orell Füssli events on their website http://www.books.ch/home, or check out the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/TheBookshopOrellFuessli
The Good, The Bad ... and the Muddled
Libraries at the start of 2012 by Catriona Troth, the Library Cat
The verdict of the appeal hearing into the planned closure of Brent Libraries must have come as a shock to the Save Our Six Libraries Campaign. For a few days – after the hearing into the closure of Somerset and Gloucester Libraries had supported campaigners and sent those Councils back to the drawing board – they must have scented victory. All the more galling, then, to hear the Appeal Court Judge uphold the original ruling in favour of Brent Council’s closure plans.
Campaigners have vowed to fight on, but the signs are not good. On 29th December, police held back a handful of protestors at Preston Library, as council workers removed the last remaining books and computers from the building.
At Kensal Rise, however, the pop-up library they have been running since October is still defiantly operating, outside the locked library building. The wooden frame I saw being constructed is now stocked with boxes of books. Roofed with corrugated plastic and floored with Astroturf, it provides a rudimentary shelter for the dogged band of volunteers who keep it going. For a time, they even had their own library cat, who would curl up on their laps to keep them warm.
They have asked leave to appeal again, this time to the Supreme Court. And in the meantime, they have submitted a revised business plan to the council, asking to be allowed to run the library themselves.
Sal Yousaf attended the meeting in April when they presented their first business case to the council. “Their response was ‘these plans are unworkable; you will never be able to run this library.’”
Brent Council seem to have taken an attitude of ‘if we can’t run the library, then nobody shall.’ Their stance seems surprising when so many other councils are shoehorning communities into taking over. But perhaps it is not so strange when you take into account their political affiliation. As a Labour Council, they can’t be seen to support the Coalition’s ‘Big Society’ Policy and allow volunteers to run their own services.
“We don’t want volunteers running services either,” says Margaret Bailey, one of the leaders of the Save Kensal Rise Library Campaign. “But if it’s a choice between that and having no service at all…”
There is clearly a feeling among the volunteers that this is a very special community. “Can you imagine anywhere else where you could just leave all this out overnight and find it still here in the morning?” Raymond Glendenning says, arms spread wide to encompass the racks of books and DVDs on display.
If any community has shown by its efforts that it deserves to hold on to its library, it’s surely this one.
A few miles down the road, in Lewisham, a report on the libraries outsourced last summer to non-profit organizations (including Age Concern and Eco Computer Systems) showed that both lending and visits had plummeted in the first three months of operation, in some cases by almost 90%. However, this covered a period where all five libraries were suffering from teething problems with new equipment and when many residents had not yet realised that the libraries had reopened. Results after six months should give a better picture of how the libraries are really faring.
Meanwhile, at the end of December, Buckinghamshire County Council and Great Missenden Library Working Group issued a press release announcing that they had “agreed to develop a partnership model to save 50% of the libraries operating costs and also retain a level of Buckinghamshire County Council staff, supported by volunteers.” What is not clear is where this leaves those libraries in Bucks – like Chalfont St Peter and Farnham Common – that have already been handed over entirely to volunteers. Or others like Gerrards Cross and Ivinghoe, that expect to go the same way over the next few months.
In the midst of this confused picture, a Select Committee of MPs has been collecting evidence on what constitutes a comprehensive and efficient library service for the 21st century, the extent to which planned library closures are compatible with the Public Libraries & Museums Act 1964, the impact library closures have on local communities, and the effectiveness of the Secretary of State’s powers of intervention. The deadline for submitting evidence passed on 12th January, so we’ll be keeping an eye on what happens during the next stage of the inquiry.
Don’t forget. NATIONAL LIBRARIES DAY will take place on 4th February. You can find out more about what is going on in your area by going to http://www.nationallibrariesday.org.uk/
Mary Sue, Is That You? by Danny Gillan
Are you self-obsessed, vain, overly aware of the flaws of others yet almost pathologically unable to spot the negative aspects of your own personality? Congratulations, you’re fully qualified to be a writer!
‘Write what you know’ is, generally, good advice for writers, but how about ‘write who you know’? It’s a commonly held, and probably accurate, belief that most writers, certainly in their early work, base their main characters at least in part on themselves. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with this approach – it can be a great way to make the character’s thoughts and actions feel natural and believable. After all, who do you know better than yourself? Well, lots of people, actually.
Most people, not just writers, don’t know themselves half as well as they might think. We think we’re aware of how the rest of the world sees us, but are we really? Given that pretty much everyone else on the planet regularly act like dicks, it’s likely, inevitable even, that we do, too. Except, in our own heads, we don’t, do we? We’re smart, self-aware and, above all else, good people who do the right thing all the time and are never to blame when the jobbies get lobbed at the Dyson Blade. Someone else is always at fault, not us. It’s just how our brains work. If we were all to acknowledge our dickishness suicide rates would be a lot higher. It’s a survival mechanism. Realistically, I can think of half a dozen instances where I’ve acted like an arse in the last 24 hours, and I’ve spent most of that time at home alone. Having just been honest enough to say that, I shall now go back to convincing myself I haven’t been an arse at all and it was all someone else’s fault. See? Hardwired.
And it’s this species-wide character deficit/only-way-we-can-look-at-ourselves-in-the-mirror-of-a-morning that is dangerous territory for writers. If, deep down, we know were writing about ourselves, it’s very tempting to allow that never-a-dick-and-always-right instinct to infect our protagonist. Worse, it can infect all the supporting characters too, so that they never seem to notice when the lead character is being a twat, even when they are clearly being a twat. And this is when we enter Mary Sue land.
The term Mary Sue came from the world of Fan-Fiction, specifically Star Trek Fan-Fiction, and was used to describe a ‘new’ character who is a clearly idealised version of the author and who has a massive impact on the lives of the established ‘canon’ characters. They’re highly intelligent, attractive and resourceful and end up saving the day and getting the girl/guy/Wesley Crusher. Their magnificence makes all other characters pale into oblivion and they have no flaws. All the other characters come to love/worship them and every single thing that happens in the story only occurs to show this Mary Sue for the paragon of perfection she/he is. It’s wish-fulfilment posing as fiction.
Like all good sci-fi threats, the Mary Sue virus has escaped from its indigenous home and now casts its hideous shadow over the world of original fiction. It doesn’t take very long to spot numerous examples of Mary Sueness in unpublished works on writing sites all over the land of web. The hero or heroine who never deserves the bad luck thrown at them, who is a secret genius, star athlete, catwalk model in waiting or, worst of all, unrecognised but unnervingly talented writer - they’re all out there, and they’re all rubbish.
If you’re going to base a character on yourself, you need to embrace your inner arsehole and let it shine! Don’t write them as you wish you were, write them as you actually are – as big a dick as everyone else.
That way, readers might just find something about them they like and, deep down, can identify with.
Book v Television: A Conversation with Mark Billingham
by Gillian Hamer
This month we gather the views of another acclaimed crime writer and discuss their journey from novel to small screen.
Mark Billingham was born and raised in Birmingham, UK. After working as a television writer and stand-up comedian, his first crime novel, Sleepyhead, was published in 2001. It went on to achieve worldwide sales and was published in the US in the summer of 2002. The London-based series of detective novels starring detective Tom Thorne continued with enormous success – the latest, Good as Dead, was published in August 2011. Mark is also the author of a standalone novel, In the Dark, as well as a series of children’s thrillers, Triskellion, written under the pseudonym of Will Peterson. In 2010 Sky One released the first series of Tom Thorne drama serials, with David Morrissey starring as the lead role. The second series is currently in production. So, with all of these different talents under his belt, what are his thoughts about this change of direction in his career.
How were you first approached about the TV adaptation of your Tom Thorne novels and what were your initial thoughts/fears?
The books were first optioned about ten years ago, when only two had been written. I remember being excited but having worked for many years in TV as a writer, I was not overly-optimistic about having any role in the project myself. The series was then re-optioned several times and disappeared into development hell. A script was produced, which I hated…and that was about it until I finally got the rights back and then once I teamed up with David Morrissey, we decided to work together with a broadcaster ourselves.
You’re Birmingham born and bred but chose to base your Tom Thorne novels in London. How do you think the sense of place comes across on TV compared to your books?
I think the TV series showed a different side of the city to the books (notably east as opposed to north London) but it worked really well, I think. We tried to show old and new London, cheek by jowl. We shot a lot of it around the Olympic site. What I wanted to come across was Thorne’s love/hate relationship with the city and I think we did that.
You’re quoted as saying that you know as little or as much about your central character as does the reader, and that you never describe him physically and strive to make him unpredictable. How do you feel David Morrissey’s portrayal mirrors the character in your head?
I think David very much made Thorne his own; drawing on what was in the books and using it to create a character that was as much his as mine. He created a lot of back-story for Thorne which is not there in the books – some of which I may steal for future books!
How much of yourself did you write into your lead character, and is it therefore odd watching the role on television?
I never really believe writers who deny that there is anything of themselves in their characters. There is a lot of me in Thorne, but by the time that was reflected through the prism of the script and David’s performance it did not feel at all like I was seeing aspects of myself. Thorne probably has characteristics that I WISH I had…
During my research, I read that the novel, Scaredy Cat, came about following your own experience as a victim of crime in 1997. How did it then feel to see the novel on television?
As it happens, the strand of that novel that was based on what happened to me did not make it into the final version of the TV script. That experience though has coloured a lot of my writing, so perhaps it was in there somewhere…
When you watch the TV adaptations, do you see the evolution of Thorne’s character, and your hopes to keep him constantly changing, in the same way as you achieve in the novels?
I certainly hope so. Any character that does not change or grow is in danger of becoming dull and that goes for the books as much as the TV adaptations. I know David is keen to take the character into darker areas, so we’ll see how that goes.
What do you think are the key points needed to create a successful detective character?
Well obviously what most crime writers do is to create a “heightened” realism. Murders are rarely investigated in the manner portrayed in fiction, but within that there needs to be a character with whom the reader can empathise to a point. For me, I want characters who are as unpredictable as anybody else. I don’t need my hero to behave heroically. Which of us does the right thing all the time? And I want him to SOUND real. It’s all in the dialogue and if that’s bogus then I’m not interested.
With SKY recently showing the first Tom Thorne series, and a second series underway, how much involvement do you have in the actual TV production? Would your choice be for more or less?
I was always of the “keep a wide berth” school, until we made Thorne and having been so closely involved, that is the way I would want to carry on. I enjoyed being involved in casting, seeing scripts at every stage, watching rushes every day and visiting the set. There’s a point at which the writer needs to back off, obviously, but I certainly want to be as involved on any future productions.
You’re quoted as saying there has to be changes in bringing the books to screen. How do you feel TV as a medium handles complex plots and storylines in crime fiction such as yours, and what do you consider the pluses and minuses in this regard?
Where we were lucky with Thorne is that we were given three episodes per novel. That’s more than two hours of screen time to tell the story. I think trying to adapt a crime novel in less time than that inevitably involves an over-condensation of the plot. Sometimes it’s necessary for the central character to make almost superhuman leaps of deduction because there simply isn’t time to show the basic detective work. Obviously there are sub-plots and minor characters that have to go, but I want to see the work that goes into it. I’m not interested in a simple series of set-pieces interspersed with the detective brooding at home and coming up with the solution supernaturally.
How close did you hope the TV adaptation would be to your novel – a mirror image or do you prefer some originality?
I don’t see any point at all in a slavish adaptation. We just wanted to make a good piece of television. You CAN’T make a mirror image of a book because there are things you can do on the page that simply will not work on the screen. I spend large parts of each novel inside various characters’ heads. I can be inside a killer’s head without revealing to the reader who that killer is. You have to find another way to do this on screen. A book and a TV show are very different animals and I don’t see a lot of point in comparing one with the other. The book will always be the book and the TV show stands or falls on its own merits.
Do you feel your writing has changed at all since your novels were turned into TV adaptations? i.e. do you write with one eye on the TV format or do you stick to the same writing principles?
I genuinely don’t think it has changed at all. I don’t see David Morrissey or Aiden Gillen when I write and I’m not imagining scenes as if they are being shot for television. I’ve ALWAYS written visually, but I’m not sure it’s possible to write any other way. I’m as influenced by TV as I am by books. The opening of a book is always like the pre-titles sequence in a film or TV show.
How has your life changed since your books were adapted for television?
Not at all. I’m a little busier, perhaps, but as a full-time writer I can devote some time to TV projects and still manage a book a year. People DO imagine that once your books have been adapted for television that you must be worth a gazillion pounds and I do spend rather more time these days explaining just how little writers make out of TV.
Are there any other books to screen adaptations you particularly rate? And if so, why?
I loved the Swedish adaptations of the Wallander books. Actually, the British versions were pretty bloody good too. A very strong central performance without which any script is going to suffer.
You’ve been involved in theatre work, acting and stand-up comedy before moving into the crime genre, what, if anything, do you think these other careers have added to your writing?
Coming from a performance background has helped in a number of ways. A book IS a performance, I think, and stand-up taught me the importance of engaging an audience quickly and trying to keep them engaged. It’s also helped of course in terms of promoting the books. Having done hundreds of shows to a late-night crowd at the Comedy Store, I’m less intimidated by an audience at a book festival than some other writers might be. Writing for TV (though most of the time I hated it) has also proved to be helpful. It’s taught me just how crucial dialogue is. It’s all the TV writer has to work with and it’s become the key to everything for me as a novelist. Crucially, it’s dialogue that should reveal a character…
Finally, as an aside, for any up and coming writers who subscribe to Words with JAM, do you have any advice or words of wisdom you’d like to pass on?
Only to read everything you can get hold of and to keep writing. When it comes to WHAT you write, you can’t go very far wrong trying to write the sort of thing you like to read.
And purely because I’m nosey – you’re an ardent Wolves fan, so how come Tom Thorne chooses to support Tottenham Hotspur instead!?
When I started the book, Spurs were struggling rather. They were ‘sleeping giants’ so seemed to me to be the London equivalent of my own team. Now Spurs are riding high, so it doesn’t apply any more. If I were starting the series now, Thorne would probably be a West ham fan…
Julie Myerson - an exclusive interview with JD Smith
About Julie - Julie Myerson is an English author and critic. As well as writing both fiction and non-fiction books, she is also known for having written a long-running column in The Guardian entitled “Living with Teenagers” based on her own family experiences. She has also appeared regularly as a panellist on the arts programme Newsnight Review.
Julie found herself at the centre of media controversy when details of her book, The Lost Child, emerged.
Her latest fiction book, Then, is out now.
Writing both fiction and non-fiction, how do you choose what subjects to address and in which genre?
I think I approach the 2 totally differently. With a novel, I begin with almost nothing – an image perhaps or a feeling, and I write without any idea of how or what is going to take shape. I find this process incredibly exciting, and it forces – for me anyway – a kind of honesty which I find really vital to the discovery process. I know many writers write because they have something to say, but I don’t think I do. I write in order to FIND OUT what I have to say. If I knew before I started then I doubt I’d feel a need to write ...