The Benefits of Research

In Transit...

Isn't life strange? Nothing less than National Crime Reading Month could have prompted me to respond to a request for "500 words on any topic of interest" while waiting at one forty a.m. for a seven hour connecting flight to London, having just completed a four hour flight to Abu Dhabi. Yes, writing fiction has taken me into some unexpected places to research my books. 

A lot of my research has involved talking to CID officers as my psychological crime novels also fall into the category of police procedurals, since my protagonists Geraldine Steel and Ian Peterson are detective inspectors. I've spent hours chatting to staff in mortuaries, visiting Metropolitan Police Serious Crime Command, sitting alone in a prison cell (voluntarily!) and passing an exciting afternoon with a Fire Investigation Team (yes, an entire afternoon, just me and a team of firemen!) 

All authors follow their own processes but, for me, research follows the plot. I tell a story, aware that certain areas need research. Having completed the manuscript in draft, only when the story is in place do I fill in externally verifiable information. For me, the danger of conducting research before seeing the narrative through is the risk of being distracted. It is all too easy to inadvertently shoehorn material extraneous to the story into a book, just because the writer finds it interesting. 

Herman Melville did exactly that, including pages of detailed information about whales in his famous novel, Moby Dick. These information dumps would have a place in Wikipedia. For any reader following the dramatic conflict between Ahab, demented captain of a whaling ship, and his nemesis, the great white whale that took his leg, the factual chapters are tedious. 

My research involves meeting people from all walks of life, in all sorts of places: market traders, forensic anthropologists, race course managers, psychiatrists, prisoners in a closed prison, the Spanish equivalent of our CID in Barcelona, the British High Commission in the Seychelles - there is no place on earth where a crime writer might not find herself.

Not all my research has been fun. Watching a sheep's eye being dissected was hardly enjoyable, although it was interesting. My worst research experience so far involved live maggots. I haven't put that in a book yet. It was so gross I prefer not to dwell on it, even in my imagination. 

 

Recently a new series has led me to overseas locations. I'm writing this on my way home from two weeks' research on a tropical island in the Indian Ocean. Along with the beaches and the cocktails at sunset, I spent time at a local police station and the police headquarters in the capital - again voluntarily! - as well as checking out different settings in the book. After a few weeks at home, working on edits, I'm off again to Paris in July, Greece in August, and Rome in September...  

Just time to send this off before I have to switch to airplane mode.  It's two a.m. in Abu Dhabi, and the flight to Heathrow is boarding...

Book of the Month

     Race to Death is Crime Book Club's BOOK OF THE MONTH

Available as eBook and in paperback - links on http://leighrussell.co.uk

Crime leads to romance

Breaking news - Scott proposes to Jo at Harrogate Crime Festival where they first met

PRESS RELEASE

This week my publishers asked me to send them 50 words describing how I felt about writing a spin off series for Geraldine Steel's sergeant. This was for a press release about COLD SACRIFICE, the first in my new Ian Peterson series.

'Well, that won't be difficult,' I thought. Off went my response: 'No worries. It will be with you this afternoon.' After all, to someone who habitually writes 2,000 words a day, 50 words should be 'a walk in the park'. (Excuse the cliché but it seems appropriate. My debut CUT SHORT, which was inspired by a (literal) walk in the park, has recently been published in French with the title (in English) MURDER PARK.)

Not only is the typing relatively fast, I write "psychologically acute" crime novels (to quote Marcel Berlins, writing in The Times.)

So, I write fast and seem to have the ability to worm my way inside my characters' minds ("taking readers into the darkest recesses of the human psyche" according to a review by Barry Forshaw.)

Yet I'm sitting here, struggling to find 50 words to describe my own thoughts and feelings...

It seems that my fingers slide effortlessly over the keyboard when I'm writing fiction. (Well, relatively effortlessly - I'm making a point here.) But when called on to write something 'real' I find it's not so straightforward. What should I say? What if I get this wrong?

There's only one way to tackle this. I'll have to treat myself as a character in a book..... a character who is an author. Her publisher asks her to write a spin off series based on one of her characters, Ian Peterson. How does she feel? "...wildly excited at the opportunity to explore Ian Peterson's future... "

COLD SACRIFICE will be published in September in print, and is scheduled to be available as an ebook  this month.

Guest Interview with Sherlock Holmes Writer and Scholar Alistair Duncan

I am very excited to be introducing my first guest here on my blog, as I interview Alistair Duncan, the well known Sherlock Holmes scholar and author of books on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle whose latest book, THE NORWOOD AUTHOR, has recently been published.

Alistair, welcome to my blog and thank you for agreeing to be interviewed here.

Thank you. It's nice to be here.

1. Many fans of Sherlock Holmes give little thought to his creator, Conan Doyle. What first sparked your interest in him?
I was initially far more interested in the creation rather than the creator. For me Conan Doyle was the man about whom a few pages appeared at the beginning of the Holmes books that I owned. My interest really gained momentum when I found myself living in South Norwood where Conan Doyle himself had lived.

When I wrote my first book, ELIMINATE THE IMPOSSIBLE, it naturally included some details on Conan Doyle. As I researched I became more and more interested. This reflected itself in my second book, CLOSE TO HOLMES, where the balance between Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes became something closer to 50/50.

Finally this interest culminated in my third book, THE NORWOOD AUTHOR, where the book is primarily focused on Conan Doyle.

2. Even though I write fiction, I spend quite a lot of time researching my books. I wonder what proportion of your time is spent on research, and what proportion of your time is spent writing?
Good question and it has varied for each book. Taking the last book I would say that the allocation of time was roughly 50/50.

3. How much of your research is conducted on the internet and how much of it consists of studying original documents and consulting other scholars?The internet is often a good starting point for any research but it is not good to rely on it. I generally begin with the internet and if a promising lead comes up I pursue it through libraries and other sources. For my latest book internet research was far less than the other two and most of my time was spent in front of microfilm readers at Croydon Library where films of the old Norwood newspapers are kept.

4. Can you share with us the most surprising fact you have discovered about Conan Doyle?I unearthed the fact that he became president of the Upper Norwood Literary and Scientific Society. Very few books (in fact only one that I found) mentioned that he was even a member of the society. None had mentioned that he became president.

5. Were your books commissioned? If not, can you tell us how you set about finding an agent?
At the risk of shocking people I am, in fact, agentless. I posted a synopsis of sorts to an internet authors' discussion forum and was contacted directly by a small independent publisher. Things went from there.

6. You mentioned The Sherlock Holmes Society of London. Can you tell us something about the society? Can anyone become a member or do you need to have red hair - or have published a scholarly work on Sherlock Holmes?
The original society began in 1934 but was suspended due to an unfortunate event otherwise known as the Second World War. When the Festival of Britain was held in 1951 it demonstrated such a continued fascination with Holmes that a small group decided to resurrect the society.

Unlike some other societies the SHSL does not operate any old-fashioned admissions policy. An interest in Holmes is deemed sufficient.

7. What does the future hold for you as a writer? Will you continue to research Conan Doyle or are you going to branch out in other areas?I fully intend to continue researching him but I think any future written output in that area will take the form of short articles rather than books. I now wish to focus my energies primarily on my first attempt at fiction.

8. Am I right that Sherlock Holmes became popular in the nineteenth century when people lived in fear of crime which the police struggled to control? Do you think the current crime figures explain the popularity of contemporary crime fiction?
Holmes did indeed become popular in the 19th century. This was largely due to the increase in literacy that had been brought about by the 1870 Elementary Education Act which introduced the first compulsory state-funded schooling. I do agree that part of his appeal was down to the fact that he continually outwitted the official police at a time when they were not popular with the public. The public (particularly the working-class) had a distrust of the police. This had not been helped by what was seen as their dismal attempts to capture Jack the Ripper a few years earlier.

I think the modern interest in crime fiction is only partly motivated by current crime levels. I believe that if we lived in some crime-free Utopia crime fiction would still sell. I believe that is down to our love of a good puzzle and the fact that the ultimate puzzle is one where you're trying to catch a killer.

Alistair’s latest publication, THE NORWOOD AUTHOR, is available on amazon. It makes a fascinating read. You can see my review of THE NORWOOD AUTHOR on amazon.