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...

What if...

A question commonly posed to authors is: ‘How do you start writing a novel?’ This is often followed by questions such as: 'Where do you find your inspiration?' and 'How do you develop your characters?' These are questions I am frequently asked. With eight books out in the shops and the ninth one out this May, the source for my ideas hasn't changed. It can be expressed in two short words:  ‘What if?’

Although my narratives are flights of fancy, I present scenarios that could conceivably happen to anyone. What if your flatmate was a serial killer? What if your boss liked to commit murder in his or her spare time? I think the more credible a story is, the more frightening it becomes, so I make my narratives as authentic as possible, while doing my best to maintain the suspense readers expect from the crime genre. This is why I try to keep the police procedure in my books reasonably accurate. My fans in the police force are very forgiving, allowing fiction a little dramatic licence where the story demands it. So my Detective Inspector Geraldine Steel spends less time behind a desk working on budgets and expenses claims than might happen in real life, and more time viewing crime scenes and chasing after criminals.

Killer Plan opens with one of these ‘what if’ scenarios - a seemingly innocuous meeting. Caroline is sitting on a bench in the park watching her young sons play football. Her husband is at home, preparing to mow the grass. It's a quiet scene of everyday life… until Caroline inadvertently invites another character to tear her world apart.

Have you ever unknowingly met a killer in the park…?

Interview with Peter James

Leigh Russell talks to
PETER JAMES
Peter James has written 25 books, the most recent of which feature Brighton-based Detective Superintendent Roy Grace. His books have been translated into 35 languages. Peter is currently the chairman of the Crime Writers Association. His new novel, Not Dead Yet, went straight to number 1 in the UK hardback bestseller list, Peter’s fifth consecutive number 1.

Q What did you find most exciting about writing Not Dead Yet?

A It was fun using my experience in the movie business. Plus I’m a stickler for research so it was fascinating finding out about forensic podiatry, which has never before been used in a novel.

Q It’s encouraging to see a UK author reaching out to overseas readers. Tell us about your visit to India.

A Last March I did an author tour in India, which is the only country where print reading is on the increase. My publisher Macmillan have had a presence there for a hundred years and with a billion people in India, more and more of whom are reading in English, it’s a huge emerging market. It’s always interesting to visit different countries. What was lovely there was the amount of press interest, with fifteen to twenty newspaper reporters queuing for interviews. A lot of them asked me why I write crime novels, rather than ‘proper fiction’. Boy, did they ask the wrong person! ‘Do you like Shakespeare?’ I replied. “If he was writing today, I think he’d be writing crime novels. Over half his plays have a courtroom scene!

Q My own detective recently relocated from the Home Counties to London. Could you imagine DS Grace ever moving away from Brighton to join another force?

A Location is incredibly important in the genre; location is as much part of a book as the central characters. I couldn’t imagine Rebus operating anywhere but Edinburgh, or Mark Billingham’s Thorne anywhere but London, or James Ellroy anywhere but LA. In Brighton it’s interesting that a number of junior police officers have moved up to the Met for higher pay, but most senior officers are passionate about the city. The Divisional Commander Graham Bartlett would have the opportunity to go for promotion to ACC level, but this would almost certainly involve him in leaving the county, which he doesn’t want to do. This kind of stability places more emphasis on community policing as officers like Graham Bartlett – and Roy Grace - get to know the local villains. I’ve been driving through Brighton with coppers who point out the drugs dealers, house burglars, all all the other crims to me. That said, in Not Dead Yet there are elements from outside the UK, and the book I’m writing now starts in Brooklyn. Criminals don’t stick to boundaries, and Roy Grace is based on a character who has visited the States several times on police business.

Q You describe yourself as “a stickler for research”. One of my own favourites was spending an after noon with a team of firemen; research involving live maggots was less enjoyable! Can you tell us about a highlight, and a low point, in your research.

A An absolute low point was when I was writing Dead Simple, the first Roy Grace novel. For a wedding prank, a character is buried in a coffin in remote woodland, before the pranksters are wiped out in a car crash. I wanted to know what it would feel like to be shut in a coffin. A funeral director was happy to oblige when I asked him to screw the lid down and leave me for thirty minutes. A coroner had advised me it was possible to survive for at least three hours in a closed coffin, unless you hyperventilate. Did I tell you I’m claustrophobic? That was the worst thirty minutes of my life! There are many highlights. I love going on police raids. The police love it too, driving on blues and twos and getting in what they call a “bundle” – a euphemism for a fight. I’m a petrol head so some of my best moments with the police are travelling in a traffic police car late at night. I was recently in the lead car in an hour and a half chase involving seven cars, dog handlers and a helicopter. The sheer adrenaline rush was fantastic. One of the officers said, ‘I can’t believe they’re paying me to do this.’

Q Religion plays a diminishing role in many people’s lives. Is part of the appeal of crime fiction that it offers us some kind of moral compass?

A Yes, part of the appeal of crime fiction is the adventure, usually seen through the eyes of a heroic detective, that takes the reader to a place where everything is all right in the end. In addition. Intelligent people read books to get not just a story, but also to learn something about human life. Look at any bestseller list and half the names on the list will be North of sixty in all genres, on both sides of the Atlantic. We authors (hopefully!) get wiser as we get older. Good crime fiction understands the world. No one sees more of human life in a thirty year career than a police officer. In good crime fiction the reader learns something new each time about the human condition. That’s why I get angry when people ask why I write ‘genre fiction’.

Q What do you find challenging about having the same protagonist in each book?

A If someone picks up my ninth book, and they haven’t read any of the series, I have to describe my main characters. At the same time, I don’t want to bore people who have read the previous eight books. What to say or not to say about characters and location is a challenge. But I really like having the same main characters. Each time I start a new Roy Grace book, I feel like I’m going back to my family.

Q You touched on this earlier, but do you think your experience working in film and television has influenced your writing, and if so, in what ways?

A Yes, I do. I think we tend to read books in a different way than people did a hundred years ago. We are influenced by television and movies, where there are frequent changes of scene and character perspective. The biggest lesson I learned was years ago when I worked on a sit com in the US. We were told we needed to have a gag every 14 seconds. Fifty per cent of the potential audience channel hop. If we didn’t give them a joke every 14 seconds, they wouldn’t stay. I don’t have a joke every 14 seconds in my books! But I learned the importance of giving the reader something on every page to keep them hooked.

Q Do you think groups like Mystery People and the CWA, which you chair, are important, and if so, why?

A Yes, I think they are incredibly important to readers who like a particular genre. The crime genre is such a broad canvas, I am constantly coming across writers I have never heard of, who are big selling authors. These groups are the best way of learning about authors in an area of fiction we love.

Superintendent Roy Grace series
Dead Simple (2005) Looking Good Dead (2006) Not Dead Enough (2007)
Dead Mans Footsteps (2008) Dead Tomorrow (2009) Dead Like You (2010)
Dead Man’s Grip (2011) Not Dead Yet (2012)
http://www.peterjames.com

Under the chairmanship of Peter James, the CWA is introducing a new Manuscript Assessment Service for aspiring crime writers. Peter says, “The Crime Writers Association is inundated with requests for guidance on manuscripts in the genre, so we think this service is going to be very popular.” Details are on the CWA website.

This interview first appeared on www.mysterypeople.co.uk