Constraints of Fiction vs Freedom of Reality

What's coming up for Geraldine? SCENE OF THE CRIME! http://jsydneyjones.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/leigh-russells-d-i-geraldine-steel-psychologically-acute/

On the spur of the moment we once went to visit a public gardens that turned out to be closed. Having travelled so far, we decided to drive on to the nearest town. As we drew level with a sign welcoming us to Milton Keynes, my mobile rang. My daughter was calling because she was bored waiting for a train in... Milton Keynes. I can’t recall the purpose of her visit, but like ours it was an unprecedented trip to Milton Keynes and neither of us had known of the other’s visit beforehand. It was fluke that we chanced to be there at the same time, and discovered we were there together before either of us left.
I could tell you a few more coincidences that have happened to me - although one is so strange that I wouldn’t relate it here for fear of being dismissed as an advocate of impossible supernatural events. It really was that unlikely.
I’m not alone in this. Most people can recall at least one astonishing coincidence they have experienced. How often do we introduce anecdotes with the words, ‘You’ll never believe what happened!’ But of course we do believe the story that follows, because it’s true.
So how is it that real life can throw up such coincidences with impunity when my editor warned me early on to avoid coincidences in my writing because ‘Readers don’t like them’?
When writing my crime thrillers I try to make them believable, researching small details to create a convincing illusion so my readers ‘buy into’ the world of my book. I’m pleased to come across epithets like ‘plausible’ and ‘authentic’ when reviewers comment on my fictional forensic science. (It should be authentic. My advisers range from an experience medical practitioner to a professor of forensic medicine, and even the human remains department of the Natural History Museum!) And I spend time working out how my detective can come across an essential piece of evidence without any unlikely coincidences which my readers might find unbelievable.
So it annoys me intensely that real life can be completely absurd and ridiculously far-fetched when we authors can’t take similar liberties. It’s just not fair!

NEWSFLASH: See it here first →
(publication May 2011)









http://www.noexit.co.uk\leighrussell

Libraries and the future of reading

Recent figures show the number of active library users has dropped by over 2% while visits to library websites increased by almost 50 per cent. In 1849 William Ewart introduced a Public Libraries Bill. Conservatives objected, concerned that the middle and upper classes would pay for a service used only by the working classes. One MP announced "people have too much knowledge already: it was much easier to manage them twenty years ago; the more education people get the more difficult they are to manage.” Nevertheless the Public Libraries Act was passed in 1850.
The 19th century MP who complained that reading makes people more difficult to control had a point. Setting aside powerful arguments about the arts, culture and the advancement of knowledge, reading is essential if we are to have a population able to think for themselves. Because reading gives the individual access to all the information (and misinformation) in the world.
Over the past four centuries we have established a largely literate society in the West but literacy is losing its appeal. Today’s children feed their imaginations playing interactive games where their parents’ need for stories was supplied by books. We have the technology to move towards a largely post-literate society. All the text we need can be recorded with voice activated software for a listening audience rather than a readership. It’s easier. Already we access much of our knowledge from the television or online, and we see more stories on the small screen than the page.
But watching or listening to stories or information is a very different experience to reading. Apart from the argument about using imagination, when you’re reading you can speed up, slow down, pause to reflect, reread and refer back to an earlier passage. There is no one else’s voice to influence or interpret the meaning of the words for you. As reader you control how you read and interpret the words for yourself.
All of this makes books not only valuable but “an essential part of having and educated and literate population” as Wikipedia puts it.
So it is worrying that libraries are not mobbed by people wanting to access free books.
When Britain’s first public lending library opened in Manchester in the mid 19th century it was seen as an event so significant for literacy and democracy that Dickens visited, saying this was an institution “knowing no sect, no party and no distinction; nothing but the public want and the public good.” He would surely be turning in his grave to know that libraries are losing their popularity. If enough people lose interest in books, we risk losing our independent access to knowledge and even our ability to think for ourselves.

On writing and... writing

Oxford University professor Kathryn Sutherland has thrown doubt over Jane Austen’s authorship of her novels, her scepticism based on an analysis of Austen’s letters. The theory seems to hinge on Sutherland’s expectation that Austen’s letters should be written in the same perfectly polished style as her books. But the letters, according to Sutherland, are “littered with misspelling and grammar errors”. The books are not. Therefore, Sutherland concludes, the books could not have been written by Austen. Sutherland goes on to quote from Austen’s editor, William Gifford, who wrote of a draft of Emma: “It is very carelessly copied… there are many short omissions which must be inserted.” He offers to “readily correct the proof for you.” From which Sutherland presumes that the books were at least in part written by the editor Gifford.
Oh dear.
I hope no one scrutinises my blog posts, emails, facebook comments, and tweets and compares them to my books. My books are by and large grammatically accurate, and my other ramblings aren’t. But would anyone conclude that my books were written by someone else? We don’t expect tweets and emails to be well-written, carefully considered literature. Why should Jane Austen’s private notes and scribblings be judged by different standards to those of today? Jane Austen’s letters weren’t written for publication. They were private. Why should she have written beautifully constructed letters in perfect elegant prose? Her books of course are another matter altogether and I daresay she – and her editor – checked and corrected them carefully.
Any serious author will acknowledge the help of their editor. Why should Jane Austen be any different?

Reviews

I feel it's time to explain my gripe with the review of Road Closed that has appeared on amazon.ca. To begin with, I can't help but wonder why this reviewer didn't post a review of Cut Short - which he admits he liked - but only felt moved to write a review of Road Closed because he enjoyed it less. Are there genuinely reviewers out there who feel they should only review books they don't enjoy ? How is that helpful - or is this just an individual venting his own feelings about life's inevitable disappointments? Well, here's my venting in return!
The second issue I have with all this is that I know I have many fans - including quite a lot in Canada who have contacted me via twitter and facebook. Canadian fans have even complained on facebook and twitter that they were unable to post positive reviews of Road Closed on amazon because they hadn't purchased from there. So the one poor review continues to stand there alone.
Road Closed has received glowing reviews from critics writing for The Times ('confirms her promise as a writer') The New York Journal of Books ('refreshingly compelling and original') even some reviews which prefer Road Closed to Cut Short ('an even better read than Cut Short' to quote The Secret Writer). I could go on, but you can see a host of good reviews for Road Closed on my publisher's website
http://www.noexit.co.uk/titles.php/itemcode/526
Of course not everyone is going to enjoy my books and a lot of people may well dismiss them for any number of justified reasons, and that's fair enough.
What I find unfair is that when I wanted to post a list of quotes from reviews in The Times, The New York Journal of Books, etc, on amazon.ca to point out that Road Closed has received some positive reviews, amazon.ca blocked it. As the author it seems I am not allowed to post reviews from journals like The Times - even though the reviews aren't mine. I can't even comment on the review that someone else has posted.
I don't expect everyone to like my books and I'm quite happy to accept some inevitable 2 star reviews among the 5 star ones, but what is happening on amazon.ca does seem to be a complete misrepresentation of how Road Closed has been received.
Is it coincidence that out of Cut Short and Road Closed sales on amazon.co.uk, amazon.com and amazon.ca the sales rating of Road Closed on amazon.ca has been consistently poor compared to all the others since that one negative review was posted?
So thanks a lot, amazon.ca, for not allowing me to post anyone else's reviews about my book. Maybe it's time you reviewed your policies.

Interview and Review

http://margotkinberg.blogspot.com/2010/10/guest-post-interview-with-leigh-russell.html
Thank you to Margot and her Confessions of a Mystery Novelist

and a new review says CUT SHORT 'a very good read' ROAD CLOSED 'an even better read' http://thesecretwriterblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/movers-and-shakers-author-leigh-russell.html

Thank you!

Reaching the End

How do other writers manage to finish a book? How do you?
The first in my series, CUT SHORT, wasn't planned in advance - I simply ran with an idea. Before writing the second in my series, ROAD CLOSED, I did a detailed plan and went further with DEAD END which is coming out in 2011, and wrote a ten page synopsis before I wrote the first draft. I have done the same for the fourth in my series.
Now, with 63 of the 64 chapters written, the first draft of my fourth book is almost complete. I know what to do and could easily finish the first draft in an hour at the most. So what's stopping me? It can't be described as 'writer's block' (whatever that is) because I know exactly what to do. The words are already there in my head just waiting to appear on the page.
But once they're typed - that's it.
Then, of course, the next stage begins, going over what I've written and checking details - names, dates, etc - editing expression, polishing the wording, thinking about the structure - there will be lots of work to do.
But the first draft will be finished.
So what is stopping me from finishing? Why is it so hard to let go? I'm enjoying writing my current MS so much I just don't want this to stop. If I wasn't writing a series I don't think I would ever reach the end of this book... at least until an idea for what is going to happen to Geraldine in the fifth book starts buzzing about in my brain... and I already have an inkling!

New York Journal of Books

Check out the new look New York Journal of Books on
http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/review/road-closed

"Road Closed is the second crime novel by Leigh Russell, featuring Detective Inspector Geraldine Steel. We were first introduced to Steel in the gritty and totally addictive debut novel, Cut Short, and once again Russell is in top form with this new crime thriller...
Like all good crime and thriller writers, Russell gives us just enough morsels of information in each page-turning chapter to whet our appetites for the bigger banquet at the end of the book. Road Closed is a gripping, fast-paced read, pulling you in from the very first tense page and keeping you captivated right to the end with its refreshingly compelling and original narrative. The rapidly building fan base of Russell and Steel will be on the edge of their seats waiting for the next installment, tentatively titled Dead End."