I received an email through the website contact form from Carol Giles.  Carol said some very nice things about my books (Yo!  Go Carol!) and asks a very interesting question:“Can I ask,” says Carol, “what kind of material you used to gain this depth of knowledge of the 1920s? I would like to write a book set in 1930, but it's quite difficult to find out what day to day life was really like. There are academic books and ones about the interwar period, but getting information about one particular year is quite a challenge - any hints?”

There are two ways of answering this question – there’s far more than two, I suppose – but the first answer is lots and lots of relevant reading. However, it’s daunting to pick a year and simply decide to read about it.  You could, I suppose, go to the nearest library which has newspapers stored (usually on microfilm) and, starting at January 1^st, read through until December 31^st. After which, you’d need professional help!

It’s obvious that some sort of focus is needed. Granted that there’s something which attracts you to a particular time, the chances are that a place comes bolted on, so to speak.  So it’s not anywhere in the world in 1930, it’s New York, Manchester, the Welsh Valleys, the mid-West, the Deep South or Japan.  Is there a key book or books which talks about your particular time and place?  Try and find one written as close to your time as possible, and you’ll end up with To Kill A Mocking Bird, How Green Is My Valley, Of Mice and Men etc.  One book should lead you to another and by the time you’ve read three or four, you should be getting quite a grip on your chosen time and place. 

Granted that we’re talking about 1930, which is, in some ways, not so very long ago, I’d steer clear of historical novels written now and set in that period.  You need to have a good handle on genuine contemporary attitudes before reading someone else’s take on them.  (This doesn’t apply to all periods:  if you want to study Imperial Rome, you’d be silly to ignore Robert Graves’ I Claudius and the other two Claudius books, but they need backing up with Suetonius, Tacitus etc.) 

Now, as well as being interested in a particular place, you’re probably interested in a particular sort of person and – this being the research for a novel – the sort of problems they would have.  Racing drivers?  Read Tim Birkin’s Full Throttle.  Hollywood?  PG Wodehouse is excellent, so read his Hollywood stories (read him anyway – he’s wonderful!) but there’s plenty of memoirs.  Grouchy disenchanted left-wingers with chips on their shoulders?  Try George Orwell’s essays (again, try them anyway!)  Grouchy, self-obsessed, middle-class women?  Virginia Woolf is a must.  Ordinary people affected by crime? Depending on where they live, try Raymond Chandler or Agatha Christie. Just at random to see what would happen I put Deep Sea Divers + 1930 into Google and came up with 24,500 hits. Now, most of them would be replicated but I got 1930s efforts of William Beebe and Otis Barton with the original bathysphere.  So that’s two names, a challenge and a machine to go at. 

The point is that when you’re writing a book you’re on a journey.  Figure to yourself, as Hercule Poirot would say, that you want to make a journey, to go on holiday, in fact.  (But this isn’t fact, it’s fiction, so you can go anywhere in the world!)  Now, say you’ve always wanted to visit London/the Amazon/add your own name here.  You’ll know something about it, otherwise you wouldn’t want to go there.  Find out a bit more; talk to the travel agent, talk to people who’ve been, read about it.  That’ll give you a particular destination.   Find about yet more about your chosen destination.  Think of the sort of things you’d like to do there.  (Beach, night-clubs, hack your way through impenetrable jungle).  Pack. Go.  You see what I mean?  Before you start, whether it’s the holiday or writing the book, you’ll have a pretty good idea of where you’re going and the sort of things you’re going to do once you’re there. 

My latest book, As If By Magic, is out on the 28^th June.  Now Magic has a lot about aeroplanes in it.  I was interested in early aircraft anyway (which is why Jack’s an ex-Flying Corps pilot, or course) so, when I was sloping round a Manchester second-hand bookshop some time ago, I pounced on a book called All About Aircraft of Today by Frederick Talbot.  I had, to use the analogy of the journey, an idea of where I was going

 I bought the book.  Here's a picture of Elspeth and Jenny holding it. (I'm sorry about the white space here - technical blips!)

 All About Aircraft of Today was awarded, as the bookplate stuck inside the cover says, as a prize to one Alan Beedell of Fleet Road Central School as a reward for General Good Work in July 1921.  I don’t think young Alan thought much of his prize.  I had to slit the pages, which were still bound at the top, to read it.  I thought the book was gold-dust.  It contains (admittedly in fairly laborious prose) among other things, a detailed account of the Crossley aircraft factory which was in full production in the First World War in the nearby town of Stockport.  I’d never heard of the Crossley factory before and there are no traces left that I could find.  It doesn’t matter; Frederick Talbot had been there in 1917 and wrote a wonderful description. The Crossley factory was my particular place, my own chosen destination. 

So, what would I do in the factory?  Well, something to do with aeroplanes, obviously, and, as this is a novel, something big, something new, something that made that particular plane the most exciting thing going.  I had other ideas in mind too, nothing to do with aircraft, but which could be married together to make a (please God, fingers crossed!) really exciting story.  I read about them.  I moved the location of the factory to suit the story – writing gives you the power to do exactly as you like (You can break the laws of physics, Captain!) and - I wrote the book.  (And then spent ages re-writing the damn thing, but that’s too tedious to talk about!) I was so grateful to Frederick Talbot I gave him a walk-on part in As If By Magic as an aviation journalist which was, I imagine, what he did in real life.

Oh, and you could read How To Write Killer Historical Mysteries by Kathy Lynn Emerson as that’s an excellent book with lots of useful advice.  Best of luck!

 

Crimefest

I had a great time at Crimefest last weekend at Bristol.  It’s a pretty long weekend, lasting from Thursday until Sunday, and it’s perhaps as well that it doesn’t last any longer!  After all, I do need to sleep sometimes….

It’s quite a heady sensation for any writer to be in the company of other writers.  All of a sudden, all the thoughts and reflections that you usually keep to yourself – such as ideas for plots, sparks of sentences and a really interesting piece of character observation can be said out loud without the people you’re talking to wanting to send for men in white coats.

The weekend started as it was destined to go on when about a million of us roamed Bristol looking for food on Friday night.  We eventually ended up in The Funky Greek where – I was the pathfinder and Mosquito pilot in this setup – the proprietor folded me in a warm embrace when I asked if he could take us all in. This exuberant man pushed tables together, rushed back and forwards with wine, and served random Greek bits and pieces on long dishes.  As it was fashionably dimly-lit, I couldn’t quite see what I was eating – vine leaves came into it, I know - but it was all good.  To celebrate the end of the meal, he served trays of tiny glasses of continental liqueurs and – going back to square one – embraced me fondly yet again and asked if I wanted to dance.  Three steps later and I was ripped away from him in the most unseemly way by Suzette Hill, who went on to prove that not can she write brilliant books, but is a mean performer on the dance-floor.  Yo, go Suzette!  I retreated to my liqueur and talked to Thomas from San Francisco, who was enjoying every minute of it. 

One of the amiable things about Crimefest is the complete lack (as far as I can see, anyway) of the Us and Them mentality.  There are star guests, of course, but they aren’t hurried away, as at some conventions, to be the sole property of the Committee, as happens at some conventions.  Every published author appears on at least one panel over the weekend, so we all have our chance of glory.  Then, of course, the panels are thrown open to questions from the audience, which is just as well – listening to a fascinating conversation is one thing, but the chance to join in is brilliant.

As any conventioneer knows, it’s the discussions away from the panels that can be the most memorable.  I particularly enjoyed talking to Joanne from Alice Springs, who drives a Toyota round large bits of Australia and wondered if it ever actually stopped raining in England.  Only occasionally, Joanne!  Her next stop is Ireland.  Er… I don’t think the weather’s much better there either!

Sally Powers of I Love A Mystery had also come over from the USA.  I was impressed beyond measure when she told me she’d been the casting director for, amongst other things, Hill Street Blues and Bewitched.   Hill Street Blues is, of course, legendary and was completely unmissable but Bewitched.   Wow.  And again, Wow.  She laughed herself silly when I said I and the rest of the kids in a school playground in Greater Manchester (I’m referring to my extreme youth here) used to try to get our noses to twitch.  Eventually we all gave up and wiggled  the tips of our noses with our fingers, but Elizabeth Montgomery could do it for real.  See, it was all true.  I knew it.  Sally is one of the few people I’ve ever met who remembered a programme I used to adore.  It was called My Mother The Car and, in that cosy 1950’s-early 60’s American middle-class setting had the weirdly surrealist idea of a chap whose mother had been re-incarnated as a car.  He used to go and stand in the garage and talk to it/her. 

Toby and Bill Gottfried were there too, from America. They seem to know so many people that I feel I hardly have to say more, but they are just about one of the nicest couples I know.  What they don’t know about Cimefic isn’t worth knowing and their kindness to new authors is heart-warming.  I always feel better for talking to them and Toby’s got an infectious laugh.  And – bless her – she noticed what I was wearing!  Call me shallow, but gosh, I was pleased.  I mean, as I explained to her, I run the gauntlet at home.  The kids look at me with that disdain that only a fashion-conscious teenager can really pull off and say things like, “Mother!  You aren’t going out in that, are you?”  Lucy’s most shattering remark is that I “Look jolly”. At which juncture I might as well stay in. When my fourteen-year old Jenny, Manchester’s answer to the fashion guru, Gok Wan, says I’m passable then all is well.  (When Jenny nicks my clothes it’s painful but a compliment of sorts) but – and this is the point – I had, perforce, left my family of arbiters at home and was doing this all by myself. Matching shoes and all. Result!

Teresa Chris, my agent, arrived on Saturday and took a few of us to lunch, followed by a thoroughly enjoyable shopping trip.  She wanted walking shoes (leather, sensible and last-a-lifetime) and then we hit the charity shops where you can be frivolous on farthings, so to speak.  I found the most hilarious bag I’ve ever seen; bright sunrise yellow with Elvis on it picked out with rhinestones.  Six quid later and it was mine, mine, mine… until I got home.  Gok Wan took one look and the handbag changed owners.

So to all who organized and attended Crimefest, a big thank-you.  There are so many people I should mention, such as Roger Hudson, Jane Finnis (coffee and chat) Jenny Palmer, Linda Reagan, Ruth Dudley Edwards and all the Constable and Robinson team who hosted the party on Saturday night.  Thanks – and didn’t we have a great time? Roll on next year.

 

 

 

To Boldly Go...

The Times gave the new Star Trek film a five-star rave review this week.  I can’t wait to see it. Because – tearing off my false beard and whiskers – I can reveal that I was a Total Trekkie, a Star Trek fan. 

 It started at school. In a world where everyone is bombarded with TV – freeview, cable, sky, a wealth of channels both terrestrial and satellite and if you miss anything, hop onto You Tube or I-Player – it’s hard to remember there were only two channels.  What was on telly the night before was a hardy staple of playground conversations, mainly because we’d all seen much the same thing.  Star Trek which was up against Coronation Street, (then pulling audiences of 17 million or so) was watched by a motivated minority. Even Captain Kirk's famous voice-over seemed edgy and exciting;  it asked us To Boldy Go.  Not only was it a split inifinitve - which made me ask why on earth an infinitive shouldn't be split if it made the sentence sound better (ie literary criticism) but at my rather old-fashinoned school the worst offence you could commit was to be Bold.  You Bold Girl! was said in tones of horror. And there's Captain Kirk urging us on.  It was the first time I’d ever been really conscious of belonging to any sort of wider group.  Girls – it was an all-girls school – who you hardly knew would say things like “Live long and prosper” and give the Vulcan forked-finger salute and there you were; something in common.  (I practiced Mr Spock’s salute until my fingers hurt, but I managed to do it perfectly – and can still can!)

            For some reason. grown-ups, or, at least, all the ones we came in contact with, seemed to hate it.  Maybe they hated it for the same reason they hated pop music.  It was a world of which they had no knowledge and therefore could exert no control. In my youth it was a real cause of friction and I still can’t see what all the fuss was about.  Now here you might expect me to say something like it was because the adult world loathed Trek, we loved it.  Not so;  and I honestly think the memory of Trek has made me a great deal more tolerant of my own teenagers’ interests.  Teenagers’ interests often shade into obsessions and there’s a certain amount of nullifying boredom to be gone through but they all seem to come out the other end the right way up and more or less normal.  Plus they have huge amounts of precise information on subjects such as dinosaurs, the habits of Elves and Quidditch. 

            In those days, long before every TV programme came with its own marketing campaign, it was with a real shock that I saw a picture of Captain Kirk on the front of a magazine in the local newsagents.  Sci-Fi Monthly.  Wow.  And it talked about things called Star Trek fanzines.  Fanzines? Again, Wow. I bought them, read them, and before you could say hyperspace had produced one of my own.  This led to letters to and from all sorts of people all over the country and abroad. I’d left school by then and I think the new friends helped to fill the gap.  Then Sci-Fi Monthly announced a Star Trek Convention. A Star Trek Convention!!  Double Wow with knobs on.  It wasn’t too expensive and it wasn’t too far away and you got to meet George Takei.  

I met friends at that convention I have to this day.  The Star Trek connection has faded but the people remain.  Star Trek opened up the world in a way few other things, (apart from, perhaps, University or joining the Army) ever could, in a very Trekkie sort of way. Lots of people from all over the place who didn't know you, your parents or have you wedged in a  box labelled with all the things you could - or chiefly - couldn't do, because of who you were and where you lived.  It couldn’t last, of course, but the effects were good and there was the odd sensation that wherever you went in the world there was a good chance you’d meet someone with who you had, as in those days at school, something in common.  And it made for some very good jokes; I nearly died laughing when Comicbook Man on the Simpsons – a figure recognizable to anyone who’s been to a Convention – said, “Loneliness and cheeseburgers are a dangerous combination.”  Even now, the old magic lingers.  Louise Penny and I (Louise won the Agatha Award last week for her book, The Cruellest Month) shared a moment of pure rapture when we flashed Vulcan hand-signals at each other and realised that the other, too, had lived in Arcady. 

 And I was once stuck in a lift with Dr McCoy;  but that’s another story!

 

 

 

Bristol Crimefest

If anyone's coming to the Bristol Crimefest on 14th-17th May, why not come and say hello?  It'd be lovely to have a chat.

Winners And Losers

            Louise Penny has won the Agatha award for best novel at the Malice Domestic festival.  Her book, The Cruellest Month, is a terrific read and Louise is such a nice person that it really couldn’t happen to anyone better.  Louise came to the Bristol Crimefest (UK) last year (this year’s Crimefest happens in a couple of weeks) and we got on like a house on fire.  Louise summons up a great sense of place in her books; they’re so Canadian that you feel transported there.  As well as having good stories, they’re so well written that they’re a pleasure to spend time with – like Louise, really! 

            So Louise is the winner (der, der!). 

            The Loser is poor old Ricky Hatton.  The news of Light-Welterweight World Champion  Ricky Hatton’s defeat at the hands of the lighting-fisted Filipino, Manny Pacquiao, was rotten news for any proud Mancuinian to wake up to.  Ricky is very well-loved locally for lots of very good reasons.  He isn’t – this is the unforgivable sin for a Northerner – remotely up himself, but pleasant, approachable and will turn out to do unshowy charity work, such as a fund-raising day at the kids’ school.

 I’ve danced with him in the local pub. Now, I must admit that this was probably a more memorable experience for me than him, but it was a great evening.  The pub in question isn’t some timeless slice of Old England or some Sunday Times Gastro Bar but the Old Hunter’s Tavern, an ordinary town local with a public and a snug.   I’ve been going in The Hunters most of my adult life. I worked behind the bar for a time.  It was – then – most of the things a pub should be.  It had an oak counter, brass rails and group of old codgers drinking Worthington White Shield (if you want an exercise in patience, try drinking Worthington White Shield:- it has to be poured like vintage port, otherwise the lees get into the glass).  The old codgers all smoked pipes and played dominos and cribbage and there was a ginger cat curled up in front of the fire. 

            Since then, of course, time’s moved on.  If any of the old codgers, or anyone else for that matter, wants a quiet smoke, they have to go and shiver outside in the smoking area.  The cat has ceased to be and, instead of the click of dominos there’s a disco on a Sunday night.  Now, I must say I prefer the old version but the new has a way of re-inventing itself.

            The night I danced with Ricky Hatton, the incomparable Archie was manning the disco.  Archie’s a big bloke, one of those characters that everyone knows roundabout, and likes a laugh.  He likes to see people enjoying themselves and a group of regulars, lead by my old friend, Anne, were enjoying themselves to the hilt.  Anne dresses up for a Sunday night; slinky black skirt and gold bracelets.  She, to add to the fun, had bought in a collection of toy tambourines, jingle bells and little cymbals and we were entertaining ourselves by pretending to be Spanish dancers, amongst other things.   Ricky, who was standing at the bar with a few mates, was laughing his head off at her/our gyrations and wanted to join in the fun.  So there was the World Champion, totally relaxed, banging a child’s tambourine, while we all sang This year we’re off to sunny Spain. It was an interesting evening:  no wonder he’s so well-loved.