30/11/04 - Crime Writers
Tuesday 30 November 2004 - 8:00pm
The Murder Squad's authors came to Bracknell Library last night for a talk about reading, writing, their books, and Marcel Proust (of all things - he's popped up far too many times over the last week for my liking).
The evening kicked off with minimal fuss - a layout of 40 chairs, nibbles, wine and OJ.
Margaret Murphy and John Baker arrived. They posed for photos with a range of their books and set to the task of explaining themselves and their art.
The Murder Squad are a group of writers from the top end of the country whose separate works all revolve around crime.
John began with a discussion on the nature of what it is he is trying to get across, or more so, the nature of works such as Marcel Proust (Remembrance of Things Past), Robert Louis Stevenson (Jekyll and Hyde) and Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. The essence of this talk was the themes of these 19th century works - the split in the human psyche - reason and desire. That tick inside your head that drives you to consider one thing but do another, to strive in humanity's name and yet dip emotively into that well we feel we can never fill.
John moved onto the subject of parts. What part does a writer play? What part does a reader play? The crux of this is of course Brevity, Brevity, Brevity! We returned to Marcel Proust and the nature of his writing - the purpose of writing about the sky... but not the twinkling stars... about the space between the stars. What we all must bear in mind is that it is as much about writing a description of the world in which the story is depicted as it is about leaving description out.
It is the reader who creates the story... the writers job is merely to provide the inspiration, and how may this be done if the writer allows the reader no opportunity to be stimulated? A reader needs those gaps between the stars to spark their imagination, for it is not what we put in, as writers, but what we leave out.
Margaret talked about her interview by a scouse DJ, over her books. He said:
'Hey, when I first read your book, I thought... she's a dirty woman. But, then I read it again and realised I was the dirty one.'
Whilst John prefers classical works, he fell into crime by accident (as did Margaret - she was writing a ghost story, but her agent begged to differ and told her [with great authority] that she was in fact writing crime - and so it was). John read a passage from one of his latest books - The Meanest Flood and we were drawn instantly into this dark world of murder, blood, tension and unadulterated sorrow.
Margaret's discussion was more on the process of being a crime writer, but also showed the essence of taking inspiration from life. Research is the key, and in the case of crime, to write about the police, the home office or any other government agencies it is necessary to research. In this process, Margaret had to find a contact on the inside, someone with whom she could question and learn, though this was no easy process.
Margaret had written three unpublished works before she found an agent, and was accepted on a piece that even itself never actually made it to print - publishers it seemed weren't interested in a techno-thriller written by a woman. But, fortunately the agent had seen the sparkle of something fresh in Margaret and nurtured that through another book, which became Dying Embers.
It wasn't until her third novel for publication that she decided to investigate the procedures of police and spent many phone calls attempting to glean some information on who to contact in order to get an interview. At times she was given nothing, at others she was one question too close to becoming arrested. In the end she simply strolled into a police station and asked the receptionist for a name and number for an interview. Only in being forward (and swallowing down fear of arrest) it seemed could she move further. The receptionist didn't even question her purpose and handed out the name and number.
The officer himself wasn't especially happy but passed her onto the press officer, with whom she has spent five years learning the procedures, meeting with mortuary technicians, robbery squad detectives and even partaken in police training. More over, she was shown the Home Office central crime database and gained invaluable insight into how crimes and suspects may be linked.
Margaret went on to talk about humble beginnings when her first author event at a library was attended by herself, two librarians and one old gent, who it appeared was suffering from narcolepsy. Unexpectedly, it isn't always the fact that an unknown will have a poor turn out... Margaret had arranged for her and two other members of the Murder Squad to attend a talk for a book shop that was linked with a coffee shop. The manager had made no attempt to advertise, put up signs, or even directions. The talk was in the coffee shop itself with people wandering in and out to get espressos and grande lattes. The three spotted quite a few people who wandered in, searched aimlessly and left again - without even a drink. At the end of their tether they accosted one man who didn't even seem sure he was there for them and spoke at him for twenty minutes.
Margaret gave up and went outside to calm down from her incensed anger. In the evening air she watched the people walking past, from and to places that she would never know, and she got thinking... what if I were a serial killer looking for my next victim?
And as she watched, her next fiction began to formulate.
The night was rounded off with a book signing and we all parted company feeling as if we had truly learnt something new.
- Richard Howse
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