Getting a criminal way of thinking
JOYCE Holms, writer, teacher and engaging speaker, recently offered wry insights from her writing career to a group of aspiring crime fiction writers in Wick.
Holms began her career as a writer mostly by accident. A charismatic English teacher suggested she had an imagination more suitable to writing than any other career when she left school with no particular qualifications.
It was several years later, however, she began writing for Mills and Boon — romances.
She switched from romance to crime, she told her audience, when Rock Hudson came out and romance just died for her. Although not likely to be the actual reason for a genre switch, verisimilitude is the proper currency for fiction writers and after-dinner speakers.
The next day Holms and her audience took on the hard work of learning how to write crime stories.
She began by describing the analogy between WeightWatchers meetings and workshops for writers. For the most part, she explained, those attending know what to do but they don’t do it.
WeightWatchers, she argues, provides, in effect, a big brother to chide and encourage members. Thus, she set out in her workshop to offer ways for those of us attending to become big brothers to ourselves and to our fellow writers.
Research, even though very little of it may actually appear in the book or story, is very important.
Notebooks full of lists and notes are an essential part of research, as is watching Judge Judy and Jerry Springer and judicious eavesdropping.
Her first crime novel, Payment Deferred, came "entirely out of her notebook". I diligently wrote these tips in my own wee notebook but I could not keep from thinking what an odd collection of things her notebook must be, and I am not sure even in the name of research I could spend much time watching Judge Judy or Jerry Springer.
CRIME writing is among the most popular genres and Scottish crime fiction is amongst the best in the world.
It is the most popular genre amongst Scottish readers, both in bookshops and in libraries, according to the Bloody Scotland website describing the rationale for its upcoming first International Crime Festival to be held in Stirling.
Crime writing traces its antecedents to Edgar Allan Poe but its popularity has grown recently.
Some fans argue that its appeal – either in the reading or the writing – is its escapism, often into a more ordered world than we see around us every day; others, such as P.D. James, the queen of detective fiction, suggests the appeal is in solving problems.
The seed for crime writing in Caithness was planted at an earlier workshop by another crime-writing woman.
Clio Gray (www.cliogray.com) came to Castlehill and worked on critiques for each of the writers in the workshop in May from material supplied in advance. Gray read from her most recent publication, Brora Murders, and told us about Bloody Scotland.
One of the goals of this first International Crime Festival set in Scotland is to "map the crimes of novels based in Scotland".
Her novel put Sutherland on the map but Caithness had no crime novels to its name. Some local writers, who began then to think about how to redress that, were now listening to specifics of developing plot elements, creating characters, finding good opening lines, and why plot comes before character.
Equally as popular as crime fiction – from classics such as Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes to contemporary novels and short stories by authors such as Holms and Gray – are true crime stories.
Although Caithness probably won’t make it on to the map of crime novels in time for Bloody Scotland, Jean McLennan will represent Caithness at Bloody Scotland.
Noted for her nonfiction book, Blood in the Glens: True Crime from the Scottish Highlands, McLennan will join David Wilson and Jim Fraser discussing "True Crime: Stranger than Fiction" at one of the Saturday sessions, September 15.
In the meantime, if you find a notebook with lists of how to do someone in, several columns of names, and physical characteristics, don’t worry. Look for a mild-mannered writerly type and return the notebook and encourage them to put Caithness on the map with fictional crime.