CrimeFest 2013: The Aftermath

Years ago, I booked a one-to-one appointment at the Winchester Writers Conference with author and critic Peter Guttridge. When we met, for our appointed fifteen minutes, he apologised and told me that, due to a mix-up, he hadn’t received my sample chapters, and was unable to offer me any helpful feedback. However, he did tell me that if I emailed the material to him directly, he’d take a look and get back to me when he could.

He never did.

Fast-forward to the present, and CrimeFest 2013. This was to be my first ever literary festival, and I was fortunate enough to be on two different panels. One was for debut authors, entitled Fresh Blood, moderated by the lovely Rhian Davies. The other, entitled The Power Of The Author, was to be moderated by me, and the panellists included... Peter Guttridge!

In a novel, this might have led to murder in the Green Room, and a conference-wide search for the missing writer, but in reality Peter and his fellow panellists Ruth Downie, Andrew Pepper, and John Matthews were all great fun and delivered an entertaining discussion for the audience.

It was a fabulous four days. CrimeFest takes place at the Marriott in Bristol, just across the road from the Watershed cafe where I often go to write, and it was hugely enjoyable to wander around in the midst of so many famous authors. There was Julia Crouch walking along the corridor, Ann Cleeves sitting at the next table in the bar. I chatted with George Mann while we waited for our drinks, and popped out for the odd cigarette with Sophie Hannah and Stav Sherez. It was as though my Twitter feed had come to life and been transported en masse to Bristol.

There were some excellent panels, leading to deep discussions in the courtyard afterwards, especially once the drinks started flowing. There was Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat and Sue Vertue giving a talk on Sherlock. And there was blazing sunshine throughout.

Above all though, it was great to meet so many lovely people, particularly the readers who were kind enough to take a chance on buying "Eye Contact". I’m glad I had the chance to talk to them about it, I hope they enjoy reading it, and I hope they can make out what I scrawled in the copies I signed!

I wish the weekend could have lasted longer. Too soon, it was time to make for Bristol Temple Meads and the train home. Funnily enough, Julia Crouch sat two seats away from us on the way back but, as the last thing I read by her involved a quiet woman murdering an irritating fellow rail passenger, I thought it best to leave her in peace.

Roll on CrimeFest 2014!

Before CrimeFest

It's Wednesday afternoon, things are winding down here at work, and I'm looking forward to my first big crime writing festival, CrimeFest.

Taking place in Bristol, the event has a special resonance for me as it's literally across the road from where I normally go to write, and is very close to several of the key locations from "Eye Contact" and "Knife Edge".

I'm lucky enough to be appearing on two panels. The first is "Fresh Blood: Debut Authors" with fellow writers Alex Blackmore, J.C.Martin, and Tom Vowler, moderated by ace crime-blogger Rhian Davies. The second is "The Power Of Authors: Are You In Charge Of Your Characters" where I'll be hosting Ruth Downie, Peter Guttridge, John Matthews and Andrew Pepper.

There are so many excellent talks that I'm looking forward to attending, and it'll be great to meet up with other readers and authors from the crime community. Somehow, it's very reassuring to find that people you know from Twitter do actually exist in real life.

And hey, I'll be in Bristol with my laptop, so I'll be able to get a bit more of book three done. I mean, it's not as if these hotels have bars that open in the evenings…

Dredd

For some reason, I missed this one when it came out at the cinema, which is a shame because, now that I’ve seen it, Dredd is one of the films I’d most like to watch in big-screen 3D.

In the end, it was a stray movie trailer that brought the movie to my attention. I’m naturally predisposed to like this sort of thing as I was a fan (though not a hardcore fan) of the excellent Judge Dredd / 2000AD comics. However, my expectations weren’t that high after the unfortunate Sylvester Stallone treatment that came out a few years ago. On reflection, it was probably the haunting music in the trailer (In For The Kill by La Roux) that made me think of Blade Runner and compelled me to go out and get the DVD.

And I’m so very glad I did, because Dredd is a fantastic film for all sorts of reasons.

Firstly (mild spoiler alert) it feels as though it was made by someone who had never heard of focus groups. Defying all convention, principal character Judge Dredd doesn’t go on some trite emotional journey. The young rookie Judge Anderson doesn’t teach the older lawman new tricks or force him to confront his inner demons. And there’s no contrived love-interest.

Another welcome omission is the almost mandatory how he became section. Sure, there will be a lot of people who come to this movie without prior knowledge of the characters or the universe it’s set in, but Dredd works just fine without it. So many comic-book adaptations spend so long spoon-feeding us the protagonist’s back-story, that there’s little time for a decent story.

This does have a story, and it feels like a real, comic-book story – straight into the action, and staying with the action all the way through to the hugely satisfying end.

I loved the costumes and the production design. Often, the best science fiction has that gritty, lived-in quality – a future that might have emerged from the decay of our own present, rather than something designed by Apple. Dredd has a wonderful look – maybe the best since Blade Runner – but it isn’t all dark and gloomy. The idea of featuring a narcotic called Slo-Mo was inspired. With stunning photography and saturated, sparkling shots, the drugged-up sequences are moments of glittering beauty that starkly contrast the rest of the film.

Dredd is brilliant. It’s as good as the previous version was bad. And Karl Urban’s performance in the title role isn’t just good – it’s assured enough for him to keep his helmet on for the whole film! Grab the DVD now.

Really? No women?

Recently, our studio began recruiting for a couple of new app programmers. Initially, I was concerned that we might not find enough candidates with the right skills. Now, I'm troubled to learn that we've got more than forty applicants… and not one of them is female.

I often hear our industry accused of being sexist, particularly in terms of the relative number of men and women it employs. However, our attempt to hire new staff suggests that the industry may not be entirely at fault – part of the problem may lie elsewhere.

Historically, I know that electronic games were once perceived as "boys toys" and that doubtless skewed the number of male applicants, as they were more likely to be interested in the sector. Yet now, women gamers are the norm. Females growing up in recent years have every reason to be interested in games, so it would be something of a statistical anomaly if they didn't make up a good percentage of applicants for new jobs.

Are there other reasons? It's certainly true that a lot of the content that the industry produces portrays female characters in a less than respectful light – consider the recent GTA-V trailer if you need a reminder. And there are often troubling stories on the web about sexist behaviour and language from individuals in the games industry. Such attitudes are clearly wrong, yet I doubt that they are unique to games. Are there really no cases of sexism in law, medicine, science, or journalism? Because if women are succeeding in other sectors that aren't yet free of sexism, then perhaps sexism isn't the only reason there are so few female programmers.

I don't profess to have the answers to this issue. But I'd dearly like to see a debate, and one which isn't immediately bogged down with (understandably) outraged stories of disrespectful language and Neanderthal attitudes. Because none of that explains why we got no female applicants. And why there were so terribly few female coders on the courses that our male applicants attended.

I can't believe that young women aren't interested in a well-paying career-type like this. Something must be amiss further back down the training path – maybe at college, maybe at school, maybe at home. Wherever the blockage is, wherever girls get the idea that they wouldn't be able to do this sort of job, needs to be addressed. Right now.

Twist

If book three turns out to be particularly popular, it will be largely down to today. The core of the novel currently lurking on Amazon's pre-order catalogue as "Untitled McNeill 3" has been in my head for a long time - years, in fact. And yet, excited as I was about it, I had felt that something was missing. I was pleased with the premise, and the characters, and the setting. There was a nice twist, part-way though...

...but today, chatting with Anna in an Exeter cafe, I finally saw the real twist. It was a wonderful feeling - a little like finding the £10 note you thought you'd lost, and discovering it's actually a £20.

Now all I have to do is knuckle down and write the rest of the book. Oh, and think of a title that's better than "Untitled McNeill 3".

Writing On Location

Okay. I admit it's an odd place to find someone typing. I probably cut a somewhat puzzling figure, hunched over my laptop, while perching on the sea wall in the shadow of the Second Severn Crossing suspension bridge. Some authors have a study, or a favourite room where they do their best work (and battle the temptations of Twitter) but more and more I've found myself drawn to the places where my next scene is unfolding. For some reason, writing "on location" really works for me.

The idea came years ago, at a seminar on screenwriting. The speaker, a wonderfully forthright man, caught our attention with an intriguing statement.
"There's no such thing as writer's block," he warned us. "Just a lack of research."
The solution he illustrated went something like this. Let's say you're writing a chapter where your character needs to leave their apartment and walk to a hotel somewhere else in the city. If you find yourself unable to summon up the atmosphere and the sense of place, what can you do? Go and experience it! Walk the route. Put yourself in the character's position and get a sense of how they'd feel.

That advice stayed with me. Plotting the first murder in "Eye Contact", I had a fairly clear sequence of events in mind. But when the time came to actually write it, there were sections where I found myself staring blankly at the screen. I knew what was going to happen in general terms, but I wasn't sure what the next sentence should be.

So I took my laptop and went to Bristol. I went where my characters went, following in their footsteps, picturing them in each setting, until I ended up on the beautifully bleak shoreline of Severn Beach. I'd been typing up rough sections and notes every step of the way – now the challenge wasn't a lack of inspiration, it was almost a struggle to capture the torrent of thoughts.

I'd expected this process to help me with scene-setting, or creating atmosphere, but it did much more than that. Being where my characters were gave me a powerful sense of empathy with them. Suddenly, the story felt terribly real – as though I was researching and recording events which had actually happened.

From then on, I made a point of visiting all the key locations in the book – the old canal towpath in Oxford, the lobby of a Mayfair hotel, a busy Starbucks at Canary Wharf, or a lonely park bench in Winchester. Sometimes it would be a fleeting visit to refresh my memory and take some notes, on other occasions (weather permitting) I'd sit and type for hours. It was always rewarding, and often surprising, as the story shifted and unfolded into its natural setting.

So, the next time you see someone bent over their laptop in an odd location, take a good look around. You might be standing in a future crime scene!

(this piece first appeared on the Kindle Post blog)

Be Seeing You...

Recently, I've been lucky enough to do my first few author events. Public speaking isn't entirely new for me, as I've given many talks at trade shows and conferences, but those were all focused on my day-job making games and apps. A small gathering in a library or bookshop is much more intense.

It's all about the audience. Even if it's a smaller crowd, there's a much stronger connection between reader and author, than between industry professionals at a business-to-business event. It's about engaging with people who actually want to be there, rather than employees who've been required to attend, and you get a wonderful sense that what you're saying really matters.

Then of course, there's the subject matter. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy designing apps, and I really care about representing my company and its products. But no matter how exciting the project or technology, it's still just business. Books are personal.

As a writer, you put so much of yourself into your novel, and reveal so much of yourself through the shape of the story. When you sit down and chat with people who've taken the time to read your book, you're sitting down with people who've shared a very personal journey with you. If that sounds daunting, well, yes it can be. But it's also incredibly exciting.

The opportunity to discuss a story with others brings it out of your imagination and into the shared consciousness of the readers. It's no longer just a series of chapters, it's an experience (albeit a fictional one) that exists with a life of its own. As an author, I can think of no greater thrill, and no greater privilege.

So I'm looking forward to doing more events - from cosy gatherings in local libraries, to CrimeFest in Bristol - chatting about writing and listening to readers. If you have the chance, do come along and say hello. Nothing would please me more.