Partying at the Edinburgh eBook Festival by Chris Longmuir
It’s my birthday today, and guess where I’ll be? Yes, you’ve
guessed it, I’m still partying at the Edinburgh eBook Festival.
But, and it’s a big but, I’ll have to behave myself, and not partake too much
of the happy juice. As if I would? You see my contribution to the festival
today will be in the company of the police, because I’m examining the police
procedural in crime fiction. I might be put in the position of saying – ‘It’s a
fair cop, guv.’
I must admit this is the post that gave me the most
problems. You see in my search for police procedurals, I went to the source.
Policemen writing crime fiction. I wasn’t wrong, they knew about police
procedures, but the writers I chose knew damn all about writing fiction. Now
I’m sure there must be some good books out there written by policemen, but I
couldn’t find them. Now I’ve tempted fate, and I’ll probably be harangued by
police writers for evermore!
My own crime novels contain an element of police procedures,
although I’m sure the writers I rejected probably knew more than I did.
However, I treasure an email I got from a retired police inspector, who said my
procedures were spot on. I have an admission to make here, a lot of my
procedural knowledge has been gained through books, working alongside the
police in child protection, and basing a lot of it on social work procedures.
However, I want to talk about how it’s been for me,
researching and reading for my posts in the Edinburgh EBook Festival. I’ve done
twelve posts, and the one today will be number eight, so there is another four
to go. In my first post I described how I intended to handle the following
eleven, and I touched on the various theories involved. In case you didn’t know
I have a criminology qualification. You’ll find the first
post here. Then I looked at the many sub-genres of crime fiction, starting
out with mystery and cosy, or as our American cousins call it – cozy – and
finishing up with serial killers. Quite a journey and I read loads of books so
I would have something to talk about, many of them by unknown authors to me.
Needless to say I had to start early, I think it was about February or March,
in order to get through the load. All the books were written by Indie authors
and I found some really good ones along the way. The badly written, edited and
formatted ones, I scrapped and didn’t even consider.
The other aspects of the festival have been enjoyable,
although it’s a bit time consuming wading through the posts that pop up every
hour, and my tweeting finger is numb. I’ve particularly enjoyed the posts about
the mid-list, the workshops, and the supernatural ones. Oh heck, I’ve enjoyed
them all.
It’s been a fantastic, hectic time, and it’s not finished
yet. So what are you waiting for, pop over to the Edinburgh EBook Festival
site and party with me.
Chris Longmuir
Comments
And Cally - I rather like the hourly posts. I haven't had time to read them all, no - but then I wouldn't be able to attend every talk at the brick and mortar Edinburgh, or Hay. And with the on-line one, you can always go back and catch up later, if you have to miss something.
as to reading it all, i've been in one of the many parts of england that don't get broadband (another government lie - there aren't any, remember?) for only two days, and my inbox is now bursting. heigh ho - who wants to work anyway?
And, while I'm at it, I'll add my thanks and admiration to that of Dennis for the enormous amount of time and work Cally has put into creating the festival and keeping it running so smoothly.