Authors Electric

Because of all the endings mentioned in my January 2021  post here, I found myself wondering what to do next, having decided not to write anything in my very long mystery series at least until the current UK lockdown had finished, or around Easter, whichever comes first. I do have November's National Novel Writing Month novel draft all ready to edit, but I thought perhaps it would benefit from being left for a bit longer than usual. A path through the Black Wood of Rannoch Early in January I wrote a quick short story suggested by someone on Twitter, just to fill the gap, and then I looked around for something else to work on. I browsed through some previous efforts and remembered I had a whole novel lying around that I had written years ago, called 'The Tree Museum'. It had never quite fitted any genre but when I had sent it for a professional critique part of the advice that came back was that it might make a good murder mystery if only it had a murder and/or a mystery i...

Partners in crime at CrimeFest, on a panel chaired by the fabulous Zoe Sharp, far left In the same month that I joined the Romantic Novelists' Association , I also pitched up on a panel at CrimeFest . An unlikely duo, you might think, but my cosy mystery series has a foot in both camps, with a strong romantic subplot  underpinning the murder in each novel. In some respects it's a similar situation to visiting Greenwich and being able to stand on the Meridian line with one foot in the east, the other in the west . Further variety is added by a generous helping of comedy running throughout my books. But I'm by no means the only one to tread such a complex path, genre-wise. Fellow CrimeFest panellist Alison Morton adds alternative history to her crime/romance split. Deemed by The Guardian to be the best crime writing festival in the world A Multiplicity of Murderers Just because two authors write in the same genre, doesn't mean their books need have much ...

I have written horror and crime for some years now and I do have a reasonable library of books to fall back on but sometimes those little details need to be checked, and it is so easy to do that online.  It occurred to me this week, however, that the browsing history of the average writer must ring bells somewhere on some watcher-server in some secret place.   It goes as no surprise to those who know me that I own up to being a compulsive researcher, spending hours looking into small details that are a sentence – nay half a sentence.  Now on occasion that could be classed as classic displacement activity  -  but then again it never hurts to check. In a recent read the female protagonist catches her skirt on the mistletoe. That sentence pulled me up sharp. Was she tiptoeing through the tree tops? Not that I could see.  A quick search confirmed that mistletoe varieties native to the UK are to be found growing on trees.  A minor p...

Write what you know is the maxim often bandied about at workshops for wannabe best-selling authors. Read in the genre that you want to write. Write in the genre that you read. Base your fiction upon your knowledge and experience. If - IF - we accept that premise then can a man write successfully from a female point of view, and vice versa? The answer, of course, is yes. But only if that author can immerse himself in the character and speak convincingly on their behalf. Shameless plug time:  It's easy to be shameless when what you're plugging is actually someone else's work. The Demented Lady Detectives' Club by Jim Williams is a cozy mystery written from a female point of view. To pull off something like this needs a lifetime's experience of the fairer sex and Jim, in all fairness, is as old as Methuselah so if anyone can do it he's the man. I have nothing else to add except the description of the book. In the pretty Devonshire town of Dartcross an ...

Murder Mystery Cast I occasionally write about public appearances, and I’ve done my fair share of them. I’ve talked to a variety of groups, in church halls, hotels, meeting rooms, libraries, readers’ events, and conventions/conferences. But a recent event I was invited to take part in will remain in my memory as one of the most pleasurable experiences I’ve had on the talking circuit. You can see my recent events on the News page of my website http://www.chrislongmuir.co.uk/index.php/news   and in among them is the event I want to tell you about. When I was asked if I’d be a willing victim in a murder/mystery event at Carnoustie library in my home county of Angus, it sounded as if it might be fun and I accepted with alacrity. And I wasn’t wrong. It was hilarious, and the audience and actors (amateur) had a most enjoyable time. I arrived early on the day to go through the details. We’d had a rehearsal the week before, so it was just a question of where everything was...

Writers who get their evil on. Bwahahahaha! Just musing, should I murder my ex? Hmmm. A fellow-writer, fictional but then aren’t we all one way or another, Richard Castle in the eponymous TV series, says ‘ There are  two kinds  of folks who sit around thinking about how to kill  people : psychopaths and mystery writers. ’  I’m a crime writer (and not a psychopath at all, honestly. No, really.) And I suspect that quite a few authors have bumped off or tormented in print those they have reason to dislike in ways the law of the land unsportingly refuses to sanction. Advice for writers ‘I like to write when I feel spiteful. It is like having a good sneeze.’ Thus DH Lawrence, and it is obviously true, he must have felt malevolent when he saddled us with his whiney novels and cluelessness about female orgasms. But perhaps writing for spite is more common than gamekeepers shagging posh birds? (Oops, unfortunate kinky image conjured up there! You’re welcome!) ...

Which box are you in? Publishers have this unfortunate habit of placing authors in a specific genre box. If your first novel is romance, then you are a romance writer, and woe betide you if you step outside this genre. My first accepted novel, Dead Wood , was a contemporary crime one, although I had previously written a romantic saga. So, I was popped into the contemporary crime genre box and, if I was still with my traditional publisher, that is where you would find me languishing. My Dundee Crime Series Now, I am quite happy to be a crime writer, and I suppose I’m best known for my Dundee Crime series of books. However, I’m not sure that I want to be restricted in my choice of what to write. So, having successfully made the conversion to being an indie writer, I have a bit more autonomy. If you are wondering how I have exercised that autonomy, you have to look no further than my historical saga, A Salt Splashed Cradle , set in an 1830s fishing village. In that book...