Claire McGowan has a lovely, informal lecturing style and I imagine her books are likewise engaging and easy to read. She also writes an excellent blog (www.ink-stains.co.uk), which is worth checking out, especially her defence of prologues, which a Curtis Brown agent once told me she `detested' and were sufficient for her to read no further in a submission.
Claire began by talking about commitment to a genre. You can't write a crime thriller one year and then switch to science fiction, followed by gothic horror, or you will piss everyone off, including your readership. You are also expected to produce at least a book a year, as readers have short memories and we can't all be Donna Tartt and get away with an 11 year gap between novels.
She went on to a discussion about what makes crime fiction. She established that there needs to be a moral crime (though not always anything as `straightforward' as a murder). Missing people can be more dramatic than a suspicious death, but readers demand twists and ultimately a resolution (or they get very cross and write angry emails/reviews). A dark tone is good and you need someone who takes on the investigative role, which then leads them into danger. She recommended Tana French, `Into the Woods' as a good example of this.
Crime fiction should always be lean and pacy with strong plots (she talked about plot architecture, a phrase I enjoyed and understood as a helpful way of thinking about the construction of your `edifice'). Something must happen at the beginning, there are a series of events and reactions to these events, a series of choices and reactions to these choices and the main characters need to have changed by the end of the story.
Writing a series is always popular, as generally you are given a two book deal at the start and readers enjoy engaging with the same characters and seeing them develop and respond to suspenseful situations over a number of books.
She defined suspense as the art of the unsaid. I think this is one of my flaws as a writer and one I have been trying to fix over the past few months. I've found it's helpful to ask myself a series of questions in every chapter. Can I leave this out? Does the reader need to know this right now? Will the reader be able to infer this? Can I get this point across through action or dialogue rather than `telling'?
She asked and then answered the important question: Why write crime? (The answer inside my head was: it's what I like to read, I like to pit my wits against the writer and see if I can guess what is going to happen next, the solution to the puzzle, the resolution of the mystery. Or now, I ask myself: If I was writing this, what would be the surprise twist?) Claire's answer was reassuringly statistical: crime fiction is in the top 10 of all library loans and forms 1/5 of all fiction sales. That will do me.
She claimed to be research-lite, whereas personally I really enjoy a good bit of research, but then there's always the worry that what I'm really doing is postponing the inevitable sit-down-and-write-the first paragraph moment. She solves this by writing the story first and researching later. She advised checking details online, such as police or procedural handbooks or trade magazines. We don't all have a pet DI we can pester.
She closed with 3 pieces of advice to increase your chances of success in this highly competitive market:
1) Read: Stephen King `On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft' (an agent told me that if I was to only buy one book on writing, that should be it); Donald Maass, `Writing the Breakout Novel' (he is an experienced agent and the book comes with loads of practical exercises to improve your writing); and Louise Doughty (whose Apple Tree Yard I love) `A Novel in a Year'. To this list I would add: Milan Kundera, The Art of the Novel, but then I am a huge Kundera fan.
2) Go to festivals like Crimefest, York or Harrogate, where you can meet established authors and fellow unpublished or new writers and agents. Network like mad.
3) Enter competitions to continue honing your craft. This is how Claire herself found her agent and ultimately, her first publishing deal.
And when you've managed to get that agent, where better to celebrate than Story, in London, (`We seek to tell our story through the food we serve') where your book might one day sit, ignominiously colour-coded, alongside the likes of David Nicholls, Emma Healey, Jo Nesbo and John Fielding.
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