Blog Tour - My Writing Process

 

A little while ago I was delighted to hear from Rob Pateman, who tagged me into the blog tour on ‘the writing process.’

You can check out Rob’s answers here.

Rob and I are lucky enough to be represented by the same literary agency and we have the very same Editor at Orion in the shape of the brilliant Jemima Forrester. Rob writes as RS Pateman and his debut novel THE SECOND LIFE OF AMY ARCHER, will have its paperback release on 24^th April. In case you didn’t catch it in hardback now’s your chance. The book has a fantastic premise and Rob’s writing has a real emotional resonance that will keep you turning the pages.

Highly recommended folks.

So my thanks to Rob for the nod, here we go.

 

WHAT AM I WORKING ON?

At the moment I’m awaiting the copy edits on my first book, THE DEFENCE, and I’m hard at work on the second book in the Eddie Flynn series. At the time of writing this piece I’m about a third of the way through the first draft of that book. There’s not much I can tell you at the moment, as it’s still very much in its infancy. I’ve been reading a lot of stories and blogs about “that difficult second book.” If you’ve read Rob’s post above, you’ll know just how difficult it can be. I did find one piece of advice on the interweb that resonated with me. It was a comment on Stuart Neville’s old blog when he posted about writing his second novel and the rather brilliant Declan Burke offered some great advice. Declan said that there is no such thing as a second book; these days, in this publishing market, every book is your first book. Incidentally, Mr Burke’s latest – Crime Always Pays, has just been released and Stuart Neville’s new book, The Final Silence, will be released shortly. You should look into both; two great writers at the top of their game. And while I’m at it, congratulations to Stuart for the recent Barry nomination for Ratlines.

 

HOW DOES MY WORK DIFFER FROM OTHERS IN THE GENRE?

My books are legal thrillers set in the US. A lot of legal thrillers, and very good ones at that, begin with a murder and then an investigation with most of the drama happening around a third of the way into the book when the trial begins. Typically the hero is a high-flying corporate attorney who is whiter than white and believes in truth, justice and playing fair. The whole book is a build up to that ultimate question – guilty or not guilty.  

There are half a dozen great writers that take that basic legal thriller premise and do amazing things with it. How could I hope to compete with those writers? The truth is, I can’t; they’re better writers than me.

My answer was to rip up that basic premise and start again from scratch. While I don’t want to give too much away, I can tell you that THE DEFENCE will, hopefully, be unlike any courtroom thriller you’ve ever read. I’m trying to put my own stamp on the genre by tearing up the usual narrative form. My Dutch Editor says that THE DEFENCE is like “24” with Jack Bauer as a lawyer. If I’ve accomplished what I set out to do then the book should read like a breakneck, tension-filled courtroom thriller that makes you think. There’s a ‘story within a story’ element to the novel, which I’ve not spoken to anyone about yet; it’s very subltle, but if you look for it, and you follow the white rabbit, you’ll find it. But you can just read it purely for the thrills and twists. Hopefully, at certain points, Eddie will make you reconsider what you thought you knew about the justice system, and maybe even look at things in a different light. In that way, I’m hoping that THE DEFENCE will stand up to more than one read.

I suppose the main thing about my writing that will stand out is the main character, Eddie Flynn. Eddie possesses a truly unique set of skills that hasn’t been seen before in this genre and I’m really hoping that readers warm to him.  

 

WHY DO I WRITE WHAT I DO?

One day I was in the middle of a trial, cross-examining my opponent’s witness. I had a whole strategy worked out. First I would go in hard and aggressive and get the witness on the back foot. This part of the cross examination would deal with a minor, but important point in the case. After fifteen minutes of tough, quick, aggressive questioning, I relaxed. I paused. Took a drink of water. Flicked through the case file in front of me. Leaned back in my chair, fixed my gaze on the ceiling and breathed out heavily as I asked one simple question. It sounded like a throwaway question, like it was unimportant, like I was conceding something in the guy’s favour before moving on to more important issues in the case. The witness grabbed the opportunity to wrestle back control of the evidence and stated his answer firmly, unequivocally, hammering home his evidence without any prompting from me. That was the answer that sank the witness completely; he’d sealed his own fate. As soon as I had my answer I realised that I’d pretty much conned that guy. Albeit, I conned him into telling the truth and inadvertently admitting that he’d been lying in his witness statement. Only I hadn’t really conned him; I’d used a tried and tested advocacy technique that any first year advocate could perform.

Nonetheless, it struck me at that moment that a lawyer and a con artist share almost exactly the same skill set.

And words are their weapons.

Eddie Flynn was born in that moment.

My books explore the question of truth in an adversarial system of justice and whether it has a place or even a relevance. In reality, judges and juries don’t decide what is and what isn’t true – they decide whether an evidential test is met by the prosecution, that’s all. I see Eddie Flynn’s journey through the series as a quest, but he’s not looking for truth, he’s looking for redemption.

 

HOW DOES YOUR WRITING PROCESS WORK?

I’ve been asking myself that same question. First of all, I’m not entirely sure you can call it a ‘process’ and secondly whether it works or not largely remains to be seen. In an attempt to get something written about this, I tried to analyse what it is that I do in order to get words on a page. The first thing I do is brew coffee. I start writing around 10pm and I stop when my head hits the keyboard. Come to think of it, there’s considerably more processing involved in the brewing of the coffee than the formation of the novel.

I don’t outline anything.

I get an idea and I kick it around in my head for a long time. When I begin writing a book I will redraft and redraft until I have the beginning nearly perfect. I won’t go past the first 30 pages until I’m relatively happy with them. Sometimes that feels like you’re spinning your wheels and not really getting anywhere, but I’m happy to do that.

In my experience to date there has been no tangible pattern to the writing. For example, the first paragraph of The Defence is unchanged from my first draft. I wrote that paragraph in maybe twenty minutes and I haven’t felt the need to change it even though it was the first creative writing I’d done in 15 years. The next 30 or so pages took six weeks to get right before I could move on. With my second novel, I took two weeks to write the first page and a half and a month to get the next thirty pages right. Now I’m on solid ground I go for it and I don’t look back until the whole first draft is finished. I think if I have the beginning almost perfect I’m much more confident to just plough on, knowing that I have a strong starting point which gives a central spine to the story and also sends up a beacon for the final scenes in the book.

By the way, the first page and a half of the next book gave me – 1) a slightly different voice than the last book 2) a huge additional narrative engine that launches the reader head first into the story and will keep them turning the pages  3)  With my best estimate, at the moment, working purely from what’s in my head, those 500 words set up three surprise twists and give me multiple possible endings.

So the start of this book gives me both focus on the story and the characters and yet it also allows me some freedom with the plot.

I’ve only ever written one short story, which will appear in the Brooklyn based Akashic Books latest Anthology – Belfast Noir. That story took maybe two nights. It just sort of arrived fully formed.

So that’s it. I’m handing over now to three great writers who will be posting next week about their writing process.

 

First up is a legend in Northern Ireland Crime Fiction – Gerard Brennan. At various points when I’m reading Gerard’s work I have to put down the book and smile, because nobody gets close to this guy for dialogue – it’s just so incredibly sharp. Every time I read him I think ‘Elmore Leonard,’ (and yes, he really is that good). Why not try out The Point, on Kindle, for free, and see what I’m talking about. And don’t forget, Gerard also has a short story in the upcoming Belfast Noir, alongside Lee Child, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR Brian McGilloway (*winks to NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR Brian McGilloway*), Glenn Patterson, Claire McGowan, Lucy Caldwell, some guy that nobody’s heard of called Steve Cavanagh, and many more…

 BIO -  ‘Gerard Brennan's short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies, including The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime. He co-edited Requiems for the Departed, a collection of crime fiction based on Irish myths. His novella, The Point, was published by Pulp Press in October 2011 and won the 2012 Spinetingler Award. His debut novel, WEE ROCKETS, was published by Blasted Heath in 2012. He is currently working on a creative writing PhD at Queen's University Belfast.’

http://crimesceneni.blogspot.co.uk/

Follow Gerard on twitter @gerardbrennan

 

Next up is Eva Dolan.

Her debut novel is Long Way Home, a police procedural with a brilliant and unusual setting. The lead characters are DS Zigic and DS Ferreira of the Peterborough Hate Crimes Unit and they get more than they bargained for when they begin investigating the murder of a migrant worker. It’s crime fiction at its best – two great ‘outsider’ characters and a brilliantly realised setting that provides for a gripping story whilst exploring contemporary issues. The writing is top class and it’s no wonder that Eva was previously been shortlisted for the Debut Dagger at a ridiculously young age.  Read the first chapter and you’ll find yourself immediately at home with her dark, rich and assured prose, so make sure you check out Long Way Home. You hear that? That dripping sound? That’s talent - running out of her ears.

BIO - 'Eva Dolan writes books and plays poker and the rest of her time she just wastes.'

 

http://loiteringwithintent.wordpress.com/

Follow Eva Dolan on Twitter @eva_dolan

 

Last up is Jason Dean.

A few years ago I read Jason’s debut – The Wrong Man, which introduces series character James Bishop. Ripping through that book in a couple of days I knew Bishop would be sticking around for a long time to come. The first chapter of The Wrong Man is still one of my favourite openings to a thriller in the last 10 years, and the rest of the book lives up to that fabulous start. The latest James Bishop short story is free on Kindle at the moment, so there’s no excuse for not checking it out.

BIO 0 ‘Jason Dean is an English author of American thrillers, who spent most of his professional life as a graphic designer before deciding to try his hand at writing. His debut novel, THE WRONG MAN - the first of a series starring his ex-Marine protagonist James Bishop - was picked up by Headline and published in 2012. This was followed in 2013 by BACKTRACK, and the third Bishop novel, THE HUNTER’S OATH, will be released in June 2014. Jason now resides in the Far East with his wife and dog and is currently at work on the fourth Bishop novel.’

http://www.jasondeanbooks.com/

Follow Jason on Twitter at @Jasondeanauthor

A final note to the above authors, who all sent me images, I'm afraid technology defeated me.  

 

 

 

365 days until publication

 

In exactly one year’s time you, yes I mean you, oh blessed reader-of-impeccable-taste, will be able to pop into your local bookshop and buy a copy of my debut novel, THE DEFENCE, published by the good people at Orion Books.

With a year to go there is still much to be done to the book. It still has to be copy-edited, proof-read, blessed by a dozen priests, washed, combed, de-loused and have a bat-shit-crazy-cool cover slapped on it before it can be released into the expectant world.

Will it survive when it is released from captivity? That is up to you, lovely reader (you’re looking’ so well, by the way) and it’s up to all the lovely readers out there (you’ve lost weight, haven’t you) who dwell in lovely reader land. Between now and publication day there will be more details released about the novel and the series. Yes, THE DEFENCE is the first in a series of novels featuring former con-artist, turned trial lawyer, Eddie Flynn.

The book is a legal thriller, but not in the way you might expect.

Genre is a funny thing. And sub-genre is an even funnier thing.

For example, John Grisham and Scott Turow are both classified, in the main, as writers in the Legal Thriller genre. Yet their work could hardly be more different.

Scott’s books could be better described as courtroom procedurals. Whereas Grisham mainly writes thrillers which feature lawyers and some of his more popular novels don’t involve court cases at all, eg. The Firm.

When I was writing THE DEFENCE I came across an interview with another one of my favourite writers, Jeffrey Deaver. Jeff used to be lawyer, and a damn good one at that, but he really wanted to be a writer. During his long commute on the train he would write on one of the early laptops (by all accounts a huge, unwieldy device which weighed upwards of 20lbs). One of Jeff’s earlier books was a legal thriller, but he found writing the book very difficult.

For those of you who aren’t completely familiar with Jeff’s work (and why not?) he created the Lincoln Rhyme series and is widely regarded as a master thriller writer who plots out his novels with extensive outlines before writing a single word of prose. Every Deaver fan knows exactly what they’re going to get with one of Jeff’s novels – it will move like lightning, all of the action will take place over a short space of time, there will be intricately plotted twists and turns that dazzle the reader and keep them guessing until they get to the surprise ending, and then the next surprise ending, followed, for good measure, by a third surprise ending.

In the article I found, Jeff said that the type of book he likes to write (fast-moving, ticking-clock novels filled with great action and nail-biting tension) do not lend themselves easily to a legal thriller.

When I read that, I realised that I was writing the book that Jeffrey Deaver thought would be very difficult to write. Jeffrey Deaver. The man. Damn.

A lot of coffee, alcohol, and head scratching commenced. However, I decided to stick with it because while Jeff said writing a novel like that would be difficult, he didn’t say it would be impossible. And, to be honest, I wasn’t terribly worried about the book being accepted by a publisher, at that time I just wanted to write the book.

What I set out to do with THE DEFENCE, was to create a nail-biting, ticking-clock, courtroom thriller that kicks off like a Shelby Mustang and accelerates for 400 pages. Now, to say that that was my plan is a bit of misnomer in that it wasn’t exactly planned. In fact, planning didn’t come into it. It just sort of happened that way. Because that was the book that I wanted to write.

So I was very pleased when my Dutch Editor described the book as -  24 with Jack Bauer in the courtroom.

So mark your calendars please, lovely reader, in 365 days it will be released in the UK and Ireland, followed by Canada, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Japan and more territories to follow, I'm sure.

And do come back in the meantime – there will be competitions and giveaways between now and then. And probably some more ramblings from me.

If you’re feeling generous, don’t hesitate to pre-order on Amazon, or support your local bookshop by giving them a ring and ask them to order it for you.

And so it was.

I’m away now.

And when I return, I shall come back.

@SSCav

 

 

 

Write What You Know: Rebus, Bosch, Cannibals and Kebabs.

 

 When I first started writing again in 2011, after a break of 15 years, I heard people use the phrase – ‘write what you know,’ and until recently I don’t think I ever fully understood it. I do now, but the real meaning behind that nugget of writing advice is better put another way;

          To be a good writer you should practice cannibalism.

Let’s take Ian Rankin, Michael Connelly and John Grisham.

Not to put too fine a point on it, these writers are cannibals, but not in the modern, everyday sense of the word. Nor do I mean it to be a derogatory term – in fact I consider it to be one of the finest qualities of a writer.

I do want to be clear about this ‘cannibal’ business. So I should say, straight away, that neither Michael Connelly nor John Grisham have ever consumed human flesh. There is simply no evidence to suggest such a terrible thing.

Unfortunately I cannot say the same thing for Ian Rankin. In Mr. Rankin’s case, and indeed my own case, neither of us has ever KNOWINGLY consumed human flesh. I feel compelled to add this caveat in light of the recent horse meat scandal and one further factual set of circumstances that applies both to Mr. Rankin and myself (and a good many others I might add). Those circumstances are well known. We’re both Celts (Northern Irish and Scots share a common heritage), both of us have been known to enjoy the occasional beer, both of us have been known to sample the particular culinary delights so unfairly labeled ‘junk food.’ So picture the scene – it’s late, Mr. Rankin leaves the Oxford Bar suitably refreshed, I leave the Crown Bar in a similar state of refreshment, we both find ourselves in our home cities with an abundance of fast food outlets and, by contrast, not a single taxi in sight. Well, you don’t need me to draw you a picture. Suffice to say that I feel the majority of cannibalistic peril derives from the humble kebab. I mean, what is it? It’s supposed to be lamb; it could easily be elephant, it could be processed mongoose or, for all we know, the succulent ingredient could in fact be a sixty-two year old, retired civil servant named Geoff.  I have to confess that as long as it’s covered in garlic sauce I try not to think about it too much.

Incidentally, if you're a kebab shop owner, I love you and your lovely kebabs and I know, they do have a high quality 100% lamb content. I was only jokin 

So, what do I mean by cannibalism in the context of writing?

I suppose that I really mean cannibalisation – the removal or utilisation of a part of something to create a new entity. In this case, the new entity is a novel and a damn good one at that if it comes from either Messrs Rankin, Connelly or Grisham.

What Ian Rankin has achieved, in his best works, is to take a bite out of the arse of Edinburgh; a bite that includes sex trafficking, drugs, alcoholism, a little bit of religion, the oil industry, Scottish nationalism and to chew it up and remake it on the page. To give it an arc, a shape, as he says himself. When I say a bite, it is often a polite nibble as Edinburgh has prospered and grown proud of the Cardenden lad whose portrayal of the city is tinged with genuine affection and yet, he can take a scalpel to every social class of the city with his most famous creation, Rebus, a detective whose work can let Ian Rankin loose on every cultural, social and political facet of Scotland. At the heart of every Rebus book is a crime, a mystery to be solved, and yet because Ian Rankin has the ability to take his surroundings, his people, his hates, his loves and inject that reality into the novel it adds immeasurably to the weight and importance of the work. And not just what’s going on in the wider picture. Ian Rankin gives much of himself to his work. In his breakthrough novel, Black and Blue, Rebus becomes his creator’s punch bag and the punishment that Rebus is subjected to in the book is mirrored in the difficult time that the writer experienced in his own life during the writing process. It doesn’t have to be an outpouring of joy or pain in every work, even the most subtle of life’s daily influences can be writing gold.

If you get a chance to watch the fantastic arena programme – ‘Ian Rankin and the Case of the Disappearing Detective,’ you will get a brilliant insight into the creative process of one of the worlds most talented authors. When Mr. Rankin is talking to Alan Yentob about writing the opening scene of ‘Standing in Another Man’s Grave’ he recounts that he had very recently attended a funeral. The opening scene of the book is of course a funeral, with mourners watching the coffin being lowered into the grave and one of those mourners, who doesn’t want to get too close to the grave, is Rebus. This scene marks the return of one of the most popular characters in crime fiction and what a way to do it! The juxtaposition of the formality, inevitability and ritual of death next to a very much alive and kicking (and gasping for a cigarette) Rebus is about as perfect and potent a re-introduction/resurrection as one could imagine.

Write what you know, for me, is to be able not only to cannibalise the conflicts and issues of society but to cannibalise your own past. Just ask Michael Connelly. When he was a kid he often played near a storm drain that in effect looked just like a big dark tunnel to the neighbourhood boys. Connelly describes it as a ‘right of passage’ for kids to go into the tunnel and crawl through to the other side. He never did it and developed something of a phobia. As the went through High School, kids a few years older than him got caught in the Vietnam draft. Some never came back. Of the men that did come back, a former Tunnel Rat, who wore a long beard to hide his scars, worked with Connelly's father in construction. Is it any wonder then that Harry Bosch was a tunnel rat in Vietnam, that the crime at the heart of Connelly’s debut (The Black Echo – thought by many to be the best crime debut ever) revolves around a gang of bank robbers tunnelling beneath a vault containing safety deposit boxes and, is it any wonder that the overreaching arc of the Bosch character, across the books, is a personal journey through the darkness, towards the light. He used his life experience to give depth to his work. Michael Connelly wanted to be a writer from the first moment he picked up a Raymond Chandler novel. He didn’t exactly have the tools to be a cop, so he became a crime journalist, and through that career he came into ‘the know,’ working alongside detectives, many of whom were veterans of Vietnam. But not everything can be planned. Probably over ten years ago now, Michael Connelly sat at a baseball game and got talking to the guy beside him. The guy said he was a lawyer. Mr. Connelly asked where the guy’s office was located. He said he didn’t have an office, per se, that his office was in the back of his Lincoln town car. Five years later The Lincoln Lawyer began what, in my opinion, is the best series of legal thrillers ever written.

Fate had a large hand in the destiny of the foremost legal thriller writer of our time – John Grisham. As a small town lawyer he wasn’t making much money and sometimes didn’t have a lot of work on. While sitting in court one day, he became a spectator in a rape trial and heard a little girl describe her horrific ordeal. Grisham recounts that moment as one of the most harrowing and inspiring he ever witnessed. The details were harrowing, the grace and dignity with which the victim gave her evidence was inspiring. He got thinking what he might do to a man who had perpetrated such an act on his own daughter. How far would he go? He thought he might kill them. He thought a good many people might think the same thing. Without ever having a desire to write before that moment, he took a few years and bashed out what became ‘A Time to Kill.’ You know the story, it was accepted by a small publisher who went bankrupt pretty soon after Grisham’s debut was published and he ended up selling copies of the book out of the trunk of his car. His next book was The Firm. That book spent 47 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List and sold 7 million copies.

 So writing what you know can be writing what you feel, what you understand and want to say about something. Just don’t get caught on a soap box.

I should just say, that this cannibalisation of yourself and your surroundings isn’t unique to modern writers. Dickens explored the social strata and the pain of poverty before most other popular writers. Herman Melville’s Moby Dick was inspired by the reports of the sinking of The Essex. Shakespeare’s The Tempest is believed to be inspired in part by stories of a famous ship sinking at sea and the crew finding themselves marooned on an island. In addition, the use of marriage in the play as a political weapon reflected the machinations in the Royal Court at the time.

One of the central characters in The Tempest is of course Caliban.

 An anagram of ‘Canibal.’ The old translation from the French - Canniballes.

Which brings us neatly back to kebabs. Now, how do I work a kebab into my narrative?

Hhhmm….

Is there a little of me in my work? Of course. There should be. You should put something of yourself into everything you write.

Just don’t put yourself into a kebab.

Best,

Steve.

PS – if you’ve enjoyed this post why not tell somebody about it, RT or whatever, then subscribe or sign up or join or why not contact me on twitter and tell me, very slowly, how all of that subscribing business works as I haven't a notion.

@SSCav

 

 If you want to Pre-Order my book, you can do so here - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Defence-Steve-Cavanagh/dp/1409152294/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389668075&sr=1-1