Fiction Scribe

You may recall a recent post about the Grammar Slam line of products including teddy bears, coffee mugs, and messenger bags.

Elsa Neal, the creator of the Grammar Slam products, owner of Hear Write Now, and fiction editor at Bella Online has agreed to do an interview for this site. I’m pleased to present you with an interview with a published crime thriller author.

Enjoy!

Tell us a little about yourself.

I’m a writer and artist living in Melbourne, Australia, with my husband of five years. As well as my own fiction, I write for BellaOnline and Squidoo. My personal website is at Hear Write Now.

How did you get into writing?

I wanted to be an author from the age of about eight or so - as soon as I realised that real people were responsible for the stories I loved. I was a storyteller from a very early age, entertaining friends at sleepovers with tales of princes and princesses, and making up plays that we would rehearse and put on for our parents.

I never could decide on a “real” job, so I did a creative writing diploma and a secretarial course to learn to type, and kept working away on my first novel. Writing and telling stories have always been a part of who I am, so it’s a natural outlet for my creative expression, my ideas, and the way I view the world.

How did you get into writing crime thrillers in particular?

My first novel began as a comedy, but the humour didn’t come easily. At the same time I was planning a mystery series because I loved mystery books, and my novel suddenly developed a subplot involving the ashes of a dead teenager. I completed two drafts of this novel and then moved abroad for two years without doing any writing at all. When I picked up that novel again I hated it. I scrapped the whole thing, but reworked the characters and one of the plot threads and decided I was writing a thriller, since I happened to be “into” crime fiction and thrillers at the time. My tastes seem to change every few years - I’m now devouring all the fantasy and science fiction I can get my hands on.

What is it about writing crime thrillers that you love?

The characters. When I finally got the characterization right in my novel the characters began to “sing”. I love the depth that they have - none of them are perfect or entirely good people, they have weaknesses and some of them have committed terrible crimes. But I have empathy for all of them. They feel like real people to me, like I could run into them at the supermarket or something.

Anything about it you hate?

The realism and the increasingly technical detection methods. I used to be a fan of the good, old fashioned whodunit, where clues were considered and suspects checked off the list and the crime was neatly solved. Nowadays I love reading about detailed forensic investigation, but I would hate to write it. I find writing about police procedure and investigation boring, which is why I chose to have the police team hopelessly understaffed in my book. I wanted the implications of the crime to drive the plot, not the solving of it.

Are there any authors who inspired/inspire you in your writing?

Robin Hobb, who says that she had a thirty-year apprenticeship - even though she was published under the name Megan Lindholm in the 80s, she only reached surety in her craft and real success when she wrote the Farseer Trilogy in the 90s. She never stopped writing though, even though she did become a little jaded at one stage. I’m also inspired by writers like Salman Rushdie, who manage to maintain a sense of humour in the face of persecution and danger and still write amazing books.

Do you have a muse? If so, who or what is it?

My characters are my muses. They call to me when I’m in the writing rhythm and they fall silent when I go too long without visiting them. When I allow myself to simply capture what the characters are saying and doing, I feel a resonance like a violin bow being drawn across the strings. It’s what I mean when I say the characters sing to me. The plot is the harmony that holds it all together.

Do you have any guilty pleasures when it comes to writing?

I allow myself unlimited reading time if I manage to write even just a sentence. It’s hopelessly indulgent, but it works. One sentence easily becomes a paragraph, which sometimes coaxes the characters to sing. It’s easy to say, “Just one sentence.” Much harder to require 1000 or 2000 words a day from yourself.

Do you have a writing space? If so, what is it like?

I have a lovely office, with two desks - one for the PC and one for the two printers and scanner. I have two big bookshelves, and plenty of cupboard space, and an armchair by the window for reading breaks. I also write longhand in bed first thing in the morning before I get up, but not fiction - usually articles or reviews.

What are your dreams for your writing?

Quite standard really - I dream that people will have a chance to read my books and get something out of it. I don’t need to change the world, but I would like to make someone think for a bit, or open someone’s mind to new ways of looking at things.

Any advice for crime thriller writers?

Try to get any sort of job in one of the crime fighting fields. Publishers love that connection, and it’s very difficult to stay ahead of advances in technology, law, science, etc if you’re not somewhere in the loop. At the very least you need a good friend whose brains you can pick regularly.

Any advice for writers in general?

Try to write everyday to keep the momentum going, because when that breaks it can be difficult to get back into it. Even if you trick yourself by saying you only need to write one sentence, or bribe yourself with rewards, keep yourself in the flow of the work.

Also, if you’re starting out, give yourself a break from reading until you’ve developed your own style. I realised this one when I started writing like Dickens while I was reading Hard Times, but sometimes it’s not that obvious. Later on you can, and should, read everything you can in your genre and out of it, but only when you have your own voice.

Thank you for your time.

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