Michael Jecks's Blog, page 40

Crime and punishment revisited

I find it really sad to listen to the radio sometimes. Today I heard so much twaddle, I had to turn it off. Again.

There are politicians who are honourable and quite bright, but they do appear to be few and far between. Some, like Ken Clarke, are pretty unambiguous in their opinions, and he deserves to be derided for many things. Making money out of flogging cigarettes, for example; his ludicrous determination to see Britain reduced to a principality in a French and German rules Europe without the option for the British people to have any say in whether they want to be subsumed into this new undemocratic monster.

Yes, I could have a go at him for so many things. But for his prison policies? No.

What he wants is to see prisons start to work, from all I can see. So, he has suggested that there are too many folks in prison now.

I can't argue with that. When Margaret Thatcher came to power, apparently the prison population was about twenty thousand. Now? Forty years on, and there are some ninety thousand in gaol.

Why is that? Can it be that there are now more than four times the criminals who deserve to end up behind bars? I sort of find that hard to believe. In fact, I think it's crap.

If there are that many more in prisons, could it not be because the remedies for crimes are not working? Yup. And there is a significant risk that there are too many things being made illegal to force people into prison.

In the House of Commons there is a corridor that leads into the main discussion chamber. On one side are all the laws, neatly arranged, which were laid down up until the beginning of the last century. It is a full wall.

On the opposite wall is a second series of shelves, which are already full. These are the laws made in the last hundred years.

That is where the problems lie. It's the sheer quantity of laws that are now required. After all, any new government coming in automatically assumes that it must create new laws. It is a sign of political virility, to create laws to impede people and businesses. Men and women must be controlled in order that they adhere to whatever new policies are stated to be required by our politicians. And the British tend to accept it.

We agree to have our liberties eroded and curtailed so that we might live quietly in peace. We agree that we must be taxed to the hilt so that the state can have more unproductive people in secure jobs to monitor what we do and how. We don't care that there are not enough people creating things and selling things to pay enough in taxes to justify all these 'civil servants'. No, we accept the cost as a function of our servility.

It was naturally correct that, when a police force failed to control firearms certificates in accordance with the law, only those firearms owned by police-checked, law-abiding olympic and Commonwealth sport enthusiasts should have their guns taken away. We agree that because some school-age children stab each other with large-bladed dangerous weapons, therefore all pocket knives with locking blades (ie the ones safe to use for cutting) should be made illegal. Or that those who have a dog which looks sort of like a Staffordshire Terrier should be slaughtered if a policeman says he thinks it's a pit bull. Or that if the state decides to destroy all the cattle within a five mile area  because the government mistakenly thinks there could be foot and mouth, then it's right and proper that the farmers should have no legal redress. Or, that if a man is found dead with small cuts on his wrists, and a number of pills in his body – when all finger prints have been removed from the knife, from the box of pills, from the drinks bottle found nearby, and the blood has miraculously disappeared from the area – that a verdict of suicide should be upheld without a coroner, without an inquest, without a jury hearing the evidence, and that the facts of the case should be hidden under official secrecy for seventy years.

We are a subservient race who are constrained on all sides by the state and an ever-increasing, ludicrous series of laws.

And the latest controversial suggestion by Mr Clarke?

That we should be allowed to have cameras in court so that the public might be allowed to see how the legal system works.

There have been howls of horror. How could we consider such a novelty?

Courts are supposed to be open. Is an open court only all right if only a tiny, tiny number of people can witness justice being done? Does justice automatically diminish because the great unwashed are allowed to see what goes on in court? What utter nonsense!

I was horrified at my own ignorance recently when I was asked what was wrong with a particular scene. It was nothing odd: only a judge sitting at his post, banging a gavel to silence the court. And then I was told that no English judge has a gavel – that is an Americanism.

If I, who has spent many years working with lawyers, watching "Rumpole" with fascination, and reading up on famous cases for my books, if I can get such a simple detail wrong, it is time that ALL the population be given an opportunity to watch.

And if, as MPs feared, when cameras were allowed into Westminster, this means that certain archaic habits of our legal profession are held up to ridicule, so be it. Perhaps they'll grow up a little as a result.

Some years ago I watched a programme about car thieves who stole to go joy riding. The criminals were all in their teens, and their crimes led to danger for a lot of people: the risk of crashes with innocent drivers or pedestrians. But there was an estate where the kids would steal cars every night.

A scheme had been developed which stopped almost all car thefts overnight.

The thieves were given access to garages, cars (wrecks), and a race track. The scheme cost next to nothing, but in terms of stopping crimes, it was a massive success. And the kids didn't go to prison, where they would learn from embittered older felons how to lead a life of crime. They didn't go back to crime afterwards – and I daresay many would have learned useful skills as mechanics.

In a previous post I've written about an old friend of mine who, just after the war, broke into Caterham Barracks and stole a rifle and a couple of hundred rounds of ammunition. The Justice of the Peace, before whom he was hauled some days later, looked at him carefully and said he had two choices: a prison for teenagers, where he would launch himself on a lifelong career of crime, or a different idea. The idea was, that my friend would be forced to join a rifle club, and he would have to attend it once a week.

That intelligent, sensible magistrate probably never realised how wise his judgement was, but my friend went on to become a top shooter for his county.

Kids don't turn to crime because they want to be criminals. Most go to it from boredom. Give them an alternative, and they'll often embrace it.

Oh, yes. Drugs. How to stop the drug problem. It's different, isn't it?

No. Stop criminalising kids for taking drugs. Prohibition has failed, as has prohibition on alcohol, firearms and all other items since the dawn of time. Too many kids are going to prison for taking recreational drugs – why? They have access to more drugs in prison than outside, for goodness sake!

Our drug policies are causing tens of thousands of murders in countries like Mexico and Colombia because we reward those who want to risk arrest with massive sums of money. To people with no hope, little education, and extreme poverty, the risks appear to be entirely outweighed by the potential benefits.

At the same time, we are funding criminal gangs, ruining the lives of kids in our own countries, and benefitting no-one except certain arms and intelligence companies (and police who are proposing ever more draconian laws on the general population) who use drugs as a means of selling their products and services. It is madness!

So like Eddie Ellison, the last head of the National Drug Squad in the Metropolitan Police, I am convinced all drugs should be legalised, their sales controlled, and taxed. Funds generated could be used for the rehabilitation of those who want to give up drug taking. The prisons, however, would not be needed at anything like the same extent.

Go it, Ken! Legalise drugs next!

Tagged: crime, crime writing, drugs, gaol, jail, Ken Clarke, law, politicians, prison, punishment, riot

Language

Research: mediaeval only. The things I have to read ...

Ach, it's a tough one, but I got three comments about anachronisms in my language this week, so got to make a comment, I guess.

This is a hard one to comment on, because no matter what I say, I will be wrong in the eyes of some.

Some years ago, I was contacted by a delightful Canadian lady, who wrote to tell me that the language used on a specific page really upset her. In fact it threw her, and she could not read any further.

The word?  "Posse". She felt it was far too twentieth century for a book set in the thirteen hundreds.

Posse in these terms comes from "posse comitatus", which meant all those men of a certain age who could be called upon by a sheriff. Usually it meant a force of men to maintain the law – usually to suppress riots or disorders. Sometimes they were the force used to help the King lay siege to recalcitrant cities, such as Bristol after their tallage riots in 1316. The term was defined from the Statues of Winchester, 1285. Modern language, it isn't.

But this opens up language to a hideous degree. What sort of language should an author use? After all, should I worry about the precise language to the extent of only using words that were in common usage at the time? If so, my vocabulary will be restricted. A lot of words have been invented since 1327.

Further, should I only ever use words with their correct, contemporary meanings? If so, words like "nice" will be used rather more sparingly, because in medieval times, "nice" meant "accurate, precise". Not quite the same as now.

Should I be cautious about seemingly erroneous words. The fact that trebuchets and mangonels were referred to as "artillery" may seem peculiar, as does the fact that a sling fired a "bullet" might appear entirely anachronistic, but they're still valid. And when I write about "trash" and "garbage", many English readers think me American. But these words are correct. Trash meant anything cut or lopped off something else in order to make something: so cuttings to make a fence; garbage was the offal from a carcass that was edible. See? Easy. Thank God for an Oxford English Dictionary.

But then there are the Americanisms that really rankle. Words such as "gotten". Yup, that is medieval English, too. No, the trouble is, English as we speak it in the UK has changed much more than English as spoken in America. Because of the Empire, we have absorbed many more words from around the word (especially India, naturally), while for some reason American English has remained rather insular. Odd, but what the heck.

The worst problem I tend to have is the editor (no longer mine) who got confused with my spelling of 'til, instead of "until". Well, it's the same as my spelling of cooperate as "coöperate", or my spelling of so many older words which I have read in medieval form, renaissance form, nineteenth century and more recently twentieth century. There ain't no right spelling. The spellings change all the time (mind you, at least in Britain we still maintain the rigorous use of the "u" in "colour") and I cannot keep up. There was a night not so long ago when I had a panic attack over "the". Looked at from whichever angle I tried, it looked wrong.

In any case, for those who want to correct my spellings or use of terminology, there is only one answer. I consider my job to be that of writing fiction for the masses. To do that, I cannot write in the vernacular of the time. Readers wouldn't be able to read it, any more than I could write it. The language in the early thirteen hundreds was a horrible mix of Latin, Middle English, Celtic, Saxon, Norman French, and even a fair sprinkling of Arabic. To write accurately would be . . . problematic.

And if I was to be accurate in the matter of language, why stop there? Surely I ought to write the language in the contemporary manner, with a reed or quill, and ink. And not on decent paper, but cheap paper as used then, or maybe expensive parchment? And of course each book would be available in one copy only.

No, I don't think so either. So, if you're worried about my language, either assume that yes, I have thought about it and chosen the words I think that work the best, or, failing that, just remember that my job is to translate for your delectation the words as used in 1327, and have put them into modern English. Just as a translator helps your understanding of Dostoievsky.

Or, again, remind yourself I'm a fiction writer!

Tagged: authors, blogs, books, crime writing, Dartmoor, language, medieval, Michael Jecks, novelist, Oxford English Dictionary, Templar series, words, writing

Naughty Nuns and Provocative Priests

Exeter Cathedral looking over the city.

I confess, there are few topic that are more likely to upset a certain group, than allegations of misbehaviour in Holy Orders.

OK, I know it's a cliche nowadays. I accept that. Since it appears that scarcely a month goes past without a story about another bad boy in the vicarage in Ireland, or America, usually involving little boys, and almost invariably committed by Catholic priests. Conversely, if you speak to a woman who went to school in a convent, it is hard not to conclude that nuns seriously needed to work off their inner frustrations by punishing their charges unmercifully.

Yup, it's a cliche. and the sad truth is, all too often cliches are proved to be valid Which is why, perhaps, they endure.

I've had a fair few people complain very bitterly about my depiction of monks and nuns. There was one lady who wrote: "…garbage about the nuns and monks carrying on various affairs…"

Sorry – they did carry on in this manner.

The main research material for Devon is from the records left by those two excellent priests, Bishop Walter II, Walter Stapledon, and Bishop Grandisson. Both were tireless workers, and both did visit all the parishes they could – although Walter II was often away, involved in his political efforts.

Bishop Walter was a splendid fellow, as I have written many times. He was a hard-working man, who was noted for his abilities, and became Lord High Treasurer of the kingdom. It seems he was dedicated to Devon and Cornwall, and also to his charges. Many were concerned about the quality of the average priest. Too many knew their work by rote, not my commitment. To try to improve the quality of his parish priests, Walter became devoted to selecting the best and brightest children and educating them.

To this end, he created a school at Ashburton, amongst others, and also endowed a college at Oxford (originally called Stapledon College, it later became Exeter College). Young boys would be chosen, brought to school and taught up so that in the future they would become exponents of their faith in the parishes.

Did Stapledon have a fault? Well, er, yes. When he died, he left a lot of money. From a quick read of Mark Buck's biography (Cambridge University Press), it's clear how. He was quite heavily involved or implicated in some of the more productive criminal activities by Sir Hugh le Despenser. Corruption was endemic in those far-off days. Walter made as much as he could from it.

To be fair, he spent it pretty wisely, too. He threw a huge sum at the cathedral, which was at the time being rebuilt. That chewed through money, but he didn't stint.

But when you look back into the past, you also learn that he had a slightly chequered career.

There was the little incident that nearly cost him his promotion to Bishop, for example.

Exeter Cathedral had a complete monopoly on burials. And they defended it to the death. Why? Burials were valuable. People had to pay for the prayers, for the candles, for the decorations and so on. In those days, a substantial sum could be anticipated.

A Sir Henry de Ralegh died in 1301. Presumably he was a devout character (whether or not to pay for past misdemeanours, I'll leave to your imagination) because he had lived some while with the Dominicans. And he wanted to be buried with them.

The Cathedral didn't agree. So one day, while his corpse was in the Dominican's chapel, two canons with a mob went to it, beat up some of the friars, took the body, the candles and various other items, and did some damage to the church's fabric. Naughty. And the names of the canons? One was Walter de Stapledon.

They held a service for Sir Henry and later told the friars that their corpse was ready. The friars didn't deign to reply. So later, the canons had men take the body to them. But they heard of the imminent arrival, and locked their doors. So, in a spirit of helpfulness, and full of Christian piety and charity, the cathedral goons dumped the body outside the gates.

A few days later the city complained about the smell and the cathedral finally agreed to take the body back. It may still be beneath the cathedral now – some reckon by the font.

Surely the Bishop was a unique character?

A view of the cathedral as Bishop Walter II paid for it!

No. In the first few years of his Register, we find clergymen who were imprisoned for murders, robberies and other felonies. Amongst my favourites are the famous murder of Precentor Walter de Lecchelade, who was set upon by a gang of twenty and clubbed and stabbed to death – all in the middle of the night, immediately after Matins.

Who were these evil criminals? Well, one was the vicar of Ottery St Mary, one the vicar of Heavitree. The instigator was the Dean of the Chapter – because it was a murder for reason of company politics. The Dean and the Bishop hated each other, and the Precentor was an ally of the Bishop's.

There were eleven clergy who broke into St Buryan Church and beat up the Dean and his attendants so badly, their lives were feared for. There was John Dyrewyn, who broke into a painter's house and stole £5 worth of goods. The Rector of St Ive kidnapped the wife of John de Thornetone and robbed him. Three priest vicars at Crediton were found guilty of gross immorality, two rectors trespassed after Sir Hugh de Courtenay's game and severely wounded Sir Hugh's keepers.

No, these men weren't unique. They were all too standard for their times. But come on, if you think that they were naughty, and surely such fellows wouldn't make the grade generally and I'm being unfair to write about misbehaving men – bear in mind that these guys were raised at a time when weapons were always to hand. And feuds were normal. Until a reasonable age, they would have been trained in weaponry in case their older brothers died, and they themselves might have to return to the family estates.

You also have to bear in mind that in those days, outlawry was rife. There was one knightly family of felons who had a priest among their number. He ended his life when the local lawmen finally laid siege to him in his church until they could kill him. Another family of outlaws was so vicious, brutal and successful at robbing and all forms of felony, that the local monastery hired them as their tax-collectors. Makes sense, in a way, doesn't it?

And it wasn't only the men. In Belladonna at Belstone, I write about a whole bunch of misdemeanours. One reader slated it (and me) calling it a dreadful book because there could never have been a convent so badly led and behaved.

Sorry.

It was based upon the nuns at two convents: Polsloe and Canonsleigh. And I am afraid that all the events I list in there, the dilapidated buildings, the – ahem – misbehaviours, all came from the records.

But the nuns did suffer from a great problem. You see, people gave money to religious foundations in order to protect themselves. By and large, it was a form of insurance, because whatever you did on earth, after your death, you could count on the fact that there were a number of priests holding services and remembering you in their prayers. And that meant, hopefully, the afterlife would be a little easier.

The problem was the usual one: women couldn't hold services. So even the nuns in the convents had to depend upon services held by priests. They had their own chaplains who would hold their masses.

So a lot of those who would have considered giving money to the nuns, actually held back and sent the money to Friaries or Monasteries. At least there they knew that they'd get dedicated services to remember them.

But what the heck. If people want to assume that I haven't researched the stories and been fairly careful about the sort of crimes I attribute to priests and nuns – well, what can I say?

I'm a fiction writer.

Tagged: author, Bishop, books, clergy, crime writing, Devon, Exeter, medieval, Michael Jecks, murder, novelist, Nuns, Priests, Templar series, writing

Ten Deadly Sins of Entering Competitions

This week, the competition run by Simon & Schuster for a Michael Jecks Detection Collection pen from Conway Stewart as been won, by Michael Chidley. Congratulations to Michael, and sorry to all those who didn't win the pen. You'll just have to save your pennies!

Thinking of competitions, I was reminded of the old CWA Debut Dagger. Not only I was reminded, though. The last couple of posts have raised quite a few comments and questions – so much so that my expert administrators have dredged up from their memories certain articles I've written in the past.

For a few years, I used to run the Debut Dagger competition for the CWA. It was enormous (if exhausting) fun when I did it. Reading the hundreds of entries every year gave me great excitement, apart from anything else, but the main thrill was, seeing who would win and go on to get a contract.

Because most of them did. I had the thrill of seeing Simon Levack and Ed Wright win over two years. Both had publishing contracts within weeks of the award. Then there were the others: Edwin Thomas (who writes as Tom Harper), Allan Guthrie, and any number of others were shortlisted authors in the Debut Dagger. I once calculated that in two years I assisted seven authors into print, and that is a matter of some pride to me.

It was the whole point of the Debut Dagger: to help unpublished authors to get their fists on a contract.

But while running the Debut Dagger, I did get a few . . . well, let us say, less competent entries. From perfectly good, sensible people, I have no doubt, but they failed in one or two key areas. Which sort of mucked up their chances.

These rules were culled from those (sometimes deeply entertaining) entries!

If you are considering entering a competition, do please read and inwardly digest . . .

Judging competitions: the TEN DEADLY SINS

All writers know the pain of writing the best story ever and sending it off into the void, only to hear three months later that their work's "not quite what we are looking for". That's bad enough, but for misery, it's not quite so bad as entering competitions, because you rarely hear anything back. As far as the Debut Dagger goes, if you supply your e-mail address (sign-up form at the foot of the page) you'll at least find out if you haven't won. Unless you get onto the shortlist, though, you won't hear anything about the quality of your entry.

But many don't get to the short list. And for the daftest reasons.

First, many don't stick to the Rules. If the Rules ask for 3,000 words there is no earthly point sending in 10,000. It only irritates the judges. Other folks type in a rush and never edit or proof check. They can't, because their efforts read so badly. Remember, if you treat your work in a cavalier manner, judges will too.

Is this important? You betcher. Take the Debut Dagger last year. We had almost 800 entries, and had to produce a short list of ten to twenty in a week and a half. We were actively seeking reasons to reject, and so are all other judges if they are honest. A judge has to whittle down all the non-starters, just like an editor. They too are searching for signs so that they can reject. You may not like it, but that's the truth. After all, editors are receiving on average about eight manuscripts per day, at the same time as working on commissioned pieces, attending meetings and trying to hold together a social life.

What makes judges reject? An example: misspellings can make me laugh out loud, such as the body hidden in the 'trunk of a Black Sudan' or the man concealing a 'grizzly' secret, or the 'viscous' murder. Those are my favourites, but there are many, many more, and all demonstrate lack of care. Spell checkers are only so good. They still can't check grammatical context. That's the author's job. Yours.

When you write, read it out aloud to yourself. Weird sentence construction can easily be spotted then, and it also gives your writing an authentic feel if it comes out the way you speak. That's how I write my own works, reading them out loud until they read all right.

A hot button for me is the absence or sudden appearance of apostrophes. I know nothing better guaranteed to make me lose the thread than an 'its' that should be 'it is' or an 'it's' that's the possessive of 'it'. Perhaps I am particularly finicky — but I am a writer, which means I care about words. Editors do too. You should, if you want to be published.

In our Rules, we ask for a synopsis, yet many didn't give one. . . . and whodunit? If you want to know that, you'll have to buy the book to find out!' will reach for the sick bag and then throw bag and entry into the bin.

So often the synopsis begins by summarising the story entered. Thus the judge reads a story and then reads another two paragraphs telling him what he just read. Pointless. In fact worse than pointless, because the author has just lost a couple of hundred words and only has 300 left to tell the rest of the story.

Speaking of Rules, one sometimes thinks there's no point in them. We ask for everything double-line-spaced, so why do people send us single-line-spaced work? We want A4 pages, printed on one side only – and people seem to take pleasure in ignoring us.

Don't get me on to people who sent in carefully printed and bound work with fancy covers. All have to be systematically de-bound because I, like editors, prefer my reading loose-leaf. As we stated in the Rules.

There are other things which raise negatives in the judges' minds. After speaking to editors from seven leading publishing houses, I can now reveal a list of pet hates. Please, if you want to be a writer, read these and learn them.

Read the Rules and obey them.
Be different. Last year an editor made the plaintive – or pointed – observation: 'Why are all innocent female victims invariably blond and beautiful?'
Do not start succeeding paragraphs or sentences with the same word. One (really very good) entry this year had the first six paras starting with 'The'.
Try not to use exclamation marks. If a sentence is witty or funny, the reader will notice, and if it's not, you won't make things better by drawing attention to it.
Unless you're writing for a tabloid, avoid really common terms: 'emotional rollercoaster'; 'heart-stopping surprise'; or, my pet hate, 'feisty'.
Always use quote marks for speech. This year we received several laid out with a dash, like a script, and it was impossible to see where dialogue ended and commentary began.
Be consistent with paragraph spacing: judges can live with no tab, no space between subsequent paras, they can live with a tab no space, they can live with a space and no tab, or any other layout, but they will hate a mixture. And dialogue doesn't mean you have to have a space to make it stand out. The usual convention is that a space indicates a change of scene or pace. Stick to it.
Judges detest small type. It may be cheaper for you to post a lightweight bundle by printing in 8 point size, but for a judge it just means eye strain and a headache. Judges spend all day every day reading, and having to squint puts them off.
If you are writing for a competition like the Debut Dagger, try to have a significant scene. That doesn't mean you have to have a body on page one, but if you have ten or twelve pages to play with, make sure you use them. Don't just hope that setting a scene will be enough, because what you want to do is make the reader want to know what happens next. That means using some sort of cliffhanger, if you can.
Oh, and finally, don't send threatening letters. Last year someone demanded that we return his story (the Rules said we wouldn't); and all but accused us of plagiarism. This year someone accused us of filching his entry fee because our letter confirming receipt was dated after the deadline. Sadly, administrating a competition for which there are fifty entries daily, while simultaneously trying to earn a living, means one can fall behind. There has to be an element of trust. If you don't trust the Organisers, don't enter. If, like ours, the Rules state that copyright will remain with the author, you should believe them.

Here endeth the lesson.

To summarise: yes, read the Rules and obey them; read your work out aloud; check spellings and avoid cliches. Aim to be unique, aim to be perfect. If you are slapdash, it shows, but if you can develop your own style and have a story to tell, you will get a contract.

Still, whether you type for fun or for profit, enjoy your work. That is always the most important thing.

PS – apologies for lack of pictures today. Some problem with broadband or WordPress. God knows which. Hopefully normal will be returning soon!

Tagged: authors, blogs, books, Competitions, crime writing, CWA, Debut Dagger, Michael Jecks, New writing, novelist, review, Templar series, writing

Epublishing and why not!

Like a good little author, I sat back and thought before sending out my last newsletter (if you're interested, go and register for future ones at www.michaeljecks.co.uk on the home page).

The thing was, it had been some little while since my last newsletter, and I was aware that with all this modern, new-fangled blogging lark, I'd forgot entirely about the newsletters. And you know what would happen if I didn't write one, don't you? My admin manager would give me a really hard time. So, rather than wait for the phone call (yes, Jean, you know who you are) I thought I'd pen a quick newsletter. Just to keep folks interested.

A good cover. Glad I didn't have to think it up!

But it couldn't be too dramatic. It had to be short, because I really am in the middle of book 32, and there are some tortuous plot elements that need tying off. A siege is a hard event to write about. So, this newsletter must be short, quick, and painless. That was the idea.

So why oh why did I write about publishing? I got more comments by email than about any other newsletter.

So, in response to some of the bigger questions, here goes.

 

Debbie summed up loads of comments when she said: 'My biggest complaint with my Kindle is the number of spelling, wording, and grammatical errors that seem to slip through.'

Well, yup. And it's what has been predicted by professional authors for a long time.

Michael Joseph it was who said: 'Most people have a novel inside them. And most should leave it there.' Or something very similar. Gimme a break: I'd have to get up off my backside to find the quote, and yes, I am busy!

In the past, there was a basic rule. If you sat down to write a book, there was a less than 1/100 chance that it would be finished. If you did finish it, there was a less than 1/100 chance it would get published. So, 1 in 10,000 was the likelihood of seeing your novel in print.

Many of the 9,999 people whose books didn't get into print thought very seriously that theirs should have been the one that did. But I agree with Michael Joseph. I have had to sit in on meetings to look at and discuss the authorly merits of unpublished writers before now. And generally, you can see why the publishers didn't pay for those books.

A novel needs to have a good plot. It needs real, believable characters and situations, it needs locations that you can recognise, even if you've never been there.

All too often unpublished authors fail on one or more of these criteria. And if one criterion doesn't work, the book doesn't either.

In the past, failed books just wandered off into the ether, never to be seen or heard of. Sometimes the author would go to a vanity publisher, and pay through the nose to get fifty or a hundred copies, which he would diligently sell around local shops. But authors in vanity presses never made it to the bestseller shelves.

But now, of course, there is the new option. Go epub.

Electronic is good. It means that the unknown author who can pay for a sexy cover will have as good a chance of a sale as – well, as me with my Simon and Schuster books THE OATH and KING'S GOLD.

It's great, right up to the moment when you start to read.

Because, dear reader, there are one or two things that happen when a book is sent to a publisher.

Editors. Hah!

First, a professional reader takes a view. This is someone called an editor (or sadist), and he or she will read it and be (believe me, you would not believe just how) picky. They will tear the book apart. Probably because unlike me, they tend to have degrees in English and things. And they send the whole damn thing back with loads of comments.

And I write up all the amendments they want, before sending it off again for their approval. And guess what? Someone else goes through it. This time it's someone even more bloody picky – the dreaded Copy Editor (who, I am reliably informed by my friend Bernard Knight, has usually been trained by the GeStaPo).

I'm lucky. Saint Joan has been my CE for most of the last sixteen years, and she knows me, my characters, my locations, and the period. She pulls apart my English (damn cheek) and corrects my (already perfect) grammar. And then, she sends me her deliberations and I groan, sigh, and correct my perfect book to suit her.

That, thank God is it.

Except then the Proof Reader has his/her go as well.

So, by the end of the process, the poor bloody book has been pulled apart, laughed at, sneered at, set aside contemptuously, and generally insulted, at least three times. That doesn't include the number of times the poor ruddy author has sat down with his head in his hands wondering why the hell he thought finding a dead body in a peat bog/buried in a wall/lying in bushes (delete as applicable) was such a brilliant idea in the first place.

BUT, and it is a big 'but', the poor fellow typing a manuscript at home, thinking it's great (because mum, step dad and the girlfriend all liked it), and who then signs up to Kindle and sees it in glorious technicolour on the computer screen a day or two later, doesn't have the faintest idea how to edit.

Perhaps one in a hundred does?

Another glorious Simon & Schuster cover. How could I achieve this?

So for the reader, buying a book is now a lottery. You buy, you wince on page one, you wince again on page three, you wince twice on page four, and perhaps read to page thirty before grumpily turning the reader off.

If you buy books that are already published by a mainstream publisher, you'll be OK. You'll read a book that has been tortured and tormented already, so that you aren't.

But that is the problem with Kindle and ebook readers. If you buy unedited books, you are buying something that is inherently liable to disappoint.

And that is why I haven't written anything direct to epub yet. I won't, until I can afford a copyeditor and editor so I know that the book is as good as it could possibly be.

Crime Writers' Association

A CWA Dagger. Sadly, not mine!

The Crime Writers Association has been a group I have long enjoyed being a member of. I was inordinately proud to be elected as Chairman (and panic-stricken, I hasten to add), because it's had such a brilliant history.

Not many people have ever heard of the CWA unless they're in the business of publishing books, and more specifically, crime fiction. But the CWA has long been a great association of not-very-often like-minded people.

The ructions amongst members have only occasionally broken out into the news media. Usually tiffs have been accommodatingly resolved over a few glasses of the right stuff in a bar. In fact it has been the proud boast of the CWA that as an association only the Romantic Novelists' beats us for alcohol consumption.

I joined back in the dim and distant past when I lived in Surrey, and once every so often I would go and participate in CWA meetings at the New Cavendish Club.

They were informative, entertaining and fun. I met with great writers, and many of my friends now date back to those fun meetings – Daphne Wright, Edward Marston, Simon Brett, Judith Cutler, Ruth Dudley-Edwards, Stella Duffy – there are so many it's hard to keep track.

Which is why it was so hard to leave the CWA a couple of years ago.

The thing is, I loved the CWA because it was genuinely supportive of writers and writing. It was created back in 1953 by John Creasey, and the purpose was to support and promote Crime Writing. Over time all the country's best crime writers have joined from the UK and abroad.

From 1955, awards for the best crime books of the year have been granted. Recognition of the best by the best. That makes them the oldest British literary awards. In fact, I think they could the oldest in the world.

Originally they were called the Crossed Red Herrings awards, but more recently they've become the Daggers. There is the Gold Dagger for the best in Fiction, the Silver for the runner-up, the John Creasey Memorial for the best first-time writer, the Fleming Steel for the best thriller, and the Debut Dagger for a work by an unpublished author.

In my time running that last, I helped to get six unknown authors published. All these Daggers were announced and awarded at a lunch in London each year, at which lots of journalists and reviewers met with crime writers to get fed and sloshed in a jamboree that always went without any great comment from the media. Irritating, but true.

The Chairman would organise the speaker (who invariably spoke for free. I well remember the excellent Greg Dyke shamelessly promoting his book with humour and great charm, and the witty, kind, amiable and in every way wonderful Terry Pratchett), while the poor Deputy Chairman would run around organising the awards, arrange the thousand and one details, and introduce all those who must announce the awards. A hard job, unpaid, of course, but fun.

About two years ago when a TV company contacted the CWA, it looked like a brilliant idea. Get lots more coverage, have the writers recognised, and let some of those fellows who're unknown get a little blast of PR. With marketing budgets being slashed all the time, authors get little enough publicity, so having TV cameras on them could only help.

TV is after all the main medium nowadays. It is the one everyone recognises. While newspapers shrivel and their literary pages wither as their commentators disappear, TV and, to a lesser extent, radio, are the ones that publishers adore.

The CWA Dagger lunch was always a hectic time, but the great thing was, it was affordable. All the members could get in, generally. Venues were selected so that members could afford their tickets, and the publishers' tables helped subsidise the memberships'. Which is fair. Authors tend to earn below the national average wage. The Society of Authors' last survey showed over two thirds of authors earning half the national average. Things have got worse since then.

With the new Dagger Awards, how has this changed?

Well, yes, the event is televised. As planned. However, now, instead of the CWA Daggers, it has been renamed the Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards. No mention of the organisation that created them. Even John Creasey's dagger has been changed to the New Blood Dagger. Presumably none of the TV crews had heard of John Creasey.

What is much, much worse, to my mind, is the addition of the new prizes. Now, instead of the CWA Daggers existing to support and promote good crime writing, we have a new series of prizes. The "Best Actor", the "Best Actress", the "Film Dagger" etc.

When the camera pans around the room, it avoids any lesser known or unknown authors – the public doesn't want unrecognisable faces, after all – and instead focuses on the people the TV producers know. So actors get more promotion.

And we see the profoundly silly sight of a media superstar, who will earn more in that one event introducing those who are to announce the winners, than three quarters of the authors could earn in a year.

I find it inordinately depressing to see the Daggers changed so much. After all, actors and actresses have access to a number of awards every year. Crime writers get one – the Daggers. To see this highjacked by media superstars I think degrades the genre.

It certainly spoils the atmosphere for me.

Now, I know that some folks will think this is all sour grapes. And yes, I guess it could be described as such. But I'm only writing this because yesterday and the day before there have been such comments in the press about Mr Swift's comments (Author of Last Orders etc) saying that the internet will crucify authors (see http://www.thebookseller.com/news/dig...).

I don't necessarily disagree. But more important is the fact that if  our literary organisations, especially genre-specific specialist ones, are failing authors, we will never have a chance. Novelists will disappear because we cannot make a living writing novels.

That, I think, is the real shame.

Punishments

One of the guys who tried to incite other people to riot. Nice guy.

Ok, I know I've been muttering darkly about executions and punishment recently, but this one gets me going.

Two young guys were sentenced to four years each, and suddenly the liberal press has gone into overdrive. Screams of "disproportionate" can be heard all over the place. Not, I would imagine, in their towns or in the areas where the rioting took hold last week.

Let's remember what happened last week.

On Thursday before last, a 29 year old man was in a taxi riding home, when armed police stopped the vehicle. While the driver cowered in terror, two shots were fired. The man died. On cop had a bullet destroy his radio.

Subsequently it has gradually become clear that the bullet was a 9mm JHP from a police H&K submachinegun. Although the man involved had a bored out pocket gun (a starting pistol modified, I assume, to shoot .22 LR) it wasn't fired. And even the most moronic forensic techie could tell the difference, I hope, between a 9mm and .22 slug.

Anyway, suspicions about the police aside, this event kicked off the worst rioting in about twenty years.

It began with a march on the local police by the man's family to ask why he had been shot. In accordance with regulations the police would not respond since they were under investigation. These regulations should be reconsidered. Still, the fact the guy was carrying an illegal weapon does sort of indicate he wasn't whiter than white.

But what then happened was a series of riots. First, all over London, then moving out to other cities.

It was instantly declared by left-leaning twits that this was a simple case of the underclass protesting. It was a result of school children losing a £60  a week bribe to study so that they could improve their own life chances. It was a result of kids losing their playing areas, it was a result of the lack of investment in new jobs. It was because of the government cuts.

Actually, I don't think so. Why should social underclasses instantly rebel against police and government by leaving police stations alone, and not torching government offices, but instead robbing shoe shops, IT or TV shops? This was nothing to do with social complaints. It was thieving, made easier by the fact of so many being involved.

OK, so what kind of social groupings were involved in the robberies?

There were teens, there were college and uni students. There was a woman from Exeter uni, for example, who's father is a millionaire, who helped by driving a car to take gear away. Not an underclass, just ordinary middle-class folks looking for excitement and cheap goods. Many took huge TVs they couldn't carry, so they threw them away in the street. Madness.

OK, so some damage. But there was a man shot dead in a car in Croydon. An old man who tried to put out flames in his street was beaten to death. And three young guys were run over by a car. All died. Five dead on top of the original police victim.

Right.

So now two characters are to go down for four years each, what was their crime?

Incitement. Both of them set up webpages to try to get the riots to extend to their areas.They deliberately attempted to incite other people to violence and riot.

Now, the liberal folks (and I am a liberal myself) are crying foul because these two didn't actually succeed. They tried to incite, but no one was hurt by their actions. No one was killed, injured or scared, they say, because no one was actually moronic enough to do as they asked.

So ruddy what?

If I were to go on the computer and try to incite someone to commit a terrorist act, I would be guilty. If I demanded that someone try to assassinate the Queen, the Prime Minister or President Obama, I would be rightly prosecuted, and could anticipate a severe penalty. If I attempted to kill someone myself, the mere fact I was incompetent or too stupid to succeed would not be a defence. At least, I hope it wouldn't be.

Liberals point to a younger lad of 17, who was given a much lower penalty. He got to have his access to Facebook removed for a year, and probably some elements of community service. I'm not sure – and don't actually care. His punishment is vastly less because he's classed as under age for grown up penalties in this country. Under our moronic system he cannot even be named in case it causes some trauma to him, I guess.

So do I feel sympathy for these cretins now that they are starting their gaol sentences?

No I do not. As far as I am concerned, the unpleasant pair can remain in prison for a good, long time. They deserve it.

Oh, and if you're wondering about the mugshot of me as the featured image, it's because I was thinking: no bookshops were broken into.

Tagged: crime, crime writing, police, punishment, riot, rioting, theft

To Birch or not to Birch?

Ok, this one will probably get me some irritated responses, but what the heck.

When I was ten or eleven, I can clearly remember the day when it was announced that coporal punishment was to be banned from school.

The reasons were obvious enough to any thinking adult.

First, how can a grown up smack a child, and then tell him that the punishment was a) for his own good; b) that it's wrong to hit people?

It's the problem with all forms of physical discipline. The kids are being told not to fight, not to hit people, and to enforce that rule, adults smack them. Any adult can see that the logic is slightly flawed there.

Then again, the risks of adult brutality were always there too. The teacher who enjoyed punishing the kids rather too much; the ones who had a sadistic motivation, or who gained some sexual gratification from beatings. And of course the number of children who died from beatings.

OK. All these are bad, right?

Let's take the death by punishment first. It's a biggie.

How many children died because of punishment since, say, the end of World War II? I have no idea.

There is a great habit by do-good groups to lie, though.

In the days of early missionaries to Haiti, there was a need for money to counter the heathen worship endemic across the island. Preachers came back from Haiti with tales of dreadful practices. The Haitians would make wax dolls and stick pins in them to hurt or kill their victims, for example.

A great story, and all the more so because making waxen dummies and sticking pins in them was a European form of necromancy. It was unknown in Haiti. Yes, unknown. The story was spread by missionaries in Europe because they knew that people in Europe would respond. If Haitians were doing such things, it was because they were emulating European witches. The God-fearing Europeans tipped money into the missionaries' hands.

Another example: when it was decided that alcohol was an awful thing, taxes were increased on booze. And those who tried to make their own by distilling beer or other hooches, were warned of the men who tried it, and were sent blind by the nasty contaminants that were distilled and concentrated along with the alcohol.

Except it was crap. Never happened. The impurities that could cause blindness would also make a drinker wince and spit it out. As proof, if anyone can give me the name of a guy who did drink hooch and went blind, I'd be grateful. On the other hand, I'd point people at the lack of such cases in Ireland where they regularly make their own potato firewater (how do you spell it? Puccin? Potsin?), I'd point to New Zealand where home distilling is perfectly legal, or Portugal, or France where it's easy to do so with a licence.

No one goes blind.

There were the stories of horrible impacts on people for taking drugs, too. Well, heroin and other natural narcotics are less dangerous than the alternatives. By that I mean drugs like methadone, regularly used to wean heroin addicts off their habits, which are actually poisonous. The only dangers from heroin and coca leaves tend to be the way that the drugs are mixed with unpleasant powders (flour, sugar, rat poison) by criminal gangs to increase their profits. If drugs were legalised, and their purity checked, they would be a great deal safer.

So, unless I can be given actual examples of deaths since the wars, I will doubt any suggestion that there were any.

Now, it is possible that there were a number of teachers who did enjoy hurting the children under their care. I don't doubt it. But whether that is the case or not, was the harm done equivalent to the harm to society in removing the punishment?

Because society has been harmed, drastically.

I remember the day I heard corporal punishment was being stopped because I can remember very distinctly the thoughts that ran through my mind.

They were: if there is no discipline at school, people will leave school without any sense of an ultimate sanction; that means that when they have left, they will not have any respect for authority of any sort.

Kids at school now don't have respect for teachers. If they misbehave, there is no sensible progression of punishment.

In my day, there was the telling off in front of the class; lines to be written down; detention without warning that same day; a cane or slipper delivered by any master who saw it as necessary; all the way up to being excluded from school.

All the children knew what the boundaries were. Not only that, they also knew that the boundaries had an escalation procedure. Someone who was found bullying or hurting another child could be instantly escalated to an interview with the headmaster and his cane.

This is the reason why children like to have corporal punishment. I remember it very clearly: I liked the fact that those who misbehaved, who disrupted classes, and who made problems for everyone else, would be made to realise the error of their ways.

Now, many folks will no doubt complain that such behaviour is too harsh. Well, kids don't think that way. Kids are small animals, and they think much the same as other small animals. They like to push the envelope, but they also LIKE to know that there are boundaries. They are happier.

It was interesting that the masters at my school who tended to agree to the cane rarely had to use it (Mr Rogers did on me – but I made sure I didn't gossip with Mark Houlistan after that rather painful experience). Those who swore that they would never use the cane (younger teachers from trendy teacher training courses) were utterly incompetent at maintaining discipline in their classes.

And then you had masters like Mr Tuck who was accurate to within an inch at thirty paces with a beech-block board duster or piece of chalk. A brilliant teacher, like Mr Rogers, who could keep a class's attention.

OK. Someone at the back there is now wincing and demanding to know whether I really would return to the dark ages like them. Surely I don't mean that I would want to go back to beatings, to blocks of wood being flung at a boy's head or poor little darlings being tortured with detention?

Too right, I would.

I repeat – the children prefer it. They like boundaries and dislike anarchy. The trouble is, in modern education, all intermediate forms of discipline are being eradicated. Kids can be told off in class, they can have lines given to them. What if they ignore those two? Then they are held in detention – by appointment, not on the same day as the offence. And finally, they can be excluded from school. But such expulsions must be validated by School governers, and County Council officers who have an interest in not punishing kids in case an expensive court case is the result.

An interesting consideration is, that the very children who misbehave, get excluded, and go on to successful careers as small time crooks or serious felons, will all too often join street gangs.

These are groups with rigid rules of joining and being accepted. They also have rigorous forms of corporal punishment for those who infringe their rules.

So the kids are, perhaps, leaving the normal society to join their own groupings that provide the very discipline they crave. The trouble is, they find it outside the law.

Tagged: author, crime, crime writing, Dartmoor, Michael Jecks, novelist, police, punishment, riots, Templar series