Pauline Rowson's Blog, page 84

Announcing the winner of the Southern Area Young Crime Writers' Competition

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of presenting certificates to the shortlisted entrants in the Southern Area Young Crime Writers' Competition, organised by the Crime Writers' Association of Great Britain and supported by the Library Service. I was delighted to present certificates and a signed and dedicated copy of one of my Inspector Andy Horton Marine Mystery crime novels: The Suffocating Sea to the ten shortlisted entrants.

It was so lovely to meet so many young people who enjoy writing and reading and it was an incredibly difficult task choosing a winner. In the end I was forced to choose between two stunning entries.

I awarded a Highly Commended to the runner up George Neame, a hugely talented young writer whose command of English was superb. His entry was entitled "The Secret of Seven West Street". It was extremely well written and I expect to see his novels on the bookshop shelves and Internet some day in the not too distant future.

George’s story is a police procedural. Police officers Jones and Redwood are called to investigate the murder of a young man in a dark alley only to discover that behind his death is a terrible secret that his killer dare not have exposed.

And the Winner was Natasha White for her excellently crafted short story with a unique sense of time and place and a wonderful twist in the tale. Natasha White’s entry is called "Anything for Money." It is beautifully written with a great structure by someone who clearly has an eye for story telling. It has humour and style and flows in an incredible and impressive way.

The Reverend Beadle trips over a body in his church and is horrified to discover it’s his sister. He rushes out to call the police but on his return to the church finds the body has vanished. The bell ringer and grave digger deny ever seeing it but the Reverend knows that the theft of money his sister has raised to repair the church roof is behind her death. When he discovers her killer he is silenced forever... or is he?

I wouldn't dream of spoiling the ending by telling you.

Congratulations to them both and to everyone who was shortlisted. Fingers crossed for Natasha White, winner of the Southern Region, who will now compete with the other regional winners for the national prize, which will be announced during National Crime Fiction Week ( 14-21 June 2010)

Choosing names for characters in a novel

Getting the right name for characters in a novel can be a tricky business. Sometimes they come to me completely out of the blue as I am creating a character, other times I will struggle to find the name that best suits the character.
 
I have always had this thing that people should look like their names.  When someone is introduced to me I will think yes, you are a Jacqueline or a Malcolm. Other times I will think, oh no, you're definitely a Karen or a Wayne. And so it is with the characters I am creating. The name has to fit. If it's not right then the character isn't right. The name also needs to fit with the age and nationality although you can have exceptions.
 
So where do I get names from?
 
When seeking inspiration for first names I turn to my little book of baby's names or I will look up a web site of baby's names.  I also keep an ear out for any unusual or interesting names when meeting people and will jot these down. Working on the current Inspector Horton marine mystery I was stuck for one particular character.  He had several incarnations before trawling through the A-Z of names I hit on it. Ashley.  Yes, he is definitely an Ashley.
 
As to surnames, I let my finger do the choosing and tend to pick these out of an atlas or street map. Then I see if it fits with the first name and the character.  And the more novels I write the more I am in danger of repeating names, (it's easy to forget what you have already used) so I am building a database in order to double check this.
 
And where did Andy Horton come from?  I've no idea.  He just sprang to mind both the name and the character and long might he thrive. 

For more information visit my official web site http://www.rowmark.co.uk

The London Book Fair 2010

April is here and that means one of the major events in the book trade calendar, The London Book Fair at Earl's Court. It runs from Monday 19 April to Wednesday 21 April and I will be there on 19th and 20th April. It provides me with a great opportunity to meet up with my agents as well as with my publishers and to attend some interesting and informative seminars. You can find out more on the London Book Fair web site. It is well worth a visit for authors and anyone working in and interested in the book trade.

If any of you are visiting then you can ask for me on Stand J205.

A very successful and enjoyable book tour in the North East of England

I’m back from a highly successful whirlwind mini tour of the north east of England, my second in six months and I’m delighted to say I was met once again with very friendly people and some avid fans of my marine mystery crime novels.

The first stop was Washington Town Centre Library, yes, home of George Washington the first President of the United States of America, 1789 to 1797, whose ancestors settled in Washington, England, then called Wessyngton, in 1183. Here was my smallest audience but an extremely lively and appreciative one nevertheless.

Next up, on the following morning, was Ingleby Barwick Library. Ingleby Barwick is a large private residential estate and civil parish in the borough of Stockton-on-Tees. At one time it was reputed to be the largest Private Housing Estate in Europe. The audience of adults was joined by several talented and gifted students from the adjacent All Saints Secondary School, who took lots of photographs, which means I could end up all over Facebook, and the Northern Echo also turned up to take photographs.

Then it was on to Hartlepool for an afternoon talk organised by Hartlepool Library but this time on board a beautifully restored paddle ship, the PSS Wingfield, in the Hartlepool Maritime Experience Museum; an appropriate setting for talking about marine mysteries. Through the portholes I could see Hartlepool Marina. I wondered if perhaps Inspector Andy Horton might sail into it one day…

After this it was across country to Cockerton Library in Darlington. Opened in 1970 the library won an architectural award for its unusual saw tooth shape and wonderful wooden ceiling. It’s a tardis of a library that looks small on the outside but is deceptively large inside with a computer suite in the centre and one of the most splendid crime sections I’ve seen in a local library – obviously Darlington residents enjoy a good crime novel.

I was made to feel very welcome in all the libraries I visited. Huge thanks to all for organising these talks for me.

Thanks also to all the lovely people who turned out to hear me talking about how I write my marine mystery crime novels and thrillers and for buying my books. I will return…

A busy month for writing and speaking engagements

Aside from putting the finishing touches to the Inspector Andy Horton novel I’m writing there are a clutch of events in March.

Firstly, my crime thriller novel In For The Kill is being featured in Read an E Book Week 7-13 March 2010. In For The Kill is set on the Isle of Wight on the south coast of England and is a thriller about what happens to one man when his identity is stolen. For Alex Albury, the hero, the nightmare that destroyed his life will only end in death; his or his tormentor’s. With its twists and turns the reader is sucked into a frightening world of deception, betrayal and revenge in a highly topical story that has its roots deep in the past. For one week only during Read an E Book Week people will be able to download a free copy of In For The Kill

On 15 and 16 March I’m off to the North East of England to talk about my marine mystery crime novels at Washington Town Centre Library, Stockton-on-Tees Library and Darlington Library and I’ll be on board the PSS Wingfield, a beautifully restored 1934 paddle steamer, at the Hartlepool Maritime Experience giving a talk. This event is being organised by Hartlepool Library. You can find more details and booking information on my official web site http://www.rowmark.co.uk on the Appearances Page.

On 24 March I’ll once again be talking to Julian Clegg on his Breakfast Show on BBC Radio Solent at 6.45 a.m.

In addition, Deadly Waters, the second Inspector Andy Horton crime novel is being featured in a British Arts Council Initiative in conjunction with Legend Press, called Exclusively Independent until 10 March.

And I believe one of my thriller novels, either In Cold Daylight or In For The Kill (don’t know which one) will be published in Turkey. I will let you know when as soon as I hear.

Oh, and I almost forgot The Suffocating Sea is released in mass market paperback on 12 March.

So plenty there to be getting on with.


The Suffocating Sea

Ten Rules for Writing

The Guardian has been asking writers for their ten rules for writing, so I thought I would add mine here.

1 Always have a pencil and paper with you, in every handbag, shopping bag or pocket.

2. Travel by public transport, you see and meet some great characters for novels.

3. Earwig other people's conversations in cafes, bars, buses, trains. You can collect some wonderful ideas for stories and some fantastic anecdotes.

4. Watch people's body language, it adds colour to your characters.

5. Write for yourself first, it will help you to find your own distinctive voice, rather than trying to write to suit your publisher, agent, readers and ending up with something watered down and weak.

6. Don't read reviews, or if you do learn to take the rough with the smooth and then carry on writing for yourself and for enjoyment, not to please a reviewer.

7. Back up everything, regularly.

8. Have a spare computer, laptop or netbook and if one fails, and you've backed up, you can always continue writing.

9. If you get to the stage in your novel where you're bored with the story, then your reader will most certainly be bored too.

10. And to echo Maragaret Attwood, writing is hard work. You don't get a pension plan, and you don't get a regular salary cheque. ­Nobody is forcing you to do this: you chose it, so don't moan, enjoy it and if you don't enjoy it, don't do it.

Needless to say I love it.
http://www.rowmark.co.uk

Book titles are like buses

Book titles are like buses, you wait for ages for one to come along and then they all come together. I've been working on the new Inspector Horton marine mystery crime novel (number six in the series) and have been struggling to find a title for it. Now I've got two.

They came to me last week, one while cleaning my teeth, and the other during the early hours of the morning. I like both of them and now have the dilema of deciding which one best suits the novel. With the Andy Horton series the title also needs to contain a 'marine' element because the novels are all set against the backdrop of the sea.

I won't reveal the chosen title yet because I need to mull them both over and check out who else, if anyone, has used them. There is no copyright on novel titles, and many are duplicated, but I want to make sure that they've not already been used by someone writing in my own genre. I have a vague suspicion I've heard one of them before, but that might just be my imagination. And where to check? Well Amazon or Google seem to be the font of all knowledge, and Goodreads, of course, so that's where I'll look.

Deciding on a title for a novel

Some titles can come instantly, almost the moment the novel hits the page (or rather the computer screen) Dead Man's Wharf was one such case. Others are like pregnancy, taking months to develop and even then when the novel is finished I might still have no idea for a suitable title. A bit like the Horton novel I'm currently working on.

It doesn’t matter when the title comes to me though, what does is that it must suit the novel, and if possible be memorable, although in my experience people rarely remember the title of a novel unless it's been made into a film or a television series. Occasionally the Publisher will help with the title, or can suggest changing it to one they think more appealing or suitable. And titles are often changed in translation to suit the country, and sometimes even when it is an English speaking country but with different spellings of a word. For example, Deadly Waters started out as Deadly Harbour but was changed because of publication in America where 'harbour' is spelt 'harbor.'

There are many different types of crime novel so equally there are many different types of crime novel titles. The title needs to reflect the mood of the book, as well as its structure and tone.

The Suffocating Sea conjures up the body on the burning boat in a marina on a foggy November night and how Horton feels as the novel progresses and he begins to discover some uncomfortable things about his mother's past.

Tide of Death represents the body washed up on the tide and how one death triggers a series as the killer gets more and more desperate to cover his tracks. And Blood on the Sand, reflects the bloody body found in the sand of a bunker on an abandoned golf course on the Isle of Wight. With the Horton marine mystery crime novels I try to add a ‘sea’ element to the title. The stand alone thrillers are slightly different.

Even though these too are set against the backdrop of the sea it wasn't so essential to reflect this in the title. In For The Kill was a title that sprang instantly to mind as Alex Albury will fight to the bitter end to expose the man who stole his identity, framed him and destroyed his comfortable life and reputation. He is out to kill or be killed.

In Cold Daylight started out as The Cold Light of Day. The title represents the fact that Adam Greene, the reluctant hero, emerges from the story a different man than when he started. His journey forces him to relive past traumas and face up to the shame of his mental breakdown on a quest that was forced upon him to discover the truth behind the death of his friend, fire-fighter Jack Bartholomew and several of his colleagues of cancer.

Titles do matter because people can choose a book because of its title, and the look of the cover, especially if it is a new author for them, and one that hasn't necessarily been recommended by someone. And if the book becomes a treasured one then the title will stick, even if the name of the author has been forgotten. http:www.rowmark.co.uk



In Cold Daylight

Generating ideas for crime novels

People are genuinely fascinated to learn where writers get their ideas from and many people tell me they'd never be able to come up with an idea for a book let alone enough ideas for a series of novels. But ideas really are the easy part of writing - once you have trained your mind to openly look for them, or spot them when they miraculously occur - it is turning the ideas into a novel of 80,000-100,000 words that is the tricky bit.

Ideas for novels come from a variety of sources: overheard conversations, stories relayed by others, personal experience, locations and the news, which pops up in my Google Reader: for example a Windsurfing Festival on Hayling Island could serve as a potential investigation for an Inspector Andy Horton marine mystery crime novel. Or the first steam passenger train returning to Hayling Island since 1963 could lead to Murder on the Hayling Seaside Express

There was an unexploded bomb trawled up by fishermen in the Solent, which sparked an idea or two, and an article in the Isle of Wight County Press asking for witnesses to come forward in a suspected arson case involving toilet rolls, a young man walking on stilts, a woman with pink hair and a group dressed as Goths made the mind boggle. I kid you not.

Then there was the time when I was in London and a cab driver told me of a fare he’d just picked up from a hotel and dropped only fifty yards further down the road to a house. The man was of a swarthy complexion carrying a suitcase, Murder And The Suitcase Man.

And the surf’s up with twenty foot waves at Freshwater Bay on the Isle of Wight in January, and suddenly you’ve got a body rolling in with the waves.

As to my novels, well the idea for In Cold Daylight came from an overheard conversation in the fire station where my husband was a fire-fighter. The fire fighters were talking about the high number of men from one watch who had all contracted cancer. No one knew why and no one had investigated the cause. I picked that up and turned it into a thriller.

In For The Kill was sparked by a visit to the Isle of Wight and seeing the signs for the prisons. Suddenly I imagined a man standing outside the gates and I wondered who he was? What crime had he committed? Was he innocent or guilty? What would he do next? Already the plot was forming.

And my marine mystery crime novels featuring my detective, Inspector Horton, are all originally inspired by locations around the coast of Portsmouth, Hayling Island and the Solent: the marina in The Suffocating Sea; Southsea beach in Tide of Death Kendals Wharf in Dead Man's Wharf; the mulberry in Langstone Harbour in Deadly Waters, and St Helens Duver on the Isle of Wight in Blood on the Sand. The ancient remains of Portchester Castle is the inspiration behind the Inspector Horton novel I am currently writing.

Every idea is written down and kept in an A4 folder, alphabetically indexed for that day when I start a new novel. So far so good but how do you turn these ideas into a novel?

I usually start by taking the idea and putting it in a spider gram and then asking myself a series of questions around it, for example: what could happen when the steam train comes to Hayling? Could there be a body found on it? If so whose? How did it get there? Or was someone pushed under the steam train and no one saw it happen? How did the bomb get into the Solent? How old was it? What type is it? Is there a story behind it? Or perhaps there's a story around the fishermen finding it? And we all know what we can make of the swarthy man with the suitcase.

It's only by continually asking open questions such as who, what, where, when, how and why can I begin to flesh out the characters, the theme, the plot and sub plots. Sometimes I run down blind alleys, sometimes one idea or question sparks another. It's all ifs, buts and maybes until some months later and much hard graft I have something that resembles a crime novel.

Thrilling and Scary!

I've just received the author copies of my new Inspector Horton crime novel, Blood on the Sand, and I must say it looks great. It is the fifth in the series of contemporary crime novels set in the Solent area on the south coast of England. It is due officially to be published in the UK on 26 February 2010. American readers have to wait a little longer, until April or May, I believe.  It is always a thrilling (and scary) moment when you receive the first printed copies of your novel.  Thrilling, because it is at last a tangible thing after months (and years if you count the time it takes to get published in the first place) of hard work. Scary, because it is there now in black and white for anyone to read, review, enjoy, hate, love, scorn, enthuse, whatever.... And when I turn to that first page I'm always thinking, could I have changed that?  Could I have written it differently? Too late. But the novel looks good and thanks to Severn House, my publishers.  Hope my readers enjoy it.