Lucy V. Hay's Blog, page 29

CRIMINALLY GOOD: interview with author Matt Wesolowski

1) So, who are you & what have you written?

My name’s Matt Wesolowski and I’m from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. I’ve written horror ever since I could write and have had a novella and a good few short stories published in the genre.

Six Stories is my debut attempt at a crime novel that got picked up by the lovely Karen Sullivan of Orenda Books; although coming from a horror background, that element does creep in quite substantially! You can LIKE my page on Facebook; find me on Goodreads; plus you can follow me on Twitter as @ConcreteKraken.

2) Why do you write crime fiction?

I write what I enjoy. I’ve always read a lot of crime but never felt confident enough to break from the comfort of horror. Now though, I am quite enjoying writing using elements of both. What I read has a huge impact on my writing. Authors such as Kati Hiekkapelto, Lauren Beukes and Yrsa Siguðadottir have been hugely influential to my own work.

3) What informs your crime writing?

I have always had a fascination with true crime, especially serial killers and cases that cannot be solved like the Zodiac Killer or the Black Dahlia murder. I go to sleep listening to true crime podcasts and watch a lot of documentaries … You could say I’m a little obsessed!  I try and steep my writing in as much reality as I can muster and hope that comes across. I like the idea of looking below the surface of crime, the causes, the underlying reasons – the dark places are the richest to explore.

4) What’s your usual writing routine?

The hours of my day job are quite sporadic (I am a 1-to-1 English tutor for young people in care) and I am a single father so now it’s fairly sporadic. Evenings are best or a few stolen hours before the school run in the afternoon, I try and aim to get a few thousand words at the very least during a week.

5) Which crime book do you wish YOU’D written, and why?

Oh for sure it would be any of Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Lecter series. They are just so magnificently written, deep and utterly believable. Lecter is an amalgamation of so many real people (Chikatilo, Gein etc) whilst still being utterly his own entity is a huge achievement. I would love to be able to create such a divisive antagonist.

BOOK VERSUS FILM: Check Out This Cool Interactive Graphic!

What’s better: The Book or The Movie?

Have you ever gone to the cinema filled with anticipation to see the movie adaptation of your favourite book, only to be bitterly disappointed? Or, after watching, did you think the film was much better than the book?

Well, Vouchercloud has analysed 2,275 books turned movies, and created a new interactive graphic that reveals whether the book was better than the movie – or vice versa – so we can settle the debate for good!

Vouchercloud combined the book review score (from Goodreads) and the movie score (from IMDb) of the books turned into movies, to find out which movies just can’t beat the original book.

So what did the research find? … In 56% of cases, the book was much better than the film! Find out whether your favourite book, or film, was better than its counterpart by viewing the full interactive piece below. If you want a summary of the data, make sure you check out the round up after the jump … Enjoy!

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL GRAPHIC

What The Data Says …

The data reveals that The War of the Worlds is the best book turned movie with a rating of 4.61 stars on Goodreads, in comparison to only 1.3 stars on IMDb. This top-rated classic also landed itself a not-so-legendary number one spot of top bad movie! In this case, watching Tom Cruise may not have matched fans’ ideals when they watched the movie equivalent of the long-established page-turner. The numbers don’t lie; the book is better than the movie.

Literary lovers probably won’t be surprised to hear that Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Fifty Shades of Grey, Psycho and Pride and Prejudice are better books than movies either.

On the other hand, the critically acclaimed crime drama TV series Dexter is based on the set of books by Jeff Lindsay. Although the serial killer thriller may not be quite ‘Netflix and chill’ material, it has stuck as a firm binge favourite ever since bursting onto our screens in 2006. Dexter is popular enough to land the number 1 title in our ‘movie better than the book’ stakes with a score of 4.4 stars IMDb stars vs a mere 2.58 stars on Goodreads.

Other notable movies that made the top 50 movies that are better than the books they were created from include: Back To The Future, Casino Royale, The Wolf of Wall Street and Forrest Gump.

The top 10 books that are better their movie adaptations are:

War of The Worlds
Martians, Go Home
Point of Impact
Nine and a Half Weeks: A Memoir of a Love Affair
Left Behind
Autumn
The Beautiful and Damned
The Angel Experiment
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde
The Cat in the Hat

The top 10 movies that are better than the books they were created from:

Dexter in the Dark
Twelfth Night
Twelve Angry Men
The Godfather
Shawshank Redemption
Forrest Gump
Pulp Fiction
All I Ever Need is You
Metropolis
The Graduate

So there you have it!! Do you agree?

CRIMINALLY GOOD: interview with author Terence Bailey

1) So, who are you & what have you written?

I’m Terence Bailey, and my paranormal thriller, Dead in Time, has just been published by Accent Press. It features Dr Sara Jones, a psychiatrist and expert on the occult. After a failed love affair, Sara flees London for her remote home town, only to get caught up in the investigation of a killer who thinks he’s psychic.

Ultimately, Sara is forced to choose between loyalty to the case, or finally understanding the events of her childhood, which have haunted her for her entire life. The book is the first in a series called The Sara Jones Cycle. You can find my Facebook author page, HERE.

Right now, I’m also working for a Vancouver production company, adapting Jackie Bateman’s crime novel, Nondescript Rambunctious, for television. When I’m not writing, I’m teaching writing in the Faculty of Media and Communication at Bournemouth University.

2) Why do you write crime fiction?

Crime fiction puts its characters under huge stress, and it’s in those crushing moments that comfortable beliefs get challenged. There’s a wonderful dissonance between the everyday comfort characters usually live in, and this terrible thing they now have to deal with. Often it leads them to commit acts they never thought they would. This means that crime writers get to explore some really big themes. In my case, they’re issues of knowledge and ignorance, complicity and innocence, and the breakdown of traditional morality. Such massive dichotomies offer crime writers the chance to give readers an exciting story, too.

3) What informs your crime writing? 

In Dead in Time, Sara Jones is an academic expert on the occult. She knows a lot about it, but believes none of it. Then she’s forced to confront someone who may actually be psychic. Her struggle between disbelief and belief comes straight out of my own life. I’ve always thought of myself as an unbeliever: I trust evidence and the scientific method.

Despite this, I’m also totally convinced that I had a psychic uncle. Sceptical friends have used every argument they can think of to discredit my spookiest memories. They say I’m not recalling correctly, or ‘cherry picking’ anecdotes. If I were them, I’d say that too. But I also know my uncle was psychic! This dichotomy shaped much of Sara’s confusion in Dead in Time.

 4)  What’s your usual writing routine?

Oh, boy – I wish I had a writing routine! Because I’m also a university lecturer, I have to look for times to write. Sometimes it’s at night, sometimes it’s on a weekend, and often it’s on the train between London and Bournemouth.

5) Which crime book do you wish YOU’D written, and why?

I wish I had written Hit Man by Lawrence Block. It’s a series of short stories about a man named Keller, who’s an ordinary guy who happens to kill people for a living. I love the contrast between the banality of Keller’s life and the dispassionate evil he commits on a regular basis. I love the way he travels to White Plains, New York, to meet a cheerful matron named Dot, who gives him lemonade and tells him who to kill next. I love the fact that stories about a hired murderer can be so charming and whimsical. It’s a surprise – and that’s what good crime fiction should be.

CRIMINALLY GOOD: interview with author Matt Johnson

1) So, who are you & what have you written?  

My name is Matt Johnson. I describe myself as an accidental author, and a very lucky one. I served in the Army and Metropolitan Police office for nearly 25 years.

My debut novel Wicked Game – a crime thriller – was published by Orenda Books in March 2016.

I didn’t train as a writer and or come though a traditional route. My journey from the military, through policing to eventual publication might be described as somewhat unusual.

In 1999, I was discharged from the police with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Whilst undergoing treatment, I was encouraged by my counsellor to write about my career and experience of murders, shootings and terrorism.

I was eventually persuaded to give this a go, and one evening, I sat at my computer and started to weave my notes into a work of fiction – Wicked Game was the result.

Since then Wicked Game has been listed for the Crime Writers Association John Creasey Dagger award, has topped the Amazon and WH Smith KOBO charts in several categories and at the end of 2016 was listed by Amazon UK as the highest-rated ‘rising star’ novel of 2016.

Deadly Game, the sequel to my debut, is scheduled for publication in March 2017. Check out my website, HERE and follow me on Twitter as @Matt_Johnson_UK

2) Why do you write crime fiction?

I was motivated to start writing fiction out of a sense of both duty and failure. During the 1980s, I was involved in the post Broadwater Farm riot enquiry. I was tasked with taking statements from officers involved. At that time, the profession did not recognise the effect that exposure to the trauma of the riot and the death of Pc Blakelock had on those officers and when many ended up leaving the service I didn’t recognise their PTSD until I too suffered from it. I knew I couldn’t turn the clock back but I undertook to write in a way that informed people about the condition and how it affects individuals and their families. I chose crime fiction as it is based on a world that I know intimately.

3) What informs your crime writing?  

As I described above, I spent many years as a police officer in a variety of roles. That gives be background and helps me to be authentic but I still harness ideas from real-life events and I talk to former and serving cops to help me generate ideas.

4) What’s your usual writing routine?

I wish I had one! Having come to writing quite late in life, I have yet to think of it as my occupation. At the moment, it is a hobby that I fit into my day as and when I can. It was only after the success of Wicked Game that I started to think of myself as an author and then start to consider how or whether I should develop this hobby in a more professional way. That is happening, slowly, as I learn and as the editing team at Orenda help me develop.

5) Which crime book do you wish YOU’D written, and why?

Now that’s a tough one. I prefer to read non-fiction and probably only read about seven or eight fiction books a year. To answer this question, I’ve had to scan through my bookshelves and look for a title that called out to me. I came up with Harry’s Game, the Belfast-based thriller by Gerald Seymour, which changed the genre for the better and still sells well, over forty years later.

Why You SHOULD Judge A Book By Its Cover

Cover Up

Readers are often asked not to judge a book by its cover … but fact is, we ALL do!! Colours, pictures, fonts, layout … it all becomes part of the reader experience.

We live in a visual age now more than ever, so it stands to reason then that psychologically, readers are actively put off by bad covers. Books with bad covers tend to have poorer sales than ones with great and even iconic covers. Read more about this phenomenon, HERE.

So, I thought this quiz from Buzzfeed was fun … They’ve taken the titles and authors off twenty classic novels. Can you identify which is which? Shockingly, I only got 10 out of the 20 – a lowly 50%!! Eek!

Can you do better? CLICK HERE or on the pic above.

Book Design

Talking of book covers, I also found a great site for bibliophiles called Book By Its Cover which celebrates everything about the printed page from a design perspective.

To check out this fascinating site, CLICK HERE or on the pic below. Enjoy!

CRIMINALLY GOOD: Interview with author Netta Newbound

1) So, who are you & what have you written?

Netta Newbound, originally from Manchester, UK. Twenty years ago, with my husband and kids, we upped sticks and moved to New Zealand. I write mostly psychological thrillers and have 10 books currently available. Find me on Facebook HERE and on Twitter as @NettaNewbound.

2) Why do you write crime fiction?

Finding out what makes criminals tick has always fascinated me. Mostly they’re just ordinary people who, for one reason or another, find themselves on the wrong side of the law. That’s why I like to write from the criminal’s point of view.

In An Impossible Dilemma, Victoria is just a normal married woman with a lovely 5yr old daughter. But her life spirals out of control when her husband is killed in a farming accident. She is then faced with her daughter’s diagnosis of a rare and fatal illness.

Discovering a possible cure that, although illegal, could potentially save her daughter’s life, Victoria needs to make a choice—break the law or watch her beautiful daughter die. As a mother I know which choice I’d make. How about you?

3) What informs your crime writing?

The fact that I spent ten years inside as a convicted murderer enabled me to glean relative information first hand. Nah—only joking, haha. Unfortunately, I don’t have a psychology degree or background in law enforcement. However, I do have a wild imagination and a suspicious mind. And let’s not forget a writer’s best friend Google.

4) What’s your usual writing routine?

My working day starts around 8am and continues through to 10pm. In between I do manage to have a relatively normal kind of home life – like I do shop, I do cook and I do change out of my pyjamas. But most of my day is filled with writing in some form or another.

5) Which crime book do you wish YOU’D written, and why?

Several books that have stayed with me over the years, but the first that springs to mind would be Lady Killer by Martina Cole – the killer in that was a downtrodden elderly man who was so ordinary in his everyday life yet, in reality, he was a vicious monster.

CRIMINALLY GOOD: Interview with author Netta Newfound

1) So, who are you & what have you written?

Netta Newbound, originally from Manchester, UK. Twenty years ago, with my husband and kids, we upped sticks and moved to New Zealand. I write mostly psychological thrillers and have 10 books currently available. Find me on Facebook HERE and on Twitter as @NettaNewbound.

2) Why do you write crime fiction?

Finding out what makes criminals tick has always fascinated me. Mostly they’re just ordinary people who, for one reason or another, find themselves on the wrong side of the law. That’s why I like to write from the criminal’s point of view.

In An Impossible Dilemma, Victoria is just a normal married woman with a lovely 5yr old daughter. But her life spirals out of control when her husband is killed in a farming accident. She is then faced with her daughter’s diagnosis of a rare and fatal illness.

Discovering a possible cure that, although illegal, could potentially save her daughter’s life, Victoria needs to make a choice—break the law or watch her beautiful daughter die. As a mother I know which choice I’d make. How about you?

3) What informs your crime writing?

The fact that I spent ten years inside as a convicted murderer enabled me to glean relative information first hand. Nah—only joking, haha. Unfortunately, I don’t have a psychology degree or background in law enforcement. However, I do have a wild imagination and a suspicious mind. And let’s not forget a writer’s best friend Google.

4) What’s your usual writing routine?

My working day starts around 8am and continues through to 10pm. In between I do manage to have a relatively normal kind of home life – like I do shop, I do cook and I do change out of my pyjamas. But most of my day is filled with writing in some form or another.

5) Which crime book do you wish YOU’D written, and why?

Several books that have stayed with me over the years, but the first that springs to mind would be Lady Killer by Martina Cole – the killer in that was a downtrodden elderly man who was so ordinary in his everyday life yet, in reality, he was a vicious monster.

BOOK VERSUS FILM: Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children

I loved Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children when we took the kids to see it; so much so that I rushed out to buy the book to enjoy the original story. There were, of course, many changes made during the adaptation to film but, I hear you cry, which is best? Book or Film? Film or Book? There’s only one way to find out….

Let’s start with …
The Plot

Teenage Jacob has grown up listening to his Grandfather Abe’s stories of his life, filling Jacob’s mind with tales of the mysterious Miss Peregrine and the Peculiar Children who live under her protection. When Abe dies in a mysterious fashion, Jacob searches for the truth about Miss Peregrine and discovers the stories were true.

Spending time with Miss Peregrine and the Peculiar Children, Jacob learns of his own peculiarity and this leads him into a fight with the dangerous, Peculiar-hunting Hollows and Wights as he seeks to protect himself and the children.

Remember, HERE BE SPOILERS! Let’s go …

Jacob’s old friends

Early in the story, Jacob receives a worrying call from Abe that suggests he might be in trouble, so Jacob dashes across town to help.

In the film Jacob is driven to his grandfather’s house by Shelley, a co-worker. Together they scare off the Hollow waiting to feast on Abe when Shelley shoots at it. However, Shelley is a throwaway character we don’t see again in the film, and don’t need to; she simply facilitates getting Jacob to Abe.

In the book it is his friend Ricky who drives Jacob and fulfils a similar role to Shelley. However, there is a minor subplot within which Jacob and Ricky fall out over Jacob’s “psychological” stability. There is a brief acknowledgement of a ‘show-friendship’ in front of Jacob’s parents to maintain the illusion that Jacob is normal, and keep them off his back, but this is not developed any further and doesn’t really need to be; it doesn’t serve the story in any major way, other than to highlight Jacob’s isolation and lack of friends.

Even with a generous running time, the film needed to get Jacob into his quest as soon as possible to keep the audience interested. Developing his relationship with Ricky would have eaten into that valuable time and slowed things down. Instead, Jacob’s isolation from his peers is highlighted as the film opens with a brief introduction to the “cool crew” from school who happily humiliate Jacob at work.

Here the Film wins out: Book 0 – Film 1.

Jacob’s new friends – Emma/Olive

Jacob closest relationship in both book and film is with Emma, a Peculiar Child who was close to his grandfather. The children all have a peculiarity such as super strength or invisibility and are mostly mirrored from book to film. However:

In the film Emma is lighter than air and can control it. Olive, another Peculiar, has the ability to start fires.

In the book Emma’s is the Firestarter and Olive is lighter than air.

This is a fairly significant change and I wonder whether it is due, in part, to relationship that develops between Jacob and Emma? It is, perhaps, more palatable to deal with a relationship between two people where there is no risk of one burning the other to a crisp but also, perhaps, the idea of the girl who is lighter than air is, perhaps, considered more sympathetic (angelic?) than a Firestarter?

However, each version of Emma is emotionally linked to Abe and this is further reflected in the growing relationship with Jacob; both help Jacob come to terms with who he is and who Abe was, catalysing his role in the story.

Here the Book and Film are on even ground: Book 1 – Film 2.

Jacob and his parents

Jacob’s relationship with his parents is strained and distant. The focus is on his relationship with his father and the conflict created by Jacob’s closeness with Abe, something his father never experienced. Jacob’s dad travels with him on his search for Miss Peregrine, but keeps out of Jacob’s way, researching a book on birds, surfacing once in a while to admonish Jacob for his ‘peculiar’ behaviour. However, it is the way this relationship is played out in the final part of the film/book, when Jacob realises he belongs with the Peculiars, that is most interesting.

In the Film, after returning to his ‘normal’ life, Jacob journeys around the world, searching for the “time loops” that will take him back to the Peculiars among who he now belongs. He sees Abe (now alive in a reset timeline – far too complicated to discuss now) and, as the film ends, he is seen with Emma embracing his new life as a Peculiar. There is very little mention of his family and he pretty much just disappears without a word.

In the book Jacob introduces his dad to his peculiar friends to prove that Abe’s stories were true. While Jacob still leaves his father behind to be with his new family, he provides his father some closure on his paternal relationship with Abe. It is subtle, just a couple of pages in the book, but a nice touch that shows us Jacob cares and wouldn’t just abandon his family without a word.

Here, the Book wins out: Book 2 – Film 2.

The Ending

The ending is where the most significant differences can be found. They both deal with rescuing Miss Peregrine and dealing with the ‘Big Bad’, Golan/Barron who has kidnapped Miss Peregrine (and other Ymbrynes – protectors of peculiar children) in an attempt to recreate, more successfully, the experiments that left him and his kind mutated in their quest for immortality

In the film the children chase Barron using a wrecked ship that Emma brings to the surface using her ability to control air. They follow him to a time-loop in modern day Blackpool and a mighty battle begins between the children, an army of skeletons created by another Peculiar, the Wights and Hollows on the pier.

Barron confuses the Peculiars by disguising himself as Jacob. However, Jacobs’s peculiarity allows him to see the Hollow hiding with Barron, proving who he is to Emma and, in the confusion, Barron is killed by the Hollow and the children escape.

In the book the ending involves submarines, an injured invisible boy and the storming of a lighthouse, led by strong-girl Bronwyn. Emma does not raise the ship in the book but she does contribute to Golan’s death; Jacob shoots him, but Emma uses her peculiarity to grab his face and burn him.

Essentially, in the film, Barron dooms himself; driven by greed and arrogance he is destroyed by his own kind. In the book, Emma and Jacob conspire to attack Golan, a more proactive approach that, while perhaps less exciting than the fight on Blackpool Pier, is certainly darker and more graphic.

I would guess these changes were made to make the climax more exciting visually, but I also suspect that some of the darker aspects were probably taken out to ensure a 12 certificate for an already dark “kids” film; a young girl burning a grown man alive, is pretty gruesome and morally ambiguous when compared to the film.

This is difficult to call. I love both endings. While the film is more exciting, visually, the book forces the reader to think morally about the children’s decisions and is, perhaps, more ‘realistic’ for it.

I’m calling another draw: Book 3 – Film 3.

The Result

So, it’s a draw.

Which may be a bit of a cop out, but I don’t think either is better than the other in my mind. I am sure there are plenty of people who would disagree with this. Books and their adapted Films will always be different, but they are different formats, different mediums and the “rules” within those mediums affect what you can and can’t do. For me, the Book and Film of Miss Peregrine both did the absolute best they could within the confines of the medium they chose. The themes and messages are the same throughout (isolation, difference, family) and I finished both in similar states of contemplation, so they both do a great job of telling Jacob’s story.

The differences did not stop me enjoying either interpretation as each has its advantages and disadvantages and both transported me to another world within which I had the chance to explore and enjoy certain themes and emotions.

So, basically, what are you still doing here? Go and buy the DVD and read the book and see what you think?

[NB – I guess if you put a gun to my head, the Film may just pip the book, but that’s just me, I love films! Mind you, I love books as well, so yeah, stuff it, it’s a draw!].

BIO: Mark Walker is an NHS Manager by day but a writer and astronomer by night. He is a life-long filmfan which is where his main interest in writing stems from, although he has been branching out more recently trying his hand at short story writing for the CREATE50 Initiative. He lives in Gloucestershire with his wife, two daughters, two guinea pigs and Bob the Hamster. You can see some of his musing on writing and starry pictures over on his website and follow him on Twitter as @MarkWalker_UK.

CRIMINALLY GOOD: interview with author Bob Kroll

1) So, who are you & what have you written?

I’m Bob Kroll, author of The Drop Zone and The Hell of It All, the first two books in a crime trilogy about retired detective T.J. Peterson. I have made a living as a writer since the 1970s, and during that time I wrote just about anything that would make a buck. Radio and television commercials were a major source of income, and they helped hone my writing style down to what is necessary to tell a story and to push it forward. I also wrote stage plays, documentaries, and popular histories. You can visit my website to learn more about me.

2) Why do you write crime fiction?

Writing crime novels allows me to explore the depths of human weakness and the tragedy that is life. The darkness intrigues me, as does the sordidness and the wickedness that lies just beneath the thin crust of refined society. My main character, Peterson, is an antihero burdened with guilt for a failed life. He seeks purification, and must go to hell in order to find it. The hell he descends into is the criminal world, which is brutal and merciless.

3) What informs your crime writing?

I think my previous answer explains a lot about what makes my writing tick. However, I do draw from the front pages and from sources within the police department and the Department of Justice. I go for the reality of today’s crimes then wrap them in darkness and infuse them with my antihero’s drive for righteous retribution.

4) What’s your usual writing routine?

Quite simple. I write from 8 am to noon, everyday. That includes research time, plotting, and character development.

5) Which crime book do you wish YOU’D written, and why?

Not a crime novel, but two short stories. One is by Erskine Caldwell, titled August Afternoon. The other is by Ernest Hemingway, The Killers.  In a minimum amount of words, both stories convey a tension that is palpable, and characters that ooze distrust and violence. The dialogue is sparse, but conveys so much about character and story without being on the nose.

Since I mentioned dialogue, I should also include the crime novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins. No one writes dialogue like Higgins. The novel is tightly plotted and rings with truth.

Celebrating Female Leads This World Book Day

It’s World Book Day!

We love World Book Day in our house, here’s a pic of my girls Lilirose, 10 and Emmeline, 5. Lilirose is Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games series and Emmeline is of course Alice from Alice In Wonderland. I love that both my girls consistently choose female protagonists for their costumes every year. Girl power in action!

Infographic

This site is well-known for its fantastic infographics about reading and fictional characters, so I was delighted when Office Genie got in touch with this great one below. In it they pull out some fave characters from books and posit what they would be earning today if they were real people.

Seems a bit harsh that Dumbledore from the Harry Potter series would only be earning about £6K less than Lenny from Of Mice And Men as a ranch worker. Dumbledore has so much responsibility at Hogwart’s … and that’s BEFORE we factor in the danger involved with Voldemort and his evil mates  attacking them all the time!!!

Just £11K as an author though … Yep, seems about right! I’m always broke! But I’ll be in good company with David Copperfield. Is your job on this list?

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Love Female Protagonists?

Then why not check out THE DECISION this World Book Day … These are books in which a female lead is faced with ALL the possible outcomes of a single dilemma. To read an exclusive excerpt of each book, click on the links below:

THE DECISION: JASMINE’S STORY

THE DECISION: LIZZIE’S STORY

Or to find out more details about the series, click on the pic below. Enjoy!

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