A Lucky Break?
Miss Smith Commits the Perfect Crime had a very difficult gestation period. It all started in April of last year when I broke my foot and was virtually immobile for a couple of months. My eldest daughter (the author Jules Wake) said to me, ‘If you’ve nothing better to do Dad, why not write a book?’
After a couple of days thought I tried to come up with some characters and a plot. The books of Stieg Larsson with his unlikely heroine Lisabeth Salander had been favourites of mine, and so I decided to create a British female agent with a bit more style and hopefully more appealing than her grungy Swedish inspiration. Before I started writing, I needed a picture in my mind’s eye of my heroine. I settled on a combination of a beautiful young dancer I worked with when I was producing the British Fashion Awards and the WW2 resistance fighter Nancy Wake.
The dancer, who was barely twenty, had a flawless complexion, naturally golden hair, a figure to die for and a naive sexual allure. The men on the crew couldn’t do enough for her. Even our gay choreographer was drooling all over the young woman.
Nancy Wake was also a charmer but in a totally different way. Dropped into a chaotic situation in wartime France, she took control through stealth, cunning and diplomacy, to unite disparate resistance groups into a well-organized fighting force which eventually numbered over five thousand men. She led her troops in guerilla warfare against the Nazis, unleashing surprise attacks against the enemy, killing some with her bare hands.
Having worked all over the world and met a vast variety of interesting characters, I decided that I would base the places and people in my work on my personal experiences. I believe that if you want people to enjoy your writing, no matter how far-fetched the plot or outlandish the characters, there has to be some factual basis.
With a clear picture of my heroine, I started writing with a vague idea of where the plot was going and to my surprise, the characters I created took over. They dictated my story for me. I would wake up every morning with the outline of the next chapter clear in my mind. As I went along I re-read sections and ruthlessly edited out anything that didn’t work. I stuck to the guidelines of the radio programme “Just a Minute”: no hesitation, deviation or repetition.
By the time my foot had healed, the book was complete. I’d produced a quirky adventure story and in doing so, established a new branch of the Secret Service. A couple of people read it and gave me some positive feedback. My initial problem was the masses of grammar and punctuation errors. I tried to go through it myself but my brain just ignored the obvious errors. I came to realize this was not something I could do myself. Eventually, various friends helped with the proof-reading.
It seemed to me, that I could self-publish my masterpiece on Kindle. The daughter that urged me to write in the first place then dropped the bombshell. ‘Dad if you are self-publishing; one book is no good, you have to write a series!’ I’m not sure that is true but being a dutiful dad I went along with her.
It then occurred to me that I had written the second book of a series, Agent Smith and the Desert Execution. My first book needed to tell the story of how an ordinary young woman transformed herself into a super-smart, incredibly fit agent. This proved to be not an easy task. I couldn’t sit down and automatically churn out the chapters as I had before; the plot needed careful thought and structure, I had to work hard on my characters. I guess this was my first step at taking a professional approach.
Eventually, the first book was finished, but I was most concerned as my heroine was raped in the opening chapter which motivated her to change her life dramatically. As a man, I found this very difficult to write from a female perspective and I asked a couple of women to review the new work. Both of them, who had loved my previous book, hated it. I rewrote the first section a further three times and none of the new approaches was acceptable. In desperation, I abandoned this section altogether and wrote an entirely new opening scenario and thankfully this worked. I hope you agree with me.
This book was only possible through the support of my long-suffering wife Patricia and to Little Jules, Big Jules, Alison, and Donna. Thank you all.
After a couple of days thought I tried to come up with some characters and a plot. The books of Stieg Larsson with his unlikely heroine Lisabeth Salander had been favourites of mine, and so I decided to create a British female agent with a bit more style and hopefully more appealing than her grungy Swedish inspiration. Before I started writing, I needed a picture in my mind’s eye of my heroine. I settled on a combination of a beautiful young dancer I worked with when I was producing the British Fashion Awards and the WW2 resistance fighter Nancy Wake.
The dancer, who was barely twenty, had a flawless complexion, naturally golden hair, a figure to die for and a naive sexual allure. The men on the crew couldn’t do enough for her. Even our gay choreographer was drooling all over the young woman.
Nancy Wake was also a charmer but in a totally different way. Dropped into a chaotic situation in wartime France, she took control through stealth, cunning and diplomacy, to unite disparate resistance groups into a well-organized fighting force which eventually numbered over five thousand men. She led her troops in guerilla warfare against the Nazis, unleashing surprise attacks against the enemy, killing some with her bare hands.
Having worked all over the world and met a vast variety of interesting characters, I decided that I would base the places and people in my work on my personal experiences. I believe that if you want people to enjoy your writing, no matter how far-fetched the plot or outlandish the characters, there has to be some factual basis.
With a clear picture of my heroine, I started writing with a vague idea of where the plot was going and to my surprise, the characters I created took over. They dictated my story for me. I would wake up every morning with the outline of the next chapter clear in my mind. As I went along I re-read sections and ruthlessly edited out anything that didn’t work. I stuck to the guidelines of the radio programme “Just a Minute”: no hesitation, deviation or repetition.
By the time my foot had healed, the book was complete. I’d produced a quirky adventure story and in doing so, established a new branch of the Secret Service. A couple of people read it and gave me some positive feedback. My initial problem was the masses of grammar and punctuation errors. I tried to go through it myself but my brain just ignored the obvious errors. I came to realize this was not something I could do myself. Eventually, various friends helped with the proof-reading.
It seemed to me, that I could self-publish my masterpiece on Kindle. The daughter that urged me to write in the first place then dropped the bombshell. ‘Dad if you are self-publishing; one book is no good, you have to write a series!’ I’m not sure that is true but being a dutiful dad I went along with her.
It then occurred to me that I had written the second book of a series, Agent Smith and the Desert Execution. My first book needed to tell the story of how an ordinary young woman transformed herself into a super-smart, incredibly fit agent. This proved to be not an easy task. I couldn’t sit down and automatically churn out the chapters as I had before; the plot needed careful thought and structure, I had to work hard on my characters. I guess this was my first step at taking a professional approach.
Eventually, the first book was finished, but I was most concerned as my heroine was raped in the opening chapter which motivated her to change her life dramatically. As a man, I found this very difficult to write from a female perspective and I asked a couple of women to review the new work. Both of them, who had loved my previous book, hated it. I rewrote the first section a further three times and none of the new approaches was acceptable. In desperation, I abandoned this section altogether and wrote an entirely new opening scenario and thankfully this worked. I hope you agree with me.
This book was only possible through the support of my long-suffering wife Patricia and to Little Jules, Big Jules, Alison, and Donna. Thank you all.
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