FAQs
Forty years of talking to library groups and most particularly at writers’ gatherings have brought lots of questions to the surface. Information on how to go about writing fiction, the art and craft involved, is now widely available, together with advice on how to have your work published or broadcast. The nature of the questions readers and would-be writers tend to ask hasn’t changed much over the years, though, but, thanks to J.K. Rowling, the notion that one can become fabulously wealthy by scribbling away at a cafe table for a week or two has taken over from the day-dream of selling movie rights to Disney on the strength of an outline. If it’s a fast buck you’re after bank-robbery is a less risky occupation than writing fiction, especially as most of the traditional markets appear to be in a state of flux.
What follows are a few of the basic but less obvious questions that pop up and the answers I usually provide. Note, however, that umpteen published writers, friends and foes alike, might not agree with my stance on ‘head’ versus ‘heart.’ But on that point I guess I’ll stick to my guns.
Q. When did you start writing?
A. As soon as I could hold a pencil. Broke into print in ‘Robin’ Comic at the age of 11 and never looked back. Lots of short pieces, and some drawings, in the junior pages of national newspapers and magazines, then the difficult transition from precocious little so-and-so to writing as an adult. Inferior poetry and a clutch of short stories in mainly American magazines gradually followed then, at the age of 28, a published novel, a rather grisly fictionalisation of a famous Glasgow murder case. At which point I gave up working, as the saying goes, and became a full-time writer.
Q. What did you do for a living before you became a writer?
A. I left school at 16 and worked as an assistant in the Antiquarian book department of a well-known Glasgow bookshop for the next dozen years. Longs hours for low wages; not quite a Victorian sweatshop, but close. Loved books, though. Loved ‘em then, and love ‘em now. Writing was done in the evenings and at weekends; no sacrifice, really, as I was both ambitious and fairly ‘driven’.
Q. Do you still write short stories?
A. No. I never was comfortable with the short story form, though I did manage to published around 40 of the blessed things. After my novel ‘Skinner’ was published I sighed with relief and abandoned the difficult art of short story writing forever.
Q. Why have you written under so many pseudonyms, including ‘Jessica Stirling’?
A. Horses for courses - and economic necessity. I’ve always been interested in category fiction and it seemed natural to try my hand at various forms, science-fiction, fantasy, action-adventure and guns-and-gals thrillers - in addition to more serious crime novels. The move to ‘Jessica Stirling’ satisfied my desire to get to grips with the ‘big’ novel, using colourful historical backgrounds, a multitude of characters and intricate plotting. I’ve stuck with that form of fiction ever since because I find it both challenging and satisfying.
Q. Do you read a lot?
A. Less so than I used to - ain’t TV a plague? - but, yes, I still read a great deal. Can’t figure how you can be a writer and NOT be a dedicated reader. Much of my reading is undertaken for research and in search of ‘ideas’. For pleasure I prefer biography these days. I’m also a dyed-in-the-wool movie buff and absorbed a lot about narrative technique from many happy hours crouched in the stalls, long before I even knew what ‘narrative technique’ was.
Q. How important is ‘technique’ to a writer?
A. Now that’s a loaded question, if ever was. Personally I learned to write by analysing other writers’ styles and different approaches to pace and form. In that sense I’m a ‘technical’ writer. But I don’t sit at the keyboard fretting over every plot shift or adjective or the book would never flow for me. I plan the general shape of a novel in my head - not on paper - and apply a more conscious awareness of ‘craft’, of what works and what doesn’t, at the editing stage. I also work hard at making the prose evocative but not too self-conscious or ‘literary.’
Sure, there are writers out there, very successful writers, who deny that they spare a thought about the technical aspects of the craft. And I don’t doubt that’s true for them. On the other hand you will often find that a number of ‘natural’ writers notched up 946 rejections before eventually breaking into print; in other words they served their apprenticeship by trial and error and developed a style, a ‘voice’, that matched their storytelling abilities through patience and determination.
Two pieces of advice frequently offered to unpublished writers to which I do not wholeheartedly subscribe are ‘Write from the Heart’ and ‘Write about What You Know’. I genuinely believe that a little bit of ‘head’ added to ‘heart’, the passion and commitment all writers need to keep going, will smooth the way into print. As for writing only about what you know - there goes curiosity, imagination and the adventure of exploring other times, other places and situations that excite you which, for me, is more than half the fun.