I had a gun, you know the rest

By Jay Stringer

I wrote a few weeks ago about violence in crime fiction. At the time, I was looking more at the difference, if there is one, between male and female writers. But I want to return to expand on a different point. I like to get into an idea and dig around.

Violence is key to crime fiction. It really is. There are a number of different branches within the crime family, the cosy, the mystery, the crime, the noir, and the yadda yadda. Something that unites them is that they would all have some form of violent act in there, somewhere. And what separates them is how that is dealt with.

It might not be extreme violence, and it may not be on screen, but it’s there. Five minutes before Miss Marple walked into the room and saw the local doctor lying dead on the floor, someone hit the poor quack over the head with a vase.

Something I’ve often found with crime fiction is that too many writers are more interested in the act itself than the consequences.The physical rather than the emotional. I touched on this aspect again a while back when I talked about grief.

I read two books recently that really impressed me with their handling of violence. The first was Hell To Pay by George Pelecanos. There is a lot of violence in and around the edges of that story, but very little of it is really described. There’s a horrific event about halfway through the book, and it is touched upon. But Pelecanos invested much more time into showing the aftermath. We see the funeral; we see the family’s grief. We see the shockwaves that go through the community and then the speed with which modern life forgets. It was an act that we didn’t really need to see, our brains are well capable of detailing it, but what we did need was all that followed. In fact, for those of you who've read the book, think abck to that incident and even as it was happening, Pelecanos took us inside the mind of one of the victims to show us a simple and heartbreaking last wish.

Likewise near the end of the novel the main character stops an act of violence, something that was about to happen ‘off screen’, and this simple moment carried a lot more weight than it might have in the hands of another writer. The character got into the emotions of the scene, and thought through the consequences that would have followed, and intervened.

I find that kind of writing far better than any number of grisly descriptions of murder or autopsy.

The other book I’m thinking of is The Lost Sister by our very own Russel D Mclean. There is a lot of violence in there; we know this because we don’t see it. We see the blood and the pain that follows. We see the weight that the violence leaves behind rather than the weight that went into the punch. Naturally I won’t go into spoilers here, but there was a key scene where something important happened, and rather than show the act Russel chose to show the aftermath. I was really struck by that decision, largely because it showed that sometimes the best thing a writer can do is not write.

It can be far more effective sometimes to leave a scene rather than to explore it.

There’s a camera move in the film Dr No which has always stuck with me. James Bond is about to be beaten up by some of the henchmen, and as they start hitting him the camera drifts away to focus on something else. We hear the violence but we don’t see it. Now, in terms of the film this may have been to do with ratings. But a trick that might have grown out of compromise became one of the most effective parts of the film.

In this month’s issue of Detective comics, written by Greg Rucka, there is another such moment. The scene shifts from the usual third person P.O.V to first person, so that the reader is seeing things through the eyes of the main character as she and her family are kidnapped. The thing is, the main character has a bag over her head, so all we can ‘see’ is the sound of her mother and sister begging for their lives. We hear, rather than see, the violence. We feel the lump at the pit of our stomach as her family fall silent following gunshots, and then we are left with the mess as the bag is pulled from our eyes.

Rucka, and the artist J.H.Williams could have chosen to show the act in graphic detail. But they decided that showing the aftermath would have a far bigger impact, and it does.

And so it is with crime fiction. Do I need a detailed description of a woman being raped, or the places a snake can be fitted into? Do I need to see or read an autopsy, the cold clinical examination of a corpse or a victim? Do I need to know what sound a madman makes as he kills someone? Nope.

I need to know what the affect is. I need to know what makes this act of violence important, and that is measured by the wake that it leaves.

And so that’s where I find myself as both a writer and a reader. Don’t try and impress me with your hyper-violence. I don’t care if you can blow something up in slow motion, describe the trajectory of a bullet, or prove to me that you’ve done a ton of research on anatomy.
I just want to know that you understand the emotions behind what you’re doing. And I want to see how people deal with the mess that’s left behind.

The most important lesson I’ve learned from all of this as a writer is that sometimes what you don’t write is far more important.

Q&A with Gregg Hurwitz

By Steve Weddle

You think your life is weird. Gregg Hurwitz went to Harvard and Oxford and is now writing Wolervine, The Punisher, and Moon Knight for Marvel Comics. Oh, and crime fiction.

His ninth novel, TRUST NO ONE, recently hit the shelves to great reviews and solid sales. In the book, Nick Horrigan wakes up in the middle of the night. Every night. At the same time. As the book opens, he wakes to military folks storming his apartment.

According to David Montgomery over at The Daily Beast: "Nick is an especially interesting creation: a thriller protagonist who, most of the time, doesn’t really know what he’s doing, makes mistakes and trusts the wrong people. Those very human qualities make the tension in the plot all the greater."

And as Thomas Gaughan said in BOOKLIST, "The scope of the book’s plot is too circuitous and elaborate to detail, but the page-to-page suspense and the breakneck pacing will please Hurwitz’s growing audience."

Basically, you can't put the book down because every few pages you're finding out something that pulls you further in. Yeah, it's one of those. I read it in two days and thought it was great fun. We sat down via the email machine for some of the Q&A stuff.

SW: TRUST NO ONE has plenty of twists and turns. When you start a book, do you know who all the bad guys are or does that develop as you go along?


GH: The twists and turns develop as I go along. As a writer, I have to stay open to the opportunities the plot and characters will present me as they evolve. I often have a sense of the main "bad guy," but as I write more, I find that I'm moving away from villains and more to antagonists—people who make bad choices and feel that their view is justified.

SW: How much fun was it to create the politicians in TRUST NO ONE?

GH: So much fun. I wrote this before Obama and McCain had emerged on the national stage (or at least before they'd emerged as presidential candidates) and it's interesting to see how certain traits of my fictional/futuristic/ideal candidates mapped onto those personalities. However, the politicians are not the thrust of the book—it's not a political thriller. It's really about Nick and the choices he's forced to make. The backdrop just happens to be an election.

SW: So, pole-vaulting, huh? How’d that happen?

GH: I was new to an all-boys high school, scrawny, and had just gotten cut from football. And so I wanted to choose the most dangerous sport imaginable to prop up my diminished self-esteem.

SW: Danger. Right. Speaking of danger and considering your scholarly background at Oxford, do you see any way to read Frank Castle (Punisher) as a Shakespearean character?

GH: Well...I suppose in his motivation and that he's doomed (or blessed?) to reenact a cycle and that it seems largely out of his control. However, he doesn't have the downfall that's required of a Shakespearean tragic hero. At least not yet!

SW: In addition to the Punisher, Marvel’s Moon Knight has made quite a comeback. What makes him a hero for our times and what draws you to him, to Wolverine, to the Punisher?

GH:They're all insane in differing ways but they also hold tight to a defined code of ethics, no matter how off kilter that code might seem to the impartial observer.

SW: You’ve written comics, novels, and movie scripts. Does writing in certain forms help with others?

GH: Yes—when I come from a script to a book, I write with more leanness, with a sense that every scene must drive the plot. And in reverse, I come with a greater sense of character and ambiance.

SW: Movies, comics, novels. You seem pretty busy. What’s a day like for you?

GH: Up at 7. Write all day. Go to the gym/soccer/hiking at 5. Home. If on deadline, more work. Then see the kids and wife/go to a movie/dinner/frolic/read.

SW: Can you think of any excuse for drinking light beer?

GH: Daytime baseball games. Or if it's your fifth beer and you're feeling bloated. I prefer Mexican beers or stouts - the two ends of the spectrum.

SW: Many of the writers who read our blog are working hard to find agents. What advice can you give to unagented writers who are sending out their queries?

GH: Make sure that manuscript is in the best possible condition, that it represents the culmination of all your talent, hard work, and skill, and that you've rewritten the hell out of it.

SW: What’s your favorite room in your house and why?

GH: My office. The view. And the fact that it largely supports the rest of the house, which is a source of humility and pride.

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There ya go. From light beer to pole vaulting. What more could you want? To find out more about Gregg Hurwitz, visit his site. Oh, and you might wanna check out this video in which he talks with Robert Crais about TRUST NO ONE. And if you'd like to read more about TRUST NO ONE, the folks at January Magazine have a pretty comprehensive write-up. You can read the first chapter here and an exclusive short with the lead character here.

Writing Without a Net

by Mike Knowles

I don’t know how a lot of other people write. I know some sit in front of a laptop and type their books while they sit at Starbucks. I know others write in the middle of the night while their kids are KOed. I myself do the first draft of anything I write whenever, and wherever, I can on paper in a blue notebook. I bought ten blue notebooks from Walmart and I have filled five of them so far. It’s not OCD or anything, I’m just prepared in case it turns out that it’s the blue notebook doing all the work. When I finish writing a book by hand, I move on to typing and editing. The process works for me and it has been successful enough so far. What I don’t really do is plan. I have an idea about what I want to write and I know generally where the story is going, but most of the time I am working without a net. My pen starts moving and whatever comes out at the time hits the page. This system, in my opinion, has benefits. I’d like to think that working without a definite plan often creates writing that is different. I don’t nail myself down to a formula and as a result my books are usually not like others on the shelves in the same section of the bookstore. I think writing something different is hugely important, especially in crime writing, because there are plenty of times I have picked up a new book and felt like I had been there before.

There is, however, one drawback to writing without a net. I have written myself into some serious corners. I have created scenarios on the fly without a thought as to how the protagonist could possibly survive. There have been many nights where I have sat in my office staring at the empty page running scenarios in my head like some sort of low-grade computer. Nine times out of ten, I never solve the problems in the office. I usually figure things out in the shower, or when I’m walking the dog. My mind will be wandering and all of a sudden, I’ll be struck with an out, something that will keep the book going. It seems I always figure out how to keep writing when I’m not thinking about writing at all.

There is some science behind this occurrence. A university of British Columbia study found that the human brain is surprisingly active during daydreaming. “Findings suggest that daydreaming – which can occupy as much as one third of our waking lives – is an important cognitive state where we may unconsciously turn our attention from immediate tasks to sort through important problems in our lives.” (Science Daily)

Someone might not think that a chapter in a novel is not an important problem, but writing yourself into a corner can feel like a splinter in your brain. You just keep picking at it and picking at it thinking it will come out if you just keep trying. Reading the study from UBC just confirmed what I had figured out a few years ago. It’s possible to set your brain on auto-pilot.

I’ve learned to accept being stuck. I might take a break for a day or two, or I might move onto another chapter knowing I can always come back to what I was working on eventually. Every time, without a doubt, my brain has come through and given me something I can use. There are a few exceptions that took longer than the day or two I mentioned. Something I recently finished came together over the course of a year. I was thinking the story out in my head while I walked the dog. Imagining each scene bit by bit. There were months where the story was just on loop and I imagined the same things over and over again. But after a while, my sub-conscious would eventually come up with something and the story would continue. After a year or so, the story went to paper and then to my agent the beautiful Al Guthrie.

Trying to force your brain to be creative is like trying to force yourself to pee in a crowded room. Try as you might it’s not going to happen. But, if you let your mind wander, you can go anywhere.