#BritCrime Festival Saturday Morning Panel: The Replay

Plotting, crime fiction festivals, how to get that first draft done... and Marnie's mustard dralon sofa.

Featuring Tammy Cohen, Fergus McNeill, Michael J Malone, Marnie Riches, William Shaw and Luca Veste.


This is a really interesting conversation between six successful crime fiction novelists. Take a look.



♠ Watch the replay here:  Apologies for cutting off the very beginning of the discussion. Please watch this! You will be glad you did.

#BritCrime Festival: Sudden Death Q&A: Anya Lipska talks to Fergus McNeil

Two BritCrime novelists interrogate each other on crime, cats, and chocolate biscuits…

First up is Anya Lipska, whose series based on Janusz Kiszka, tough guy/fixer to London’s Poles has been optioned by the BBC as a possible TV drama series.

Highsmith or Chandler? 
Ooh, evil question... but it has to be Chandler. Aged 11, I had to stand on tiptoe on a chair to reach the hiding place where my Dad kept his ‘grown up’ fiction – and ‘The Big Sleep’ was my most thrilling find.

Best TV crime ever? 
‘The Wire’.

Killer twist or killer characters? 
Characters. Always.

Favourite twist book ever? 
‘Rebecca’, by Daphne du Maurier

Favourite murder weapon – in crime fiction, that is…? 
Frozen leg of lamb subsequently roasted and eaten, thus destroying the evidence (courtesy of Roald Dahl)

Male or female protagonist? As a reader, both work for me. But I prefer writing men – I find it easier, perhaps because I can stand back a bit.

Best villain ever? 
Count Fosco in ‘The Woman in White’.

Whodunnit or whydunnit? 
Really good crime novels are always both.

Write whole draft or revise as you go?
Painstaking revision as I go – I can’t move on until a scene is right. It’s like building a house of cards – unless each level is right, the whole idea becomes precarious.

Favourite font? 
Avenir Book.

Mac or PC?
Mac.

Cats or dogs? 
We share a house with a Norwegian Forest Cat. (She says it’s the other way round…)

Tea or coffee?
Coffee – but only one, insanely strong, first thing.

Music or silence (while writing)? 
Silence. Music gets in the way for me.
But if there’s external noise I want to block out, I’ll put on some birdsong.

Top writing tip? 
Read everything you write out loud.

Hobnobs or chocolate digestives?
I refuse to answer such a divisive question (© A Leadsom)



www.anyalipska.com 
@anyalipska
 A Devil Under the Skin at Amazon


Next in the hot seat is Fergus McNeill, author of the Bristol-based Detective Harland novels, a contemporary crime series published by Hodder.

Highsmith or Chandler? 
That’s deeply unfair, but I’ll have to go with Chandler, if only for the immortal line “she gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket”.

Best TV crime ever? 
Another difficult choice, but I can’t think of anything better than series 1 of ‘The Bridge’.

Killer twist or killer characters? 
Twists are fun, but they’re fleeting. Compelling characters are with you on every page.

Favourite twist book ever? 
‘The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd’ by Agatha Christie.

Favourite fictional murder weapon?
Encouraging someone to hammer on an unexploded WWII bomb (from ‘The Wasp Factory’ by Iain Banks).

Male or female protagonist? 
I don’t have any prejudice towards either gender. For me, it’s all about whether I want to spend time with that character.

Whodunnit or whydunnit? 
I love a good Golden Age whodunit, but I don’t think stories should be restricted to a particular structure. As long as the resolution is satisfying, I don’t mind what sort of resolution it is.

Best villain ever? 
Mr Heming from ‘A Pleasure And A Calling’ by Phil Hogan.

Write whole draft or revise as you go?
I know I shouldn’t, but I keep going back and editing my previous chapters as I write. Maybe it helps me to develop the “tone of voice” for a book… it certainly explains why I take forever to get to the end.

Favourite font? 
For writing, Cambria. For reading, Plantin Light.

Mac or PC? 
I love my MacBook Air, but I still use Microsoft Word (an older version, from before they “improved” it).

Cats or dogs?
I have a very tubby tabby cat, who adores my wife and profoundly resents my presence in the house. But other cats like me, so I’m a cat person.

Tea or coffee? 
Coffee. Unless it’s instant coffee, which really isn’t coffee at all.

Music or silence (while writing)? 
I can’t bear silence, so I always play music while writing. Different tracks evoke different moods, and particular pieces can act as “mental bookmarks” – very useful, when returning to a scene after some time away.

Top writing tip? 
There’s no such thing as “writer’s block”; there’s only lack of research (or lack of talent). If you find you’re struggling to write something, there’s a good chance you don’t understand it well enough, and you just need to do more research. (Courtesy of Robert McKee, Hollywood script-doctor)

Hobnobs or chocolate digestives?
Chocolate digestives, because they offer a more predictable dunking experience and, crucially, they are sold in larger packets.

www.fergusmcneill.co.uk
@fergusmcneill
Cut Out at Amazon

♠ More BritCrime Festival author interviews

Murder On The Map: Panel 3 Additional Material

by Fergus McNeill

I've always valued the sense of place in a story - where the setting adds atmosphere, and even a touch of reality, to fictional events. While working on my first novel, I began travelling to the area where each chapter was set, and writing on-location as much as possible. And for some reason, with almost all my locations being real, I started to keep track of them on a map.

Now, several books later, it's become a habit. I have several maps, annotated with key locations from each story. It's always tricky to avoid spoilers, but I've done my best, and hopefully it will be fun to see where my novels overlap with real places you might know.

Tap to open any of the following maps:

 EYE CONTACT

 KNIFE EDGE

 BROKEN FALL

 CUT OUT

Enjoy exploring, and I apologise if I've staged a murder in your street!

Fergus McNeill has been creating computer games since the eighties, when he started writing interactive fiction titles. Over the years he became known for his own content, and his adaptations of other authors’ material, including working with Terry Pratchett to create the first Discworld game.
EYE CONTACT, a contemporary crime thriller, was his debut novel, followed by KNIFE EDGE and CUT OUT, the latest in the Bristol-based Detective Harland series. Now running an app development studio, Fergus lives in Hampshire with his family, and their very large cat.

♠ More about Fergus McNeill here.
♠ More about the Proceed with Caution Panel, Saturday 11 July.
♠ BritCrime Programme, 11-13 July here

Panel 3: Proceed with Caution: 4pm–6pm, Saturday 11 July #BritCrime

BritCrime Panel 3: Proceed with Caution

4pm–6pm UK Time | 11am–1pm EST
Saturday 11 July

Live Q&A with the authors hosted on our Facebook page

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Eva Dolan: Tell No Tales

Tensions erupt as Peterborough's Hate Crimes Unit investigates a hit-and-run and a major case with Neo-Nazi overtones...

The car that ploughs into the bus stop early one morning leaves a trail of death and destruction behind it. DS Ferreira and DI Zigic are called in from the Peterborough Hate Crimes Unit to handle the hit-and-run, but with another major case on their hands, one with disturbing Neo-Nazi overtones, they are relieved when there seems to be an obvious suspect.

But the case isn't that simple and with tensions erupting in the town leading to more violence, the media are soon hounding them for answers. Ferreira believes that local politician Richard Shotton, head of a recently established right-wing party, must be involved somehow. Journalists have been quick to acclaim Shotton, with his Brazilian wife and RAF career, as a serious contender for a major political career, despite his extremist views, but is his party a cover for something far more dangerous?

Eva Dolan is an Essex-based copywriter and intermittently successful poker player. Shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Dagger for unpublished authors when she was just a teenager, Long Way Home is her debut novel and the start of a major new crime series.

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Sarah Hilary: No Other Darkness

For Marnie Rome, investigating the most difficult case of her career, there is no other darkness than this...

From the Richard and Judy bestselling author Sarah Hilary. The phenomenal Marnie Rome returns in the outstanding follow up to the critically acclaimed SOMEONE ELSE'S SKIN.

Two young boys. Trapped underground in a bunker. Unable to understand why they are there. Desperate for someone to find them. Slowly realising that no-one will...

Five years later, the boys' bodies are found and the most difficult case of DI Marnie Rome's career begins. Her only focus is the boys. She has to find out who they are and what happened to them. For Marnie, there is no other darkness than this...

Sarah Hilary’s debut novel, SOMEONE ELSE'S SKIN, has been nominated for the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year and a Macavity Award. It was a Richard & Judy Book Club bestseller, and has been published worldwide. NO OTHER DARKNESS, the second in the series, has been nominated for a Dead Good Reads Award. The Marnie Rome series is being developed for television.

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Fergus McNeill: Cut Out

What if someone wished their life was more like yours? Exactly like yours. And what if they lived upstairs? 
 
Nigel never meant for it to happen. At first, he just wanted to be Matt's friend.

But when he discovers he can hear what is going on in the flat below him, his fascination with his new neighbour drifts into obsession. Rearranging his furniture to recreate the layout of the rooms downstairs. Buying the same clothes, going through Matt's post, his things. Becoming Matt without him ever knowing. And it would have been all right, if Matt hadn't brought the girl home.

When things spiral out of control, Detective Inspector Harland has to unravel the disturbing truth. But there's far more to the case than meets the eye . . .

As well as writing crime novels, Fergus McNeill has been creating computer games since the early eighties, writing his first interactive fiction titles while still at school. Over the years he has designed, directed and illustrated games for all sorts of systems, including the BBC Micro, the Apple iPad, and almost everything in between. Now running an app development studio, Fergus lives in Hampshire with his wife and teenage son. He is the author of EYE CONTACT, KNIFE EDGE and CUT OUT. 

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