Before I share some of my notes (because how could I attend a festival and not be the usually geeky me???) I want to say say a huge thanks to Greg Mosse who puts this amazing festival together in this glorious location. Greg is the moderator for all the session bar the main evening ones where his wife the amazing writer Kate Mosse conducts the interviews. Both of them do brilliant jobs...
Now while on the flight back yesterday when I hit a stuck point, unfortunately a frequent occurrence at the moment with August Rock, I wrote up my notes...
Kate Mosse Interview with Mark Billingham
-Novel is performance- you’re trying to entertain the reader
- he gives a book 50 pages
-changed course – 3 books in they were starting to get samey
- less is more; less violence now he’s a better writer
-doesn’t do the work for the reader – just nudge the reader
- harder to make readers care – that’s the most important – then you have tension
- small images that count- the shoes in the road not the bomb blast
- what the violence does to people – not the violence itseld
- research less & less , you need to get things right, you learn what you need to know, don’t crow bar the info into the book
- Social Media – displacement like looking out the window, uses Twitter more than FB
- want to do everything in dialogue because of his background in TV….live or die on the strength of dialogue
-doesn’t write everyday-only if you have another job; most of ‘the job’ happens when not at the keyboard
-he writes without a plan like driving into the fog...kinda like you know where you are going but can only see as far as the headlights
- you sit down and go to work making things up
- LUCK
5 comments:
Hi Liz
Great to have the chats at West Dean Chichester Writers' Festival. I have put your book launch in the diary and expect to be there.
Your blog was good and told us the main thrust of Mark Billington's talk.
Denise x
Thanks Denise!
lx
Thanks Liz! Very helpful advice from Mark Billingham. After hearing William Boyd say at the weekend that he plans for two years, it's refreshing to hear that Mark doesn't!
Thank you for these great reports, Liz. I'm just wondering what you meant by "he gives a book 50 pages"?
No Mark doesn't plan...incredible for a crime writer and refreshing too!
Capt B. He gives a book that he is reading 50 pages to grab him...
lx
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