“Do you know what? I hate writing tips. I think they’re so often a load of rubbish.”
CRIME AUTHORS SPILL THEIR GUTS ABOUT WRITING. Every Thursday topnotch authors of psychological thrillers and crime fiction share their writing secrets – and the secrets to their success – with you and me.
This week: HARRY BINGHAM
Tell us about yourself…
I’m a uniquely handsome forty-something (passes for mid-thirties). I’ve competed for Great Britain in archery, water polo, and triathlon. I’m technically a full-time writer, except that I do a little part-time work as an assassin-come-dirty-ops-guy for a variety of Middle Eastern intelligence services. I once took Anatoly Karpov, the Russian chess genius, to within three moves of –
(huh? What’s that? You want a truthful answer? Oh.)
So: I’m late-forties (passes for late-forties). I’m useless at archery, water polo, chess and triathlon. I don’t do nearly as much assassination work these days. I write a series of crime novels which feature Fiona Griffiths who, according to the Sunday Times, is ‘the most startling protagonist in modern crime fiction.’
I also run a couple of writing-related businesses that are there to help new writers. The Writers’ Workshop offers creative writing courses and a variety of editorial services to help new writers get their manuscripts into shape. Agent Hunter helps writers find UK literary agents for their work.
Mostly though, I just love writing and try to get as much writing time as I can. It’s not a profession; it’s a vocation. My most recent book, The Dead House, has been selected as an Amazon Deal of the Week and mighty chuffed I am with that news too.
How do you go about plotting your books?
Bits of paper? Spreadsheets? Mind-maps? Whiteboards? Post-it notes? No nothing like that. I don’t even – usually – write notes on my laptop first.
But that doesn’t mean I just push off into the unknown without any kind of map. I generally want to know
(a) something about my very first corpse. All my novels are murder mysteries, so I reckon I always need to deliver a high quality corpse reasonably early in the book.
(b) Something about the crime at the heart of things. I enjoy quite strange, convoluted crimes that allow me to…TO READ THE INTERVIEW IN FULL, CLICK HERE
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