Killing Characters

I watched a Channel Four TV show called Dead Set last week, a zombie drama based around the Big Brother show. I’d been looking forward to watching it, and had resisted watching it when it was shown on TV so that I could see the whole thing without adverts and interruptions. I do that a lot these days, especially with comedy shows. Rather than watch them when they go out, I buy the DVDs and watch when I want, usually in one go! I watched all three series of Dexter that way, and I’m currently working my way through DVDs of Seinfeld and Frasier.

Dead Set was quite disturbing, on many levels, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Basically it’s set in the Big Brother house at a time when the whole population outside are being zombified. Then the zombies lay siege to the Big Brother house and mayhem ensues.

Now, I love zombie movies. 28 Days Later is brilliant, and I enjoyed the follow-up 28 Weeks Later. And I thought that Sean Of The Dead was hilarious. I’m a big fan of George Romero’s zombie movies, too. But Dead Set was just plain disturbing, and I don’t mean that in a good way! Everyone dies in it. Everyone dies and everyone dies horribly. There is no redemption, and no sense that people were becoming better people as a result of what they were going through. Most of the characters were rude, self-centred and just plain stupid at the beginning, and that’s how they were at the end. And it wasn’t ironic in the way that Sean Of The Dead was. Dead Set takes itself very seriously. That’s how it was written, a group of horrible people (mainly) who all die horribly. And at the end you are left with the impression that the whole world has been zombified. It’s the end of the human race.

The DVD came with extras including an interview with the writer, Charlie Brooker, and I found him as disturbing as the show. In fact, he could easily have been a character in the drama and he wouldn’t have been out of place. There’s an interview with him at:

http://www.bbspy.co.uk/deadset/news.php?show=article&id=1224292739

In it he says: “I guess you'd say it's a horror-thriller with satirical, darkly comic undertones. But mainly it's a horror-thriller.”

I would argue with him that it was a satire. I didn’t find it in the least bit satirical. Nor was it comic, even darkly comic. It was sometimes ridiculous, but I don’t think that was intentional.

I can’t work out why he wrote Dead Set, and I can’t understand why Channel Four made it and E4 broadcast it. The last episode of Dead Set was only seen by a total of 652,000 viewers, making it the lowest rated episode of the series, so it’s clear that a lot of viewers were getting turned off by it. I’m not surprised. People don’t watch TV just to see pain and suffering, they want to feel good, they want to think that life is a pleasant experience and that people can triumph over adversity. Dead Set was totally nihilistic, totally without heart or soul. I don’t think I cared about any of the characters, and while I might have flinched at the gory way in which they died, I never once felt any sense of loss.

I’m not against killing off characters, some of the best writers do that. I’ll never forget the way Frederick Forsyth has the main character of Dogs Of War, Cat Shannon, kill himself at the end of the book. And I killed off Mike ‘Joker’ Cramer at the end of my book The Double Tap and The Chinaman doesn’t survive the book of the same name. But when you kill off a character there has to be a reason and it has to be plot-driven. Sometimes characters have to die in the story, because there’s nothing left for them to do. Or they have to die because it helps someone else or because it’s for the greater good.

In The Chinaman, the hero had to die because he had lost all his family, he had taken revenge on the men who had killed them, and there was nothing left for him to do. Killing off Mike Cramer was a mistake with hindsight, but as the plot necessitated him having a terminal illness, I was pretty much stuck with his death. If I had used a plot device (magic cure, wrong diagnosis etc) to save his life it would have been cheating.

In the book I’ve just finished, Nightingale (well, rewriting it actually, as we speak!) I do kill off Jack Nightingale’s friend, but there are repercussions and, as it happens, I do sort of bring him back at the end of the book. Of course characters die, in fact in my Spider Shepherd books an average of half a dozen characters die per volume. A thriller without a death or two wouldn’t be a thriller! But killing characters just for the ‘thrill’ of seeming them die is just perverse, and that was why I found Dead Set so unsettling. I suppose you could say that it was reality TV taken to its ultimate level, where people tune in to watch misery and gore, but Dead Set wasn’t a parody, it took itself very seriously and so did the writer. I’m actually sorry that I watched it, which is a terrible thing to say about any creative work. I learned nothing from it, I didn’t really enjoy it, and it upset me. If I did any of those things to one of my readers then I would feel that I had failed.

You might ask why I kept on watching it if it was upsetting me so much – to be honest I kept expecting the Army to arrive to rescue them, or for a cure to be found, or for them to fight their way to safety. I expected some sort of redemption, some sort of hope, but it never came. Even right at the end, where the main female character is leaving the house, I thought that she might escape – but it’s clear that she dies, and dies horribly. As the credits rolled I had a bitter taste in my mouth and it’s still there. It’s so hard to get decent shows onto television these days that I always get annoyed when time and money is spent producing a programme that isn’t worth watching. Channel Four has quite a small drama budget and it seems a great shame to waste it on something as empty as Dead Set.

While doing my recent book tour to promote Live Fire, I saw the Twilight books everywhere, and with such a demand for vampire books I did wonder about writing a thriller about a zombie detective.... I sort of thought he could wander around crime scenes contaminating them because bits of his body keep dropping off, but I’m not sure how successful a series with a zombie hero would be, especially if the dialogue is limited to ‘Urrgggghhhhh!!!’ I think it’ll be one those ideas that just stays as an idea!

I’m 12,000 words into the new Spider Shepherd book and it’s flowing well, though hand on heart I have to confess that I don’t have an ending yet, and not much of a middle!

Typos

A reader posted a comment on my blog recently in which he commented on the typos and errors he’d found in Live Fire. As always, I’m grateful for any mistakes that get pointed out to me because the books are reprinted regularly so it’s always possible to get them corrected at some point.

One of the great mysteries of publishing is why there are still so many typos in books when the technology has become so much more advanced. I can’t remember any in my first book, Pay Off. And I think there were less than a handful in The Chinaman, all of which, I think, were caught before publication. In recent years, however, I don’t think a year goes by without a reader pointing out a mistake in one of my books. One that makes me cringe was when I was asked to read out an few paragraphs on a live radio show and heard myself say ‘the car pulled away from the crib’.

By the time I’ve finished writing and polishing my manuscript, and it’s been checked over by my good mate Denis who is a sub-editor on The Times, I think it’s close to perfect, at least typo-wise. It then gets edited at Hodder and Stoughton, and an editor goes through it making changes and marking punctuation on a hard copy with a pencil. Now, in the old days the edited manuscript would be given to a typesetter, often in Scotland, and it would all be retyped into another computer, and because the guys who did the typesetting were pros who took pride in their work, they made very few mistakes. The typeset copy was then checked by the editor and a proof-reader and by me, but mistakes were few and far between. (I have to confess that I messed up my typing in this paragraph in my first draft - see the posted comments!)

I’m not quite sure when things changed, I think it was five or six years ago when I first noticed that the proofs I was getting had far more typesetting errors than I was used to. Not just one or two or even ten or twelve, but hundreds. Literally, hundreds. Sometimes two or three on a page, sometimes completely different words had been substituted for words that I had written. I remember ‘further’ instead of ‘father’ was an example that I found particularly annoying. And complete miss-spellings of a character’s name that any Spellcheck programme should have shown up. I can’t explain how frustrating it is to have a manuscript that I have slaved over for almost nine months handed back to me riddled with mistakes! I would correct as many mistakes as I could find, but with so many being made it is hardly surprising that some make it into the final printed book.

I finally found out what had happened, and I’m afraid it’s down to out-sourcing. In the same way that many companies have outsourced their phone centres to India, a lot of typesetting firms now send their work out to India. I was told (and it sounds crazy enough to be true) that two copies of the manuscript are now given to two Indian typesetters, each of whom types the whole manuscript into separate computers. A ‘sophisticated computer programme’ then compares the two versions, and highlights any differences. The theory is that the two typesetters won’t both make the same mistake! A supervisor then checks all the differences and decides which is correct. Apparently this is cheaper than one experienced British typesetter doing the job. It might be cheaper, but it certainly doesn’t produce quality work.

So, next time you do spot a typo in one of my books (and you will!) then please don’t blame me. It’s not my fault! But do let me know. I don’t mind, really, and I pass them on to the editor at Hodder who handles my books and they will be dealt with.

You might ask why the file that I have so lovingly slaved over and which has been checked by one of the best sub-editors in the country isn’t used, and why it all has to be retyped anyway. That’s a good question, and one that I have never received a satisfactory answer to!

52-year-old Wine

I drank a bottle of 52-year-old wine today. My friend Barbara bought it for me for my 50th birthday two years ago so I thought that I should drink it with her. It was a Rioja, and it was possibly the best wine I have ever drunk. Barbara also had a bottle of wine that was laid down the year she was born, also a Rioja, so we drank both. We were lucky in that both wines were perfect, though we decanted both several hours before drinking and the cork in mine had almost perished. I am writing this feeling slightly drunk....

Quotes

Nick Brownlee’s publishers have just got in touch with me about providing a quote for the covers of his books. I met Nick on the Simon Mayo show where we were talking about Live Fire, and Nick’s first novel, Bait. Bait is set in Kenya and is a cracking thriller. His second novel, Burn, will be out in the summer. I said on the show that Nick’s writing was ‘Alexander McCall Smith with teeth’ and Nick’s editor is keen to use that, but wanted to know if I had any other useable quotes. I said I’d put my thinking cap on!

My own editor was also very keen about one of the comments made about Live Fire on the Simon Mayo Show. My hero Spider Shepherd was described as ‘Jeremy Clarkson with a gun’ which is a striking quote and there’s every chance that it will be used on the paperback.

Getting a good quote from a well-known author is a good way of boosting sales at the start of a writer’s career. My first book, Pay Off, was published by Collins and they wrote to Jack Higgins to ask him if he’d give us a quote. He sent it straight back with a note saying that he was too busy to read it. I thought that we should use that as the quote on the cover - “I was too busy to read it – Jack Higgins” but Collins didn’t think that was a good idea.

A few years later, when Hodder and Stoughton were publishing The Chinaman, they asked Jack for a quote and this time he graciously gave us one which we used for many years and which I’m sure helped sell the book.

A few years ago I was approached by Kate Lyall-Grant to give a cover quote for an American writer, Vince Flynn. Kate edited my book The Stretch before she went to work for Simon and Schuster in their London office. Kate was trying to break Vince into the UK and thought a quote from me might help. Vince writes great action thrillers and I was more than happy to give her a quote. ‘Vince Flynn is Tom Clancy on speed’. It’s only seven words long but it’s a great quote, so great in fact that they have used it on his last three UK editions. The latest, Extreme Measures, was published last month, and there’s my quote on the front.

It’s funny but I actually get more of a kick seeing my name on the front of Vince’s books than seeing my own books!

Nick Brownlee already has a quote on the front of his book, Bait. It’s from crime writer Mark Billingham and it says ‘Bait will have you hooked’ which is quite clever. Now his editor wants a quote that has more to do with his writing style than any particular book. That way it can obviously be used on several titles.


Here’s a few thoughts I’ve had about quotes for Nick:

‘Nick Brownlee writes tough, uncompromising thrillers’

‘Torture, murder and an explosion – and that’s just the first chapter’

‘Dialogue that cuts like a machete’

‘Sun, sea sand – and murder most foul. A cracking thriller in an exotic setting’

‘More twists and turns than a boa constrictor’

My Business Card

I was having dinner with a couple of ITV staffers this week and I gave them my business card. I had the cards made up in Pattaya and I guess with hindsight they are a little cheesy. I thought I'd post it here for your amusement. The back has my address, phone numbers and website details. I'm going to revamp the Nightingale story.... make it more menacing and put my hero under more pressure. It won't be an easy rewrite but I think it needs to be done. Rejigging a book that you've already written is a bit like playing with a jigsaw, and at times it can make your head spin! But it'll be worth the effort. The new Spider Shepherd is bowling along....just hit 7,000 words and it feels really good.

Snow-bound!

I was supposed to be flying to Dublin today to continue promoting Live Fire, but heavy snow has closed Heathrow Airport so I won't be going anywhere! Here's the view from my London apartment! I've rescheduled to go next week.... At least it gives me time to get stuck into the new book!

Dan Shepherd Books

Live Fire is my twentieth book, which I think is fairly good going! It's also the sixth book in the Dan "Spider" Shepherd series, and my publisher has asked for three more which I'll have to deliver this year, in 2010 and 2011.

Prior to writing the first Spider Shepherd book, Hard Landing, most of my books were stand-alone individual books, though I did have the occassional character reappearing - Mike "Joker" Cramer for instance, who was in The Chinaman (albeit briefly), The Long Shot and The Double Tap. And I know that some readers are keen for me to gop back to writing stand-alone stories. Nick, for instance, posted the following on my blog yesterday:

Love the books, espcially The Tunnel Rats, The Chinaman, The Vets and The Double Tap.I like the Dan Shepherd novels but think that it might be time for a change now? Not sure what others readers think about this?

He has a good point - and the four books he mentions are four of my favourites. I do enjoy writing stand-alone books, but I also enjoy writing the Spider Shepherd books. The problem is, I'm not sure how I can do both. My publisher, Hodder and Stoughton, takes the view that readers prefer a continuing character, and that a continuing character results in increased sales. They believe that readers enjoy following a character from book to book...

Certainly it's easier to write a continuing character because I don't have to reinvent the wheel each time I start. I know what Spider looks like, how he thinks, and I know all the details that go to make up his character. I know what car he drives, what he drinks, where he lives, and how he talks. If I were to write a new novel with new characters, I'd have to create totally new characters and that takes time and effort. And there's a formula for that Spider books that means I start knowing what the structure is going to be - for instance, there have to be scenes with his boss, Charlotte Button, with his son Liam and with his psychiatrist. He also generally interacts with other continuing characters, such as Jimmy "Razor" Sharpe and Major Allan Gannon.

The problem is, I guess, that a series can be predictable. But here's the rub - there are some readers who prefer a book to be predictable. That's not to say they want to read the same book over and over again, but there is something comforting about reading a book that follows a formula that you are familiar with. Dick Francis made a career from writing very similar books, and Robert Ludlum's thrillers do seem to follow a set pattern! And it certainly paid dividends for JK Rowling!

I'm still not sure what to do. With twenty books in print, I guess I'm about halfway through my writing career. I wouldn't like to think that all my future books will be Spider Shepherd stories, but I have to accept that Hodder and Stoughton wants me to continue writing them for the forseeable future. They have spent a lot of time and money establishing my name as a brand, so they do deserve a say in what sort of books I write.

One possibility is to change the structure of the books, perhaps by changing Spider. It has been suggested to me a couple of times that Liam should die tragically, pushing Spider into taking revenge and turning him into a much harder character. The problem with that is that once I've done it, there's no going back. It's definitely something that I'd have to discuss with Hodder and Stoughton before doing it!

There is another possibility. Hodder and Stoughton are keen for me to start writing two books a year, ie to work twice as hard! At the moment they would like another continuing series, with either an American hero or an American setting. But I might be able to write stand-alone books instead, ie two write one original story and one Spider Shepherd book every year. But that would be a lot of work, and I'm not sure if I'm up to it. But I guess the only way to find out is to give it a go and see how it works out. I shall keep you posted!