An Interview With Nick Quantrill (2/3) By Steve Rudd

(1/3), (2/3), (2/3).

What is it about crime writing that so appeals to you? For me, crime-fiction is the most appropriate genre for taking a long, hard look at society. By its very nature, crime writing has to delve deep into society and examine what drives people to commit a whole range of acts. Contemporary crime writing can also look at people and groups who are marginalized, and maybe offer a different angle on such problems.

As a reader of crime-fiction, I find the range of crime writing to be appealing. From police procedurals to black comedy, there's a wide range of writing out there. And of course, there's the fun of trying to work out the ending of a book before you actually get there!

Do you model your characters on real people, and if so, has anybody you might know ever recognized themselves in your work? No, the characters in Complicity are all fictional, except the charity workers on Whitefriargate, and thankfully I don't know any of them! The two main protagonists, Detective Sergeant Coleman and Detective Constable Maynard are constants in the stories, as I want to build two credible characters throughout the course of the series. I suppose the characters in Complicity are in some way based on real people, as what I try to do is imagine how people would act in a given situation and empathise with their predicament.

The idea for the story that I'm about to start working on came partly from the attitude of others, so maybe it's something that I'll start to do more often in the future.

Who are your favourite writers, past and present, and have you ever written any stories that don't revolve around crime? My favourite writer of crime-fiction is Ian Rankin. Rankin is the absolute master. Although his stories contain a police detective investigating crime, he has the ability to write amazing stories that examine contemporary society in an unrivalled manner. Another favourite is Graham Hurley. Hurley sets his series in Portsmouth and has been lucky enough to be allowed access to shadow a real-life murder investigation. As such, his novels are so realistic and gripping.

I'm also a big fan of Raymond Chandler's 1930s PI novels. His idea of the loner investigator who gets obsessed with a case, drinks too much and lets his personal life suffer etc is the template for much of modern crime fiction. All my stories have been what you would call crime-fiction, and I don't have any plans to change that at the moment. At the moment I think it's the most appropriate way of writing about the kind of issues that I want to write about.

How long, on average, will it take you to write, edit and perfect a novella from start to finish? Do you find that you need a lot of time before you actually sit down and write to get a viable plot straight in your mind? From start to finish, Complicity took around 10 weeks to complete. Obviously I have to work, complete my chores and lead some sort of social life, so it could be done more quickly. I tend to take my time getting the idea right in my mind before mapping it all out on paper. This gives me a plan which I tend to follow, though something usually happens that takes the story off in a slightly different direction to what I initially envisaged.

I know a lot of writers tend to pretty much just right off the cuff, but I can't manage to do that! Drawing a line under a story and proof-reading it is probably the hardest part of the process and the one part that I really don't like having to do.

Continued .... Next Page (3/3)

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