Ruth Rendell - The Saint Zita Society

Ruth Rendell – The Saint Zita Society

Ruth Rendell has long been a favourite author of mine. Her bottom-up approach to life, which often explains crime without condoning it, provides unique insight into human frailties, dilemmas and anomalies. Her sympathies often lie with the underdog and those who are the losers and victims in life, without simplistic blaming of society and the winners.

Saint Zita is the patron saint of maids and domestic servants, so you can be sure this book deals with some very down-to-earth characters.

In The Saint Zita Society, she brings together a diverse but convincing crew of human beings, lords, ladies, a self-proclaimed princess and ragged bunch of servants – an au-pair, a nanny, a cleaner, housekeepers, drivers, a gardener, and even a non-servant who perhaps serves more and better than the rest, with little thanks.

She creates a microscopic corner of modern London – Hexham Place - that brings Downton Abbey into the twenty-first century. Indeed, one of the servants is descended from a footman to a duke. But these are modern servants and servility is not a feature!

Rendell is a mistress of subtle, interweaving plotting that leaves the reader poised over precipices of looming catastrophe. Bliss!

The characters are several disasters waiting to happen, while random events, neglect, pure misfortune and coincidence spur on the calamities. Egos compete with selfishness to bring characters undone while Rendell also explores how the lingering British class system still acts to preserve the guilty from the consequences of their deeds.

I also love the way she uses technology to explore new methods of tormenting disturbed minds, with tragic consequences.

Never ignore basic household maintenance again – the consequences could be tragic!

David Kilner

www.davidkilner.com

To Write Or Not To Write?

To Write or Not To Write?

Can anyone be a writer? That’s a question I've heard friends grappling with in recent weeks. The question is, is writing skill like singing skill?

I’m inclined to say No. A voice can be trained but some natural ability must be there in the first place.

I could be offered all the training in the world but I will never be a singer. I just ain’t got it!

On the other hand, anyone of normal intelligence can be trained to be a writer, if they have the time and interest and are willing to practice.

This doesn’t mean that all of us are going to make top writers. Some will be better than others: Shakespeare was surely born not made.We all have different talents and proclivities.

But time and again I've heard of well-known and accomplished writers who wrote more than one book that was a learning experience and never got published. Eventually they became good enough at their craft to get there.

My book The Climate Change Murders was definitely a practice run.

So, personally, I’m still learning – and as with any skill, the only way to improve is to keep practicing.

Back to the novel!

David Kilner

www.davidkilner.com

The Writer's Journey

4 November 2013

I’ve been reading Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey. The subject matter is the so-called Hero’s Journey.

Vogler argues that most stories follow a familiar twelve-stage pattern which begins with life in the ordinary world. The hero receives a call to action, which he/she may well refuse at first. The hero eventually sets off on whatever task is required of them, along the way facing threshold guardians and shadows, enemies and Shapeshifters, but helped by mentors and allies while grappling with tests and ordeals. Usually the hero will overcome all these challenges and return home with whatever reward or elixir he or she was seeking. Along the way, the Hero will experience personal growth and gain new knowledge and insight.

The pattern is familiar but infinitely variable and every writer creates their version.

Vogler is a scriptwriter but it works for novels too. Try fitting it to famous stories like Titanic, Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and you will see it works.

Interestingly, Vogler argues that all writers must undergo a Hero’s Journey of their own as they learn to be writers. Indeed, he argues that all of us as human beings must undertake this journey if we wish to realise our potential.

‘Writing is often a perilous journey inward to probe the depth of one’s soul and bring back the elixir of experience,’ he writes.

Having been through the process of writing a crime novel, I can certainly agree with Vogler about the experience. Writing takes you into many dark corners but also into strange new areas you would never have thought about otherwise – I had to learn about poisonous fish and echo sounders, for example.

I would not have missed this journey for anything – it’s exhilarating. Also a huge challenge. I’m now starting out on the journey again in a new novel involving many of the same characters. What shadows and Shapeshifters, tests and trials will I meet on the way? It will be fun to find out.

www.davidkilner.com 

Character Development in Crime Writing

28 October 2013

An enduring debate among writers, teachers and readers of crime fiction is how much character development should a detective undergo, not only within one novel but from one novel to the next?

Some are adamant that no character development is allowed. The detective is seen as a ‘catalyst hero’ who affects others but is unaffected by them or by their  experiences, no matter how fraught. Traditional examples would be Sherlock Holmes, Philip Marlowe and Miss Marple while more recent examples include Detective Colombo and Phryne Fisher.

The detective, while possessing a fine moral compass that leads them to fight evil, remains untouched by even the hardest of villains or the roughest of deals, and never changes from one story to the next.

Yet this is perhaps a false perception. Even Sherlock Holmes was moved and disturbed by Irene Adler. Philip Marlowe, the quintessential hard-boiled private eye, was deeply and negatively affected by the events in The Big Sleep (See http://www.shmoop.com/big-sleep/quest-plot.html).

I recently read an article in which the author claims that Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s best known character, becomes worn-down over time by the horrors he witnesses, the writer says of David Suchet, the epitome of Poirot on TV:

Suchet has subtly aged the investigator, with greying moustaches and increasing stiffness in the skippy little walk he gave the detective. More importantly, there is an increasing sense of the accumulated weight of the cases on him. Although the plots are generally preposterous, the actor provides a centre of gravity, never letting go of the fact that, from the war to his work, Poirot has had too much connection with death. (See http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2013/oct/23/david-suchet-poirot-tv-great-casting ).

While there are plenty of examples of unchanging detectives in modern times, there are also others who have a definite character arc involving change and personal development.

In Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley series, Lynley is tortured by the murder of his wife Helen, to the point where he is incapable of working and takes off on a long walk by himself. His sidekick Barbra Havers undergoes character development when, after initially succumbing,  she is refuses to be pressured into changing her image and dress code by her superior officer.

The underlying personality of these characters does not change but, like all of us, they have experiences which affect them and lead to personal growth and development.

Which is why I am tiring of Phryne Fisher and her faithful detective Jack Robinson – one more longing gaze and I’m switching off! Just get on with it.

www.davidkilner.com

Ken Follett

I finished ‘Winter of the World’. For those with little knowledge of World War Two, the events leading up to it and what happened afterwards, this is a great introduction – although his not a history of the War as such.

Follett ranges over a wide scene, from the USA to the Pacific, Germany, Britain and Russia. He is adept at interweaving and connecting his characters in both personal and political ways. I found the most gripping scenes were those where various members of the resistance in Germany struggle against the Nazi regime, at huge personal risk and cost. The intrigues around the development of the atom bomb were similarly fascinating.

Follett is at his best when he uses personal narratives to illustrate great social movements and events, such as the development of the Welfare State.

I’m looking forward to Part III of The Century which is not due until next year. I have no idea which period it will be set in – my guess it will deal with the fall of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War and the rise of terrorism.

Happy reading!

David.

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