We talked about my role as Toastrix at this year’s event, about the role of panel moderator, and explored my crime thriller portfolio, which (as well as a couple of standalone novels and a feast of short stories) comprises:

Charlie Fox Series
This features ex-Special Forces turned bodyguard, Charlie Fox—a prequel and thirteen titles to date. Charlie Fox is often likened to Jack Reacher, with a similar brand of high-octane action. Lee Child himself described Charlie Fox as “real, true, and authentic.”

Lakes Thriller Series
More recently, I have published the first two books in my new Lakes Thriller Series, featuring CSI Grace McColl and Detective Nick Weston. Described as “a remarkable combination of police procedural and psychological thriller“, the series is set in the beautiful English Lake District, a World Heritage Site, near to where I have my home.

Blake & Byron Series
He’s a career copper at a personal and professional crossroads. She’s a con artist who came up from the streets and has survived by her wits. What happens when their lives collide? Mind-blowing suspense thriller, The Last Time She Died, is the first in this brand-new thriller series.

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During the event, I met Derbyshire author, Dawn Brookes, who told me that Lee Child’s comment, “If Jack Reacher were a woman, he would be my main character, Charlie Fox,” prompted her to do this enjoyable video interview for her YouTube show, High Octane Thrillers & Female Leads.

On Saturday evening, I attended the Gala Dinner where I was the official Toastmaster – or Toastrix. I was asked to deliver a five-minute speech prior to announcing the winners of the various Awards. I decided to theme it on language, and words, and the derivation of words. For all those of you who could not attend, here’s the gist of what I said on the night:

“Do you like the outfit? It’s the last word in Zoom-inspired lockdown chic. From the waist up, absolutely spiffing. From the waist down, who cares?

“It’s lovely to see so many of you face to face after all this time. And I support those of you who’ve chosen to remain masked. We are crime writers, after all.

“When Adrian first approached me about taking on this role for tonight, I was surprised to discover that this is the first time CrimeFest has ever had a female toastmaster. (And who knows, it may well yet be the last.)

He asked how I wanted to be referred to? Toastmistress made it sound like I was running a sub-Post Office, so I picked Toastrix.

“It brings to mind either a breakfast cereal of some kind, or a dominatrix. What, I wondered, is the male equivalent of that – perhaps a Dominator? Although, to me that’s a 1950s’ British motorcycle made by Norton.

“As a writer, I’ve always been fascinated by language and the derivation of words.

“Take the drinking of a toast to someone’s health, for instance. The word refers to dropping a piece of toasted or spiced bread into wine to soak up its acidity and improve the flavour. In The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff calls for a quart of wine and says ‘put a toast in it.’ Over time, the toast has become the person honoured by the ritual, rather than the bread itself, although I understand that submerging the honouree in wine is now optional.

“The word sincere comes from sculpting in marble. If a sculptor made a mistake, they would fill in the error with wax. Thus, if a statue was finished with no imperfections, it was sin cere – without wax.

“The word clue comes from Greek mythology – from the story of Theseus, who was trapped in the labyrinth of Knossos to be eaten by the Minotaur. Theseus escaped using a ball or clew of thread, given to him by Ariadne. He used the thread to mark his path out, and thus a clue is now a form of guidance.

“Many words have shifted from their original meanings.

“Oracle entered the caves at Delphi and inhaled the vapours, it was said that she became ‘enthusiastic’, which meant inspired or possessed by a god, rather than simply rather keen.

“And decimation means removal of a tenth, traditionally a punishment among disgraced Roman soldiers. Every ten men would draw lots and whoever got the short straw, the others had to beat him to death. A bit severe for the Territorials.

“My pet hate is the word feisty, which comes from Middle English and is often applied to my female protagonists, but actually means either a small yappy dog, or flatulent. So, a small, yappy, farting, dog. Not quite the effect I was aiming for.

“There have been numerous incidences where major companies have come up with product name that don’t quite work in the countries in which they’re intending to market them.

“Hence, General Motors attempting to sell a car in South America called the Nova. ‘No va,’ in Spanish means ‘doesn’t go’. And probably best not to mention about Rolls Royce trying to sell the Silver Mist in Germany.

“I understand that if you sidle into a store in Australia and ask for Durex, you may be offered it by the roll, as Durex is the brand name for Sellotape over there.

My personal favourite was an energy drink I came across in Japan, a kind of Gatorade / Lucozade type of thing, designed to replace electrolytes lost during exercise. It was called Pocari Sweat. Sounds delightful.

Language is gendered, however much we might prefer it not to be, and the gendered versions of words can have very different connotations attached to them.

Take landlord versus landlady. A landlord sounds like someone who runs a pub, but somehow, you’re more likely to find a landlady running a boarding house on the seafront in Morecambe.

“A bachelor is a young blade with trendy apartment. But the word Spinster brings to mind knitting and cats.

“Over the last few days in Bristol, we’ve seen many hen parties and stag weekends why is it a stag do, but a hen night? I suppose because you could hardly have a doe do or a cock night.

“I leave you with this last thought on words and their gendered forms. If someone considered to be outstanding in their field has mastery over their subject, then perhaps the feminine version should be mystery?”

And the terrible jokes I used between announcement of the CrimeFest Awards:

“Just to keep things moving, I will be interspersing our guests with literary jokes worthy of the Christmas cracker.”

“An author enquires with a publisher about their terms of submission. I’m sorry,’ he’s told. “Novels of suspense we accept only via an agent. And spy novels only via a double-agent.”

“I went to Waterstone’s today because it was a third off all titles. I bought THE LION, THE WITCH…”

“How many crime writers does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to screw the bulb almost all the way in, and the other to give it a surprising twist at the end.”

“Knock, knock”

“Who’s there?”

“To”

“To who?”

“It’s whom, actually…”

“Never leave alphabetti-spaghetti on the stove when you go out. It could spell disaster.”

“I bought my father a Kindle for Christmas. He still hasn’t finished it.”

“I’m reading a book at the moment about the world’s most secure bank vaults, but it’s really hard to get into.”

“I’ve just finished writing a thriller called I’M FEELING A CHILL FROM SOMEWHERE.

It’s just a first draft.”

“Never date an apostrophe. They’re so possessive.”

That’s all folks…

You can read this blog, or comment, at Murder Is Everywhere

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When I’ve posted previously about opening lines, a few people dismissed their importance, and I admit I’ve read a few that seemed to have been written purely to be memorable or shocking, rather than serving their true purpose. An opening line should grab you, yes, but then it has to deliver you into the right place in the story and hold you there.

So, now we come to the importance of opening chapters.

A book rarely, if ever, starts at the beginning of the story itself, and choosing the exact point at which you slide your reader into the tale is a very tricky one to judge.

The classic Private Eye
In the classic private eye tale, of course, the book so often starts with the mysterious client walking into the PI’s office. The story has already begun, of course, or the client would not require the services of an investigator. This opening gambit serves several purposes. It allows the client to make telling comments about the hero’s appearance and character. “You look like you’ve been a prize-fighter.” Or “Captain John Doe down at the precinct gave me your name. He told me you were fired for insubordination.” The office may well be shabby, at which point the PI can point out that there isn’t much money in the business if you’re an honest man. All useful devices for getting across the flavour of the story and the character without labouring the point.

This also has the advantage of cutting straight to the heart of it. There will, after all, be a certain amount of detail contained on the book jacket, which is another reason why I usually write this bit first. It gives me a good idea of where to pitch the opening of my story. No point in having a big reveal about the identity of the hero’s love interest three-quarters of the way through the book, if the jacket copy declares, ‘He falls for a beautiful Russian double-agent!’ or something similar. And I’ve seen this done recently more than once on books by very well-known authors.

Man of Mystery
Getting across your main protagonist’s character is key in the opening chapter—IF that’s where you introduce them into the story. In Lee Child’s ONE SHOT, for instance, Reacher doesn’t make his entrance until forty-five pages in. Nine books into a highly successful series, this works brilliantly to build up a sense of anticipation before the hero takes centre stage. Other characters mention his name, but have no clue who he is, and the reader feels in on the joke. With another writer, in a debut novel, that would not have worked so well.

Robert B Parker, in the opening chapter of NIGHT PASSAGE, introduces his ex-LAPD Homicide detective turned small-town police chief, Jesse Stone, in two simple pages that tell you Stone used to be a cop, and that he has a drink problem, as well as innumerable regrets about leaving behind his life in LA, not least of which involves a woman.

In Raymond Chandler’s classic, THE BIG SLEEP, the opening chapter tells you a lot about private detective Philip Marlowe, by the snappy dialogue and the observations, although I note that in the film the exchange between Marlowe and Carmen Sternwood is altered from, “Tall aren’t you,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be.” to “Not very tall, are you?” “Well, I, uh, try to be.” possibly to take into account the fact that Humphrey Bogart was only 5ft 8ins.

Reason to Read on
But I digress. The important thing is that the reader is given a real reason to read on, whether it be because of the set-up of the action, or from being hooked by the characters, and wanting to know what happens to them and their lives as the story progresses. Even with a series character, the writer has to bear in mind that people often come to the books out of order, so every time I start a new series book, I have to devise some method in the opening chapter for the reader to be shown the character(s) without boring those who know them well.

Of course, what is not included in these opening chapters is a great deal of back story. Trying to cram too much back story about your characters into the opening of the book just gets in the way of the story, bogs it down and slows the overall pace. Plus, you’re giving the reader information about people they haven’t come to care for. One agent I know says he often skips past the first three or four chapters of a new typescript because of this very problem, diving back in after the writer has settled down to just telling the story, rather than the story of how every character got to be here.

At the same time, I’m not a big fan of the cryptic prologue. It may work very well for other people to entice them into reading further, but I just find them irritating.

Flash-forward vs Foreshadowing
Other people, I know, are against flash-forward opening chapters in a crime novel, but I admit to using this device in several books. The definition of a flash-forward is an interjected scene that takes the narrative forwards from its current point. Although they can be projected, expected, or imagined, I have always tried very carefully to make sure that the opening chapters for both these books could be lifted from the start and slotted in between two later chapters, without alteration, and without cheating the reader at all. And these flash-forward openers are not taken from near the end of the book, either, although you can always spot the reviewers who didn’t read it all by the fact that they still assume this to be the case…

A flash-forward opener is different from a foreshadowing opener, which only hints at what might be to come, and is a technique used by writers to provide clues for the reader to be able to predict what might occur later in the story. An example of this is to describe a scene which includes an item later vital to the outcome of the plot, or the identity of the culprit, and often seems to be hidden among the contents of the dead man’s pockets, or the items arrayed across a desk, and is much beloved of Golden Age detective novels.

So, in my opening chapter, regardless of the book, I know I need to introduce one or more of the major players in such a way as defines their character(s) and their relationship with those around them, jump into the heart of the story, hook old and new readers alike, and set the pace and tone for the rest of the book.

Simple really, isn’t it?

Do you have a particular technique you use for opening chapters? Do you have any pet hates or favourites as a writer or a reader? Which opening chapters of the ones you’ve written or read do you like best, and why?

This week’s Word of the Week is prolepsis, from the Ancient Greek meaning to anticipate. It’s often a figure of speech in which a future event is referred to in anticipation (as in calling a character ‘the dead man’ before he’s actually dead) or in which objections are anticipated and answered (as in “‘Ah,’ you might say, ‘but that is impossible!’ Not so, because…”) although correctly this is called procatalepsis.

Getting Back Out There!
Finally, just a quick thank you to Catherine Mitchell and Trish Kenny at Mickleover Library in Derbyshire, who invited me and fellow crime/mystery/supernatural author, Sarah Ward, who also writes as Rhiannon Ward, to talk to library users last Friday evening. It was one of my first ‘In Real Life’ events since lockdown, and great fun it was, too.

You can read this blog, or comment, at Murder Is Everywhere

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The basic premise was that in the first episode, three agents of Nemesis (just take the ! as read, will you?) Richard Barrett, Sharron Macready, and Craig Stirling, played by William Gaunt, Alexandra Bastedo, and Stuart Damon, are in a plane crash in the Tibetan mountains. They are rescued by an ancient sect of monks who not only nurse them back to health but, for reasons of their own, also bestow upon the trio various superhuman talents. ESP, precognition, superior strength, speed, etc.

So, every week this fearless trio undertook a different vitally important assignment in a different corner of the globe. The assignment always saw them utilising their unique powers, whilst hiding their abilities from their enemies and their incredibly dim-witted boss, Tremayne. “So, Craig, exactly how many minutes did you manage to hold your breath under water…?”

(Stick with me on this – I think I know where I’m going with it, honest…)

Recently, somebody lent me the complete series on DVD and it was much funnier than I ever remember. Sadly, it was not intended to be a comedy, but Tremayne’s wig appeared to be constructed from greyish Astroturf and could not have looked any more artificial if it had come equipped with a chin strap – maybe that was the purpose of the also-obviously-fake beard he wore. And despite the numerous exotic locations called for in the storylines, they only seemed to actually have three sets – submarine, country house, and underground lair. These did duty for just about anywhere, from small South American dictatorships, to the Australian Outback, to the Arctic, inter-cut with what was patently stock footage.

In my defence for taking weekly enjoyment in what might sound like the shonkiest bit of TV fluff going, I should point out that when the original series came out, I was about four. Not exactly of an age and level of sophistication where slightly dubious production values – not to mention a good deal of overacting – were what caught my eye.

I loved it.

I can still remember sitting utterly glued to the TV set in my grandmother’s living room, twisting myself into absolute knots of desperation as I watched the characters attempt to extricate themselves from whatever apparently hopeless predicament they’d got themselves into, in time for the closing credits. And my grandmother would always reassure me with the same words.

“But nothing terrible can possibly happen to them,” she’d say, adding with the perfect logic of grandmothers everywhere, “It can’t – they’re on again next week.”

And, of course, although it never seemed to reassure me much at the time, she was quite right. They always beat the bad guys and lived to fight another day.

Just like a series character.

(See, I told you I knew where this was going.)

When you pick up an ongoing series, you do so in the knowledge that the characters you’re going to read about – those you’ve come to care about – will survive past the final page. Conan Doyle did his best to kill off Sherlock Holmes, but was forced by the resultant public outcry to come up with a way of him surviving his encounter with Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls, and go on to further adventures. Of course, Lee Child famously promised that he was going to kill off Jack Reacher in the final instalment of his series, but now that his brother Andrew has taken over, maybe the plan has changed…? Until we reach that book – and we hope it’s not for years yet, if ever – we know Reacher is still going to be around to walk off into the sunset.

In a standalone, on the other hand, you can reach the final page to find it’s not so much a case of Last Man Standing, as no man left standing at all. And anybody who’s read any of Duane Swierczynski‘s wonderful visceral novels will testify to that one.

A former friend who was a big reader of mystery/thriller/adventure novels, used to occasionally visit to browse through the book collection and borrow a few books, and he wouldn’t read series. He claimed this is because he liked a totally self-contained story with no loose ends, rather than because he preferred the uncertainty of not knowing if the main protagonist and the ongoing surrounding cast would make it to the end of the story.

But do they always?

I’ve talked before here about how much can you progress and grow and change your series protagonist from one book to the next, but I want to pose a question one step further. Can you have sudden, cataclysmic change in an ongoing series and get away with it?

This week’s Word of the Week is borborygmus, which is the rumbling sounds made by the stomach, caused by the movement of food, gases, and digestive juices as they migrate from the stomach into the upper part of the small intestine. The average body makes two gallons of digestive juices a day.

You can read this blog, or comment, at Murder Is Everywhere.

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