Val McDermid and Sophie Hannah at the Whitworth Art Gallery

22nd October

Dark and stormy weather cast a dark shadow over a night in Manchester that made walking anywhere a gloomy affair, never mind down all the way down Oxford Road to the Whitworth Art Gallery. However, the trudge was worth it since the evening promised an insightful discussion by Val Mcdermid and Sophie Hannah, two of the UK’s most popular and prolific crime writers. In fact given the topic, the weather was perfect. A newcomer to the Whitworth, I admired its architecture as soon as I got close, but couldn’t help thinking it looked a lot like a lunatic asylum. Possibly this was down to an over-active imagination, but it certainly kicked off the evening in appropriate style. Inside the layout was contemporary and fresh, and an internal exhibition of an imitation dark forest couldn’t have set the tone better. We were definitely in for a treat.

Alongside the two authors was crime aficionado Jude Davis, who kept the discussion flowing in the right direction as well as making sure the audience’s questions were answered at the end. The event promised to cover topics regarding the genre in general, both author’s writing style, inspirations, up and coming ventures and answering the real question: ‘Do women make better crime writers?’

Conversation verged straight into the state of the genre itself, both authors considering how agents or publishers always look for ‘the next big thing’ in crime, further agreeing that Patricia Cornwell was somewhat of a pioneer in terms of uniqueness. Given the current popularisation of Stieg Larsson’s ‘The Girl who…’ trilogy the authors also explained this by stating that people enjoy the quirkiness that European fiction brings to the genre, and the fact that Swedish/Norwegian/Scandinavian crime fiction has been around for decades but has simply not been translated. Personally I have only read a bit of Henning Mankell who is the creator of the Wallander series of books that is only just finding recognition on the international stage. The point being that people are drawn to fiction that is unconventional and is not totally linear in practice, but there is still a big demand for crime fiction.

Further to this both authors went on to describe points in fiction that they find the most important in considering a book to be one to remember. Sophie explained that readers like to learn something whilst indulging in fiction, and she values a really gripping story that has been confidently written. Val concurred, as well as adding the need for investment in a story, caring what the outcome is going to be and having complete engagement with the characters and what happens to them. They briefly discussed balance within crime fiction, since when discussing dark topics such as Sophie Hannah’s subject of cot deaths in her next book, there always needs to be moments of light-heartedness in order to bring the reader back from the brink and changes of pace that allow a reader to breath a sigh of relief after particularly tense moments. Val added that as women they write about people that have a more rounded life, and when engaging with the idea of the victim they don’t want them to come across as cardboard cut outs but place them within a realistic setting that people will believe, and getting the balance in the world they create is a big part of that.

Up and coming ventures steered the next portion of discussion, starting with Sophie explaining that her third book (whose title she didn’t mention but I’m sure die hard fans will be screaming this at the screen) is currently being filmed for TV and will be broadcast in March of next year. She humorously observed the truth about actors, describing them as people that ‘prowl round with desperate insecurity all over their faces’.

She described read-through sessions as being in a ‘room of people paid to pretend what I made up’, with Val adding that they are indeed fascinating but is still likened to watching paint dry. With this she considerately advised that if you are ever in that position you should arrive as close to lunchtime as possible.

Val described her latest book as simply being ‘chock full of lesbians’ and that it worked better that way as there weren’t too many sexual identities getting in the way of a triangle of truth, lies and love, that framed the whole story. She got her inspiration from a recent wedding in Oxford and decided instantly that if she had it her way, ‘the bridegroom had to be dead by bedtime’. Who knew sinister crime writers were also hilarious? Must be something to do with the balance; if you write about dark stuff you end up with a dry sense of humour.

Then came time for the question of the night, do men or women make better crime writers? I did already feel the answer to this was going to be biased, but the reasoning was definitely sound. Val explained that men write much more linear crime that is a superb read, especially for men (softening the blow). However, women, being more convoluted and devious (I can agree with that…) end up writing more convincing crime given that they are brought up being taught that you won’t get anything in life with directness and that they are convinced they are the victims who need to be protected by men. This leads to women writing about fear and violence from the inside, such as being haunted by the steps behind them on a dark night and the feelings that emerge within that sense of fear. Sophie added that Male authors tend to involve major organisations such as FBI or characters being on the run from the mob, that end up making a book impersonal and uninteresting. I can definitely see her point although the inclusion of these in fiction adds a dramatic element to a book that heightens the tension so the sacrifice can be justified in some circumstances.

Val finished the question with an anecdote about a story a librarian once told her. She explained that the librarian once noticed a woman getting out 6 crime novels every week for a long time until dramatically changing her selection to 6 romance novels. The librarian asked why she would change her selection so drastically and the woman replied, ‘because my husband has just died I don’t have to fantasise about killing him now’.

After answering intriguing questions on the limits in crime writing, corresponding with criminals, the pressure for Val to write about lesbians and male or female killers within fiction, both authors thanked the audience and provided them with a book signing at the end of the discussion for fans to meet them. One of the volunteers, Sue Battrick, also got her shirt traditionally signed after getting it signed the year before.

After an intriguing evening and a trip back through the dark forest, I was left content with the inner workings of a crime writer and where to find my inspiration within the genre for my own reading. I was still left with the quandary of how writers who come up with such dark material can come out with so many jokes. They must have been either finding ‘the right balance’ or be sick in the head. I hope it was a little of both.

by Rob Bester

Rob is a freelance writer based in Manchester, currently studying an MA in Creative Writing at MMU. He spends his time writing short stories, a crime novel based in Manchester, material for a local student magazine, blogging at freshscribble and taking many trains in between.

Sophie Hannah hopes Kirstie and Phil would approve!

Next in our series of Q & As with writers who are appearing at this year's MLF is leading psychological crime writer Sophie Hannah, who hails from the not so far away Didsbury.

MLF: What are you reading at the moment?

'The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment' by Isabel Losada. It's the memoir of a woman who sets out to become enlightened and tries everything from 'Find Your Inner Goddess' workshops to colonic irrigation. I bought it because I recently read Elizabeth Gilbert's spiritual memoir 'Eat Pray Love' and absolutely loved it, and so I thought I'd try and read about other people's journeys to enlightenment. When I'm not reading crime fiction, which is my staple diet, I like to read new agey stuff. My favourite ever spiritual enlightenment book is Eckhart Tolle's 'The Power of Now'. I should point out that, personally, I'm not very enlightened - I still enjoy bitching about people I don't like and doing the wrong thing when it suits me - but I find the whole subject of enlightenment fascinating.

MLF: What made you want to be a writer? Who/ what is your biggest inspiration?

SH: Books have always been so important to me as a means of escape from whatever I can't control and/or don't like. When I started university, for example, I hated my course and just didn't want to be there at all, so I 'escaped' by spending as much time as I could immersed in Ruth Rendell's Inspector Wexford mysteries. Quite seriously, without Wexford I'd have dropped out and gone and trained to be a hairdresser. Luckily, I didn't, and so I was still at university when they started a Creative Writing course as part of the English degree, and from that moment on I was fine. But I wanted to be a writer, and still want to be, because I feel that there's hardly anything in the world that's as important as books. As Morrissey once said, 'There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more.' My biggest inspiration is real life - I wander about with my antennae permanently ready to receive, and I constantly see and hear things that inspire me. In terms of other writers, my biggest inspirations so far have been Enid Blyton, Agatha Christie, Ruth Rendell, Nicci French, Tana French and Robert Goddard.

MLF: If you could meet any writer, artist, musician (alive or dead) who would it be and why?

SH: I'd be too scared to meet my idols - the writers or artists that I considered to be legends. Put me in a room with Ruth Rendell and I'd freeze completely, then worry forever that she thought I was an idiot. But, if I could guarantee the meeting would go well, I'd love to meet: Ruth Rendell, Agatha Christie, Eckhart Tolle, M Scott Peck, Jerry Seinfeld - and I'd love it if Phil Spencer and Kirstie Allsopp would come round to my house and tell me whether or not, in their opinion, I bought wisely. I should point out that I've already met my other favourite writers - Nicci French, Tana French, Robert Goddard, Val McDermid and many others.

MLF: What would you be if not a writer?

SH: A singer, or something in alternative/energy medicine

MLF: Do you ever get writer's block? If you do, how do you get over it?

SH: No, never. But I suffer permanently from an associated condition: housekeeper-writer's block. I sit down to write and then can't concentrate because I know a load of clean washing needs to be sorted and put into drawers, or we've run out of Cheerios. If I had a team of staff to run my house (or even a husband who picked up his own socks occasionally), I would write and write and write - I never run out of ideas, and I'm not scared to write something that's imperfect, which I think is what freezes a lot of writers in their tracks. I write something okay-ish and then work on it to make it good - that's always been my tactic. It's too much pressure if you tell yourself it has to be brilliant straight away.

MLF: Which piece of your own work are you most proud of?

SH: My latest novel 'A Room Swept White'. It's a psychological thriller, like my others, but, although it's totally fictional, it's based on and was inspired by cases such as Sally Clark, Angela Cannings and Trupti Patel - women who each lost more than one baby in what they claimed all along were cot deaths, and who were then accused of murder by police and many doctors, on the grounds that (to quote one leading paediatrician) 'One cot death is a tragedy, two is suspicious, three is murder'. This issue of cot death mothers who might or might not be murderers is hugely controversial, and most people who take any interest in it at all have an axe to grind - they see it as a battle between sides, and are either on the side of the mothers or the side of the doctors. I wanted to write a balanced, non-judgemental book about this hugely important subject because it seemed to me that there aren't any bad guys here. The doctors are trying to protect children - although they might get it disastrously wrong sometimes, their intentions are good - and let's face it, a lot of children need protecting. And these women accused of murder are either innocent or have smothered their babies in desperation, often as a result of post-natal depression, or they have serious mental health issues - in either case, I don't think they can be put in the same categories as 'ordinary' murderers. It's interesting that many in the legal profession don't think mothers who smother their infants should ever stand trial in the criminal courts.

MLF: What do you see in your future?

SH: Well, my sixth psychological thriller, 'Lasting Damage' is out next February. Here's the blurb:

It’s 1.15 a.m. Connie Bowskill should be asleep. Instead, she’s logging on to a property website in search of a particular house: 11 Bentley Grove, Cambridge. She knows it’s for sale; she saw the estate agent’s board in the front garden only a few hours ago.

Soon Connie is clicking on the ‘Virtual Tour’ button, keen to see the inside of 11 Bentley Grove and put her mind at rest once and for all. She finds herself looking at a scene from a nightmare: in the living room there’s a woman lying face down in a huge pool of blood. In shock, Connie wakes her husband Kit. But when Kit sits down at the computer to take a look, he sees no dead body, only a pristine beige carpet in a perfectly ordinary room…

Beyond that, I will certainly carry on writing crime novels - and poetry, because I'm also a poet. I'm also working on a couple of ideas for TV series. And my third psychological thriller, 'The Point of Rescue', is being filmed very soon - starring Olivia Williams from 'The Ghost Writer' as Charlie Zailer. It will be broadcast on ITV1 next year. Their intention, assuming enough people watch the first one, is to make a series of all the books a la 'Prime Suspect', so if that happens I will possibly be involved in that too.

MLF: What are you looking forward to most at MLF?

SH: Doing an event with Val McDermid, at the beautiful Whitworth Art Gallery. I love Val's Tony Hill and Carol Jordan novels, and it's a huge honour to be doing an event with her.

You can catch Sophie Hannah and Val McDermid at our Women in Crime Fiction event, Friday 22nd October, 7:30pm at The Whitworh Art Gallery. Tickets are £7/£5 concessions. See you there!

Kirsty Young (Digital Marketing Assistant)