Murder in the first person
Sep. 27th, 2013 09:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustAnother sign of autumn: it's Book Festival season - in Durham and elsewhere. We'll be going to a few of the Durham Book Festival events, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, and the first of these was last night: two debut crime novelists at the city library. I hadn't entirely registered that both authors are published by Moth Publishing, a new venture, one of the partners in which is New Writing North, the agency who - among other things - programme the Book Festival. Which is maybe a little too cosy for comfort.
Nonetheless, a chance to taste something new. Of the two books, Helen Cadbury's To Catch a Rabbit intrigued me more. I liked her voice, and that her central character was a PCSO (Police Community Support Officer, and therefore not a 'real' police officer, a civilian in uniform: the police reps who come to our residents' meetings are PCSOs). I wasn't moved to buy a copy, though.
There wasn't much time for questions, but one of the few questioners asked: "You've both written your books in third person; did you consider using first person?" Neither had, though one (I don't now remember which) had written partly in first. The moderator commented that it would surely be difficult to write a murder mystery in first person, and could anyone think of a crime book in the first person - and immediately![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
durham_rambler whispered to me: "Shelter" which is true, and a fine book and a good illustration of how it's done. I whispered back to him that surely one of the best known voices in crime fiction is that of Chandler's Philip Marlowe...
Which is why, when the session was breaking up, and the questioner was working his way round the audience, handing out cards about his book -
What? Yes, of course he'd written a book. I'd thought, as soon as he'd asked the question, that this was not just a writer's question but actually an aspiring writer's question, the result of a creative writing class approach to the nuts and bolts of writing. Possibly my prejudices are showing here. Anyway, he had written a book, and self published it, and was working his way round the audience, promoting it.
When he reached us,durham_rambler said: "Philip Marlowe."
"Pleased to meet you."
"No, I meant, the Philip Marlowe books are first person."
"Oh, I haven't read any of his..."
Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools!
Nonetheless, a chance to taste something new. Of the two books, Helen Cadbury's To Catch a Rabbit intrigued me more. I liked her voice, and that her central character was a PCSO (Police Community Support Officer, and therefore not a 'real' police officer, a civilian in uniform: the police reps who come to our residents' meetings are PCSOs). I wasn't moved to buy a copy, though.
There wasn't much time for questions, but one of the few questioners asked: "You've both written your books in third person; did you consider using first person?" Neither had, though one (I don't now remember which) had written partly in first. The moderator commented that it would surely be difficult to write a murder mystery in first person, and could anyone think of a crime book in the first person - and immediately
durham_rambler whispered to me: "Shelter" which is true, and a fine book and a good illustration of how it's done. I whispered back to him that surely one of the best known voices in crime fiction is that of Chandler's Philip Marlowe...Which is why, when the session was breaking up, and the questioner was working his way round the audience, handing out cards about his book -
What? Yes, of course he'd written a book. I'd thought, as soon as he'd asked the question, that this was not just a writer's question but actually an aspiring writer's question, the result of a creative writing class approach to the nuts and bolts of writing. Possibly my prejudices are showing here. Anyway, he had written a book, and self published it, and was working his way round the audience, promoting it.
When he reached us,
durham_rambler said: "Philip Marlowe.""Pleased to meet you."
"No, I meant, the Philip Marlowe books are first person."
"Oh, I haven't read any of his..."
Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools!
