A non-crime writer’s perspective

Find your inner criminal

I probably shouldn’t tell you this as I have signed the Official Secrets Act, but a couple of years ago I was recruited by MI6 to write a novel which would be used to prop up the cover story of one of their agents posing as a novelist. And I use the word posing advisedly. I think it was this unique lived experience that prompted the editor of Aspects of Crime to ask me to write this column. “Col,” he said. “I’m sick of all these bloody crime writers who have no actual experience of what they write about. I mean, have any of them actually killed anyone? Or even shoplifted a set of pens from Rymans?”
With all due respect to my esteemed editor, his remark betrays a certain lack of understanding of the way we fiction writers work. We live everything that we write about. But we live it in our imaginations. And for many of us, the world of the imagination is more real than the world of so-called reality.
Also, I believe there was at least one famous crime writer, now sadly deceased, who was a murderer. There may be others that we don’t know about. Remember that the next time you’re at the Harrogate Crime Festival. And I should say that I did very nearly walk out of the Muswell Hill branch of Rymans with a notebook I hadn’t paid for, which precipitated a very uncomfortable encounter with the security guard. In my defence, I had a lot on my mind at the time. In fact, I was fairly sure I was being followed by a Russian spy who I suspected wanted to kill me. But that’s a story for another time.
These reflections remind me of the old chestnut that is frequently offered to aspiring writers: Write what you know. I used to think the better advice would be: Write what you don’t know! As the very act of writing leads to knowledge of the thing you’re writing about.
But I have come to realise that write what you know is in fact not just good advice, but essential advice. It is just too narrowly interpreted.
It doesn’t mean that if you have spent your life working in a rubber band factory, all you’re allowed to write about is rubber bands. Or that if you want to write a crime novel you must go out and commit a crime. Rather it means, look inside yourself and find your own truth to write about. In the field of crime writing, find your inner criminal. The truth is, we are all capable of murder. I know I am.

Col Newton is the author of the critically-acclaimed, if commercially underperforming, literary novel Solstice. You can get to know him better by reading Cover Story by R.N. Morris.
we are indebted to Roger for contacting Col Newton and although we couldn’t pin the elusive author to a contract we have got him to agree to write a regular column for us. He is currently working on the next piece.

COVER STORY RN Morris