How Dan Brown Does what Others Can’t (or are not allowed to do).

Less than a week after its publication, Dan Brown’s latest oeuvre is already a huge bestseller. It has, of course, attracted a lot of attention and an awful lot of criticism. Some reviewers sneer discreetly, others scorn it openly.

As a writer, I can only sympathize with the author. If I had received reviews such as: “as a stylist Brown gets better and better: where once he was abysmal he is now just very poor.” (The Telegraph), or: “it’s all twaddle” (The Daily Mail), I would stick my head in the proverbial oven and decided to write no more.

In addition, it is said that Brown’s writing is poor, breaks many rules when it comes to plot and structure, his research is bad and his prose often long winded. Stuff that most other writers could never get away with.

Similar things have been said about other bestsellers, such as Fifty Shades of Grey and many more. Those books that just run away and sell and sell and sell, leaving other writers far behind, scratching their heads, wondering WHAT is the secret? How can such bad writing have such enormous popular appeal?

It’s all very well and oh-so-easy to say that the general reading public is stupid, that readers don’t actually know what good writing IS. But that is not really the crux of the dilemma. Or the real story about the story.

Writing is a little bit like cooking. Put in the right ingredients, make it taste really good, and you have a product people want. The cake might be a bit wobbly, fall apart in your hands or could be a little burnt at the edges but if it tastes delicious, you’ll want to eat more and more and more. It’s not in the way you cook it, it’s how  the ingredients appeal to the public that counts.

In this way, if you spin a good yarn, be it badly written and the historical facts a little off, people will still want to read it. In fact, generally,most  people have quite a sketchy idea about history, art and religion, so the nitty-gritty of historical accuracy is of no importance.

In Dan Brown’s case, he hit the jackpot with the Da Vinci Code.  He was very clever in creating a plot centered around they mystery of Christ, a very intriguing subject, throwing mystique and sorcery and alchemy and all kinds of taboo subjects into the story, which appeal to the masses.

Plus, setting Da Vinci in Paris and Inferno in Florence, among ancient buildings and artifacts  was another clever idea. Add a soap opera ingredient and, voilà; you have  everything that could possibly appeal to the millions.

My dad, a great intellectual and an avid reader, picked up The Da Vinci Code, read a bit of it and threw it against the wall. I picked it up and started reading. He then asked me to tell him what happened in the end.

Writers may scream and shout, point out all the flaws, laugh sarcastically and then cry in their beer about how another author writes a good story very badly and then rakes in millions.

The bottom line: Brown knows how to hook people with a story. And THAT’S the trick!

Why self Publishing is Perfect for Me

I’m impatient, pushy, short tempered and a high maintenance woman. And those are my good points… Oh, and I forgot to say ‘control freak’…

As a published author, I’ve had several agents. If an agent/author relationship is like a marriage, I’ve been married and divorced three times. And all those divorces were my own doing.

But my last agent ( yes, he will truly be my last) and I parted on very friendly terms, so I don’t count that as a ‘divorce’, more like waving goodbye to a dear friend who had my best interests at heart and busted his gut to get me a book deal. He nearly succeeded several times. And was even more upset than me when the deals fell through. Held my hand when I was so devastated. Encouraged me to keep writing.

He was also instrumental in my discovery of the self-publishing e-book market that turned out to be such a perfect fit for me. In fact, when he first suggested it, I threw up my hands in horror. “Self publishing?” I cried, “e-books? How could you suggest such a thing?”

Then I looked around. Sniffed  and searched all over the Internet. And discovered that there was a whole new world out there. That other authors were doing very well, some spectacularly so.

I also discovered the fantastic creative freedom self-publishing brings. The camaraderie between self-published authors. The wealth of experience and the generous sharing of tips and knowledge of the craft of writing.

I started self publishing three years ago. Since then, I have learned more about writing than during the previous ten years working with editors at publishing houses. I have learned to format my own books.  I have grown as a writer and found such joy and challenge in being my own boss.

Now that I’m poised to publish my 11th novel, which will be my 7th self publishing experience, I’d like to say a huge thank you to those who have encouraged and helped me get to the place I am now. First of all to that agent, Bill Jeffrey. Then to my writer friends and colleagues. My beta readers, who  go to enormous time and trouble to give me feedback on my work. And finally, most of all my readers who, in their many thousands, keep reading and enjoying my books.

(I might add that self-publishing is a little like going out in only your underwear; scary, chilly but oh-so liberating)

Read an e-book week, amazing offer!

This week, March 3-9, is read an e-book week. To mark this event, I am offering two of my books for free on Smashwords, Virtual Strangers (love and murder in cyberspace) and Duty Free (romantic comedy set in Paris) for free. Click on the links  and use code RW100 to  get your free book. I hope you enjoy them.

 

Two complete strangers meet on a train and agree to off their significant others. Sounds familiar? It should be, it’s ‘Strangers on a Train’. 60 years later, two strangers meet online. A man and a woman – Seabee and Annika – hook up on a wannabe authors’ site where they flirt, banter and play around with the notion of dispatching their equally impossible partners. It’s all a big literary, intertextual joke, until the weekend when both their partners actually do die in what seems to be unrelated freak accidents – or are they? Seabee and Annika find out in a hurry that cyberspace makes strange bedfellows – and if it’s not he nor she who did it – then who has done the killings? The two team up to find out who has hijacked their fantasy and turned it into a bloody real-life.

 

 

As the wife of a successful Irish diplomat, Anna O’Connor moves to Paris, city of her dreams. But the dream starts to turn into a bizarre nightmare when Michael, a drunken, womanising Irish journalist comes to stay. Her unattractive house guest and workaholic husband are driving her to distraction when she meets Juan, a sexy, sophisticated and definitely attractive Spanish diplomat. More than a little smitten, she agrees to deliver a secret letter to a top Irish politician – an act that will cause a scandal, threatening her marriage and her husband’s career. Set in glamorous locations-a ball at the opera, a château in the French countryside and a luxury yacht in the Greek islands-this witty, flirty book romps through some unexpected back corridors of diplomacy on its way to a surprising ending.

Possibly the corniest day of the year- but I love it!

St Valentine’s day… The day of cheap chocolates and roses from the supermarket or petrol station. The day we are all supposed to be romantic and loving. When our partner or spouse simply must get us that little gift and the two of  us will celebrate with a candle lit dinner for two…

I have always balked at the whole thing, thinking it’s just a commercial enterprise for shop owners out there. Hating the idea that you ‘must’ be romantic on a specific day. Always said ‘how corny’, ‘how cheap and tacky’ and ‘I’m not buying into that’. Feeling slightly superior saying all of that.

But…  I have a confession. I’m a romantic. Love romantic movies, books, and music.  Because of that I have been hurt when my romantic feelings were not reciprocated. When someone used romance for fun to play with me for a while but didn’t really mean it. There are men like that. Men who don’t know the hurt they inflict when they finally show their false, cold heart.  That’s all in the distant past, however. The wounds have healed and it was probably part of those growing pains we all go through.

I had the good fortune to meet, in my distant youth, a very romantic man. Someone who truly cares for me and isn’t afraid to show it. Who always shows his appreciation and never fails to make me happy in some small way or other.  Or in big ways. And, reader, I married him and we’re still married.

My grandmother always said that the most romantic thing in the world  is an old couple, holding hands, supporting each other after many, many years of marriage. I agree with her. Loving someone for the best part of your adult life is truly magic. It makes me feel very lucky, even if he does forget to bring me flowers when he ‘should’.

I’m a romantic.  That’s why I write romantic fiction. I always feel particularly romantic when I’m in the middle of a story. I listen to romantic music while I write to inspire me. Soppy love songs sung by Franks Sinatra or Michael Buble or any of those honey-voiced crooners. Then I’m in another world, the ‘zone’ of my story, forgetting all around me and nearly feeling those kisses, smiling at my character’s whispers of love. It’s a very nice way to experience romance. And I get to choose the hero and make him do whatever I wish.

My love stories aren’t without conflict, however. I also make fun of my characters, putting them into ridiculous, embarrassing situations. I make the protagonists fall in and out of love repeatedly. They have to fight for each other, argue and scream. There’s quite a battle sometimes. A lot of bitchy repartee. Fun one-liners that I love to make up.

One of my own favorites among my books is Villa Caramel.  It’s a romantic comedy set in Saint Tropez, a very romantic setting. I wrote some of it while I was on holiday there, so I was involved the story in more ways than one.

The story: Eva Connolly is elegant, clever and determined to make a brilliant career in the European Commission in Brussels. When her brother offers her a month’s holiday in his luxury villa in St Tropez, she thinks it will be the perfect opportunity to network with all the Eurocrats who spend the summer there, especially the wealthy and influential Lord and lady Bakewell at nearby Villa Caramel. Eva’s husband Dan is also joining her and her beautiful Irish stepdaughters, Maria and Louise, are for once prepared to holiday with their detested stepmother. The interlocking love lives of the three women and the men who are pursuing them – sexy Frenchman Yves, handsome Italian Guido, ambitious Irishman Paul and posh Englishman Mark – lead the reader in a merry dance to a hilarious and unexpected ending. Set in the corridors of power of Brussels, the boutiques of Paris, the islands of the Caribbean and the beaches of St Tropez, this novel is brimming with glamour, intrigue and romance.

Confessions of a snow junkie

I love snow.  But most of all I love the smell in the air just before it starts snowing. And then the flakes start falling, slowly at first, looking like dust or bits of dandruff, coming down from a leaden sky. Then more and more little white flakes, or big, fluffy ones, until the air is a mass of soft, white stars that gently settle on the grass, trees and shrubs, roofs and cars, turning a dreary brown world into winter wonderland. It all makes me feel like a child again and I want to go out there and walk in it, ski in it, or even skate if there is a frozen body of water handy. Call me an addict but I can’t get enough  SNOW.

It was this addiction to snow and my fantasy of becoming snowed in that inspired me to write Fresh Powder. All this, added to my other addiction; skiing, gave me a whole year of snow fantasies while I wrote the novel. It all started with a skiing holiday when there was enough ‘fresh powder’ to satisfy even an incurably addicted snow junkie like me.

  Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

A  few years ago, we were invited to share a chalet with friends and also their friends, who were total strangers to me. It would be large group. I was a little reluctant at first, thinking that sharing accommodation with a lot of people I didn’t know very well might turn out to be less than amusing. I know from experience that you can find out a lot of things about people you think you know when you spend several days in the same house. Being up close and personal with their friends can turn into a nightmare from hell. All of which turned out to be true in one form or another. But the fact that we could ski all day and not see our fellow boarders from early morning until sunset helped matters quite a lot.

On this particular occasion, we were in the chic resort of Courchevel and the chalet was top-notch. So was the chalet staff, the food, the bedrooms, the bathrooms and the masseuse who came every day to help ease the pain of overused muscles. The other skiers were oh so glamorous and the vin chaud break at an alp top bistro greatly enhanced by the sexy French waiters. More used to Scandinavian basics, I found myself rather overwhelmed by all this elegance and I was a little worried that I would have to compete with world class skiers on the slopes. But to my relief, I quickly realised that there was no need to try any Olympic style skiing, as the average tourist was not there for that. Even though the slopes in this area of the Alps are among the best and most challenging in the world, skiing is not really what Courchevel is all about and you can easily fake it, as I described in an earlier post on the subject.

Snow conditions were good but not spectacular and the snow was wearing a bit thin by mid-week, forcing us onto the upper slopes and more difficult skiing conditions. Then it began to snow. And snow. And snow. There was so much snow that the lift operators had to dig out the chairlifts every twenty minutes. Some of the lifts had to close and the avalanche risk was at the top end of the scale. The controlled explosions to shift the huge amounts of snow from the mountainside woke us up every morning. On the fifth day, most of the lifts had closed and it looked as if we would be snowed into the chalet. This made everyone except me very glum and bad tempered. The very idea of not having all that luxury on tap seemed to some on a par with the threat of a third world war.

It didn’t happen but the morning it stopped snowing, I looked at the people around the breakfast table and thought- what would happen if we got snowed in? If we had no electricity, water, food, television, mobile phones or internet? If Mrs X couldn’t wash her hair, as she did every day and Mr X lost contact with his office in London? What if we ran out of wine and couldn’t even get outside? Who would take charge? Who would crack first? Who would eat whom? It would have been interesting to watch the glitzy façades begin to crack and the real personas reveal themselves. The possibilities were endless and my imagination was hopping with plots, characters and relationships. To my disappointment, the chalet never got snowed in but I had enough material to make it happen fictionally.

As the snow stopped falling and things turned back to normal again, the beginnings of a story was taking shape in my over productive mind. As my fellow guests chatted over their breakfast croissants and made plans for a last glass of champagne at some trendy bar, I looked at them and made them into characters in my story. I didn’t use all of my impressions in the end but, like most authors, combined the elements of several people into one person that would feature in my book. A few months later, I started the first draft of what was to become one of my most successful novels to date, Fresh Powder.

The story as it turned out in the end:

 Claire Dillon is spending two weeks in the French Alps with her charge, six year old Emilie, whose father, Frenchman Bernard Marchand, owns a chalet in Courchevel. Bernard has asked Claire to take his daughter there to recover form a serious illness, explaining to Claire that the chalet party will also include some of his business associates. One of them turns out to be Lucy, her childhood friend with whom she fell out ten years earlier after a bitter row.

Lucy, who has made a brilliant career in advertising, was expecting the holiday of a lifetime with her boss, New York businessman Al Freeman and his wife Penny. She is as shocked as Claire when they meet again. The presence of Patrick Delacy, Al’s lawyer, with whom she has had a brief affair, ads to Lucy’s discomfort.

A luxury chalet in the French Alps. Six people thrown together by accident. And then it begins to snow…

Fresh Powder has just been published in German with the title Frischer Schnee

Susanne O’Leary: Frischer Schnee

Susanne O’Leary: Frischer Schnee.

The Cornflakes that Turned Into Gold- Interview with Roisin Meaney

Today I am thrilled to welcome bestselling Irish novelist Roisin Meaney, acclaimed and much loved author of women’s fiction.

Roisin discovered the power of words when, at the age of 18, she entered a competition she found on the back of a packet of cornflakes. She wrote the winning slogan and won a Ford Fiesta. She then entered every competition she came across that required a slogan and won again and again, from holidays and mountain bikes to air miles and watches. This could in itself have been a career but Roisin was more serious than that, so she became a teacher.

Not finding the fulfillment she wanted in the classroom, Roisin then went on to work in advertising in London, where writing slogans was very much part of her everyday occupation. She found she was good at this, making anything from butter to teabags sexy and appealing. She briefly flirted with writing at this stage and put together a children’s book but after many rejections, gave up on the idea and decided to go back to Ireland and her teaching career.

It was during this time that the urge to try her hand at writing adult fiction became increasingly stronger. When she won a trip to San Francisco (another winning slogan)  where her brother lived, she decided to take a year off to write her first novel.  This turned out to be The Daisy Picker, which earned her a two book deal and the rest is Roisin’s ongoing history.

Eleven years, eight adult novels and two children’s books later,  she is now a full time author. Some of her books have been translated to several languages and two of them have been published in the US. In her owns words, here is her writing life in a nutshell:

I feel I’m doing what I was put on this earth to do. Starting each new book terrifies and thrills me in equal measure – it’s the hardest and most exciting thing I’ve ever done. When I write, time loses significance. I miss appointments, skip meals, forget to feed the cat or put out the bins. My sleep is seriously disrupted as I tease out a plot or tweak a story line  Because I can’t afford to be less than fully alert when I write I’ve resorted to sleeping pills to get me through the broken nights, and have grown quite fond of warm milk before bedtime. Throughout the process of writing a book I’m extremely focused  I get up in the morning and work at the kitchen table till my brain says stop. I always arm myself with a plot before I start: sometimes it’s quite sketchy and I fill in as I go, and other times it veers seriously off-course and ends up miles away from where I was aiming. I become ridiculously attached to my characters as I write and miss them desperately when the book is finished. I’m devastated if someone I’ve grown attached to dies. I often write through floods of tears.  But really, it’s all good. I wouldn’t change a thing. I love being a writer. I get beautiful messages from happy readers. Truly, I am one of the lucky ones.

I asked some of her readers what they would like to know about Roisin and her writing and here are the questions:

Q: What’s it like having books published in the States. Has it made a big difference to your career?

A: Not a whole lot, to be honest. I was thrilled to hear a US publisher was interested in publishing one of my books, and since then they’ve taken another, but apart from those two books being on US bookstore shelves, life has continued pretty much as before! Apparently they’ve sold pretty respectably, and my royalty payments have improved a little as a result (and I’ve got some lovely messages on my website from American and Canadian readers) but apart from that, no change.

Q: Have you got a favourite out of all your books?

A: Um, very hard to say, but if I was tortured until I caved, I’d probably say it’s a tie between Half Seven on a Thursday and One Summer. I loved writing both of those, got totally emotionally involved with the characters, and hated letting them go at the end. Mind you, I feel that way about all the books, but I think slightly more with these two, for some reason.

Q: I would like to know how you keep the thread of your stories when you’re writing, they interweave beautifully and you can see when you look back the relationships developing.

A: The answer to this one is: with a lot of difficulty! I’m not sure how it came about, but somehow my last few books featured a huge cast of characters (in fact, my US editor asked that I cut a few out of The Things We Do for Love, which as you can imagine was no mean feat.) So invariably I tear my hair out regularly as I write, trying to keep track of where everyone is, and what they’re up to. It’s great when it eventually comes together, but I can assure you a lot of blood, sweat and tears is involved…..by contrast, my next book, which is due out in the spring, has just two main characters, with everyone else very much in the background – a very pleasant change, and a lot less hair got torn out!

Q: How do you set the story out to write….for example do you map it out roughly with stick it notes, or just rough notes written to refer to occasionally…do you know the complete plot when you start or does it evolve as you goes along? When you are writing, does the line of the story change often from the line you had first intended? How long does it take you to write a full book (excluding editing etc), and what time per day is devoted to just writing? Do you ever suffer a block where you just sit and nothing comes to mind to write? Do you write the whole story first then go back and edit or do you edit as you go along like Ken Follett has said he does?

A: Before I begin a book I plot it loosely. I deliberately keep it broad and general, because I like to flesh it out as I go, but I always have an ending in sight – having said that, the ending can and does change sometimes. I keep track of the progress as I go in the form of an overview document that sits side by side on my computer screen with the narrative, and in this document I list every scene, the pages they occupy and a summary of what happens, as in ‘p45-48: Nell and Tim argue about living in the room beside the salon’. It sounds tedious but it’s so automatic with me now that it doesn’t cost me a thought, and it’s invaluable if I need to check back on something, or have to tweak something to tie in with a later change. A first draft takes on average six months, and from start to finish a book would probably take up the best part of a year. When I’m in the middle of a book I sit down with it as soon as I finish breakfast and work away until my brain begins to scramble, usually between 6 and 8 hours. I don’t take weekends off as such, but if something comes up and I need to be away from it for a day it doesn’t faze me. Similarly, if I find I’m having a slow day, where not much creativity is happening, I’ll leave it and go back the next day. So far I’ve met my deadlines. When I’m in the mood, and it’s going well, I can get a lot written in a relatively short space of time, so it gives me a bit of leeway for the things that get in the way. I edit as I go, in the sense that before I begin a day’s writing I generally reread what I’ve written the day before and tweak it a bit, and when I come to the end of a draft I’ll go back to page one and go through the entire manuscript again, tightening and polishing as I go. I like to have my drafts as good as they can be before sending them off.

Q: How do you challenge yourself and your writing skills with each new book? How would you say your writing has developed since you wrote your very first novel (which won the competition)?

A: I think, and sincerely hope, that with each book I develop a little as a writer – partly going on the ‘practice makes perfect’ principle and partly because with each rewrite of a book (following my editor’s recommendations) I feel I learn a little more about what not to do, or what to try and avoid in the next book. I think my first book was very much a learner book – when I open it now (which I try to avoid doing) I cringe at the overwriting. I said much more than needed to be said. Maybe that’s the biggest thing I’ve learnt – not to tell the reader everything, to let her figure it out for herself.  I try to show rather than tell, and to leave a little unsaid.

Q: What would you say is the most challenging and difficult aspect of creating a novel that works?

A: Creating believable characters. If you can do that, I think they’ll help to give you story lines  I spend a long time getting to know my characters before I begin a book – I give them faces and backgrounds and personalities and families. I can’t write about people I don’t know. My characters come first, always have.

Q: How do you feel about this special ability you have to touch so many people’s lives?

A: It’s lovely to feel that something I write might brighten someone’s day – I’m humbled and delighted when I get a message in my guestbook from readers who take the time to let me know that they liked one of my books. I feel grateful to have been gifted with the ability to write stories that please, and I live in hope that I can continue to do it for a long time to come.

Many thanks to Roisin for this interesting interview. You can find out more about her and her books on her website