For me this was one of those ‘I’ll probably kick myself if I don’t go and see what it’s like’ kind of events.

It meant the best part of a Sunday away from the family, an afternoon fighting my way to Olympia on various forms of public transport – the railways conspiring against me to arrange engineering works on all my direct routes into town – it also meant getting soaked in our glorious British weather.

But the evening I made the decision to tap my credit card details into the order form for my ticket, I had a feeling this would be a good thing to do – and, I’m pleased to report that I was right.

The event was scheduled as part of the London Book Fair in association with English PEN and the Daily Mail as one of three writing Masterclasses (the other two being Screenwriting for Cinema and Writing for Television). 

The £35.00 ticket price proved to be a very worthwhile investment.  Before entering the hall, everyone was presented with a hardback edition of Sleepyhead – Mark Billingham’s first Tom Thorne novel and a paperback edition of a Minette Walters novel of their choice, plus a pack of notes and the latest copy of Ink magazine.

The discussion was chaired by Peter Gutteridge, author and crime fiction critic of the Observer, and a fine job he did of keeping the conversation flowing and the event within its three defined sections.

The first section took the shape of a Q&A between Gutteridge and the two tutors chosen for the event, Mark Billingham and Minette Walters – during which probably no more than a handful of questions were actually asked, with the remainder of the time taken up with interesting tales, anecdotes and advice from both authors.  Minette spoke of her years of being a volunteer prison visitor and how one visit in particular helped her pin down exactly how the character of Olive Martin should be realised on the page in, perhaps her best-known novel, The Sculptress.  She was full of encouragement for young, as she put it, ‘about-to-be’ writers rather than ‘wannabes’, and described how she wakes up thrilled each morning at the thought of returning to the novel in hand.

Mark Billingham, whose fourth novel in the excellent Tom Thorne series, The Burning Girl, is due out in a few months, is a stand-up comic as well as a crime writer and this clearly helps him in feel more than at ease at this sort of event.  When Minette mentioned how she was thrilled each morning, Mark asked that she call him as it had been a while since he’d woken feeling like that!

They spoke of their writing techniques and differences in their style.

Whereas Mark has written four novels now with a series character, Minette’s novels are all stand-alone books.  There were clearly advantages and disadvantages to both styles – the series novels gather a regular loyal readership, but mean that anyone picking up a book in the middle of a series from the bestseller list in their local bookstore is likely to be put off their purchase if they haven’t read the previous novels.  The plus side of the stand-alone novel is that there are no limits to subject matter or place and therefore no restrictions in those areas.  Mark spoke of his problem with series novels where the lead character is suddenly transported to a different country or to deal with something that they would not usually be associated with, and said how much it seems to jar when all of a sudden the policeman goes to America, or solves a crime whilst on holiday!  That said, he did assure us that he might do that very thing himself in a future novel if asked to!

Whereas Mark always has the theme and an idea of the ending scene of his novels in his head when he starts out, Minette stated that she preferred the ‘unknown’ route.  This was best described when she said it was like travelling to Glasgow; when you first set out you have hundreds of possible roads to set off on, at the halfway point you have a lot less choices and, as you approach the end of your journey, there is really only one road to follow.

At the halfway point of the afternoon, we were given some work to do ourselves in the 30 minute coffee break, in the form of a writing exercise based on a series of first lines from which we were to pick one and start a story.  First lines included “The body lay in the snow….”, “The gun never wavered…” and “The door was half open…”.

An added incentive was the fact that in amongst the audience were talent spotters from publishing houses and literary agents.  I was amazed at the diversity of results that were read out from the same first lines, and the sheer volume of accomplished work which some of the audience seemed to be able to put together in such a short space of time.

The tutors were both very helpful and constructive in their comments following each reading and, on more than one occasion, asked if they could steal a particular idea! 

Everyone who wanted a few moments to read their work was given the chance to – anyone less than comfortable with public reading, had the added treat of getting one of the published writers on stage reading their piece, provided they could cope with the handwriting!

Following on from the review of our homework, Peter Gutteridge opened the floor to anyone who wanted to ask a question of the authors – anything from how much of a novel you should send to an agent, to whether they thought it possible to write a modern crime story these days without the strong pathology and post-mortem scenes we’ve all become accustomed to.

Again the authors were very helpful and generous with their responses, allowing the section to overrun by ten minutes to take into account the fact that they had been a little late on stage at the beginning.

Upon leaving the auditorium, both Mark Billingham and Minette Walters took up seats outside in the main lobby and were happy to sign the free novels everyone had been issued with on their way in, and to chat more with individuals.  This is where I was given some very good advice from Minette Walters – that our name (for I am also a Walters) is a real bugger, because we’re always shoved at the very bottom of the crime section.  She recommended changing to Billingham to guarantee a shelf space at more like eye-level!

This was an afternoon I am extremely glad I took part in and I would like to thank all involved for their enthusiasm and entertainment. 

It has certainly inspired me to write a lot more in the last week since the event than I achieved in the four proceeding weeks – plus, I’m not kicking myself now.

Keith Walters

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