Crime writers aim to produce a bestseller in an hour
Crime writers aim to produce a bestseller in an hour
Most bestsellers are the result of much desk-bound sweat and tears following days, months and even years of painstaking research.
But can one be knocked up in an hour?
That’s the question to be posed at the forthcoming Books on Tyne festival by the Northern Crime Syndicate.
Their event, posing another question, is called Whose Crime is it Anyway?
The syndicate, incidentally, isn’t a gang of balaclava-wearing crims topping every police force’s ‘most wanted’ list. They’re crime writers, by definition pretty good at solving crimes they’ve invented themselves.
But at this improv-style session they’ll be soliciting the audience’s help in fashioning the perfect crime – which in publishing terms means one that will top the bestseller lists rather than go forever unnoticed.
The gang of six has made this literary crime-fest pay before, as a hit at writing events around the country.
They are Trevor Wood, Robert Rutherford, Jude O’Reilly, Fiona Erskine, Rob Parker and Chris McGeorge and they came together in 2020 to support each other’s work.
Covid having thwarted their initial touring plans, they went online and offered a series of events for readers, of which this was one.
It was the brainchild of Rob Parker who had used improvisation in schools to get children interested in storytelling.
It turned out that adults like the process too.
Bravely, the gang invite audience members to make suggestions about characters, plot, victims and murder weapons – “no matter how bizarre they may be!”
Out of the madness and hilarity will come, they hope, something of which Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and other maestros of the crime writing genre would have been proud to call their own.
The show will be performed at the Lit & Phil, Newcastle, on Friday, November 29 at 7pm. Tickets and information here.
Rob Parker, Robert Rutherford, Trevor Wood and Fiona Erskine will also be appearing at Newcastle Noir in December alongside others including Ann Cleeves, Mari Hannah, Jane Casey and Louise Candlish. See details here.