Interview with Stuart MacBride
BooksfromScotland.com caught up with Stuart MacBride, author of Cold Granite and Dying Light, and asked him about his writing, his home city of Aberdeen and the success of Scottish crime fiction.
How did you get started in crime writing?
By accident -- I'd written a couple of science fiction thrillers (which got HarperCollins interested) and a supernatural one, when my agent suggested I try a straight serial killer novel. So I did. HC asked to see the result and that was it for me -- I'd become a crime writer. Had to have my trousers altered and everything.
Which crime writers do you read and enjoy?
I'm a huge fan of R.D. Wingfield (Touch of Frost) so it was a bizarre experience when he agreed to blurb my second book, and said such nice things about it. Val McDermid is another wonderful writer, and very supportive of new people. Ian Rankin writes some damn fine books as does Mark Billingham. And someone I'm just getting into now is Alan Guthrie (TWO WAY SPLIT), great voice and lovely moral ambiguity. I don't tend to read much when I'm actually writing, so any time between books or edits is spent with my nose in a novel.
Your two novels, Dying Light, and Cold Granite, are largely informed by police procedures: how do you go about doing the research?
I usually have a think about the basic story then ask the police as many questions as I can, hoping it'll be enough to do me for a book. It never is though -- I always end up veering off in unplanned directions and need to do a heap more research I hadn't counted on. So far my police sources have all been official ones, but now I've got two books out I'm working on some unofficial ones too. Which will be fun.
You portray the city of Aberdeen, warts and all, and to be honest, it doesn't come across as a great place to live and work: have you had complaints from locals?
Very few -- a couple about the weather in COLD GRANITE, but not much. I've had a good few emails from ex-pat Aberdonians telling me how homesick the description of the wind and snow made them feel. I think the people who live here see it as an affectionate portrayal of the city: I like Aberdeen and I've lived here most of my life. Even the darker sides of its personality have their appeal. I certainly couldn't have set the books anywhere else.
Do you think Scotland produces grittier crime fiction than other countries? And if so, why do you think this is?
I think there are people producing excellent, gritty crime novels all over the world, but we have people like Ian and Val and they lead the field. It's hard to argue with phenomenally successful talents like that.
A crime novel has yet to win against more literary novels in the usual crop of prizes and awards (Ian Rankin says it's snobbery): what's your opinion on this?
The 'literary' / 'genre' divide is a weird one. What gets classed as 'literary fiction' tends to dominate the big awards, but sells nowhere near as well as books from the 'genre ghetto'. I often get the feeling that slapping the literary label on something is supposed to excuse a complete absence of plot and character. The writing can be as pretty as you like, but if it doesn't actually tell a story, what the hell is the point? You'd be forgiven for thinking literary awards are a kind of compensation for people whose books aren't doing as well as those dirty genre books. Maybe it's inverse snobbery?
Do you like the labels that often get attached to writers and their material, such as Tartan Noir?
It's a marketing thing: people see 'Tartan Noir' they know they're in for something that's Scottish and a bit gritty. Tartan Noir's a very broad church, but if it helps people pick up my books I'm all for it. As long as they don't send me hate mail...
Logan McRae, your main character in the two novels, is a likeable but ordinary policeman who often ends up being quietly heroic in the end: is it fair to say you identify with Logan?
I like Logan as a person. He's about as un-quirky as I could make him -- he's not a loner, or an alcoholic, he's not emotionally distant, or super smart, he's a team player who screws up from time to time, but always does the best he can. Hopefully he's just like the rest of us, only with a much more dangerous job.
Some of the characters come across as being particularly true to life: have you used people from your varied working career in the books?
Not in the first two (well, other than a couple of cameos), there everyone is a figment of my imagination. Book three has more in the way of real people: someone even bid for the chance to be a character in that one, and we raised a good dod of cash for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Plus I've put a couple of friends in different roles, and another crime writer too! That'll teach him...
Can you describe your latest project with aspiring writers in Aberdeen?
Different. The idea was to promote Adult Learners' Week and I'd been expecting a crowd of people wanting to talk about plotting and dialogue, but when I asked the assembled masses only four of them wanted to be writers. Everyone else was there to be entertained, so I had to slant the evening to fit. But we still managed to squeeze in some advice about finding an agent, plotting, pacing and getting published. I'm doing some more workshops later in the year with writers' groups and some schools. They'll be more nuts and bolts, so it'll be a challenge. I may have to drink heavily before, during and after.
Stuart MacBride, thank you.
