Monday 12 August 2013

Special Guest: Charlaine Harris review



This was my husband’s favourite event of the Festival as he loves True Blood.  Charlaine Harris’ novels are described as deep-fried Southern gothic and Charlaine admitted that she always wanted to be a writer, as she is not good at anything else!  She was influenced by Ruth Rendell at an early age and Elizabeth Peters – humour with excellence. 

Charlaine wrote her first book and sold it easily – she doesn’t think this would happen today because the market is more competitive and luck played a part in the beginning.  She had the genesis elements of the mystery and knew she could write one.  The story and character formed in her mind and the first book is a really scary, short book.  She wrote a second standalone book then took five years out to have babes, then she started another book and got pregnant and the book and baby arrived at the same time.  A friend of hers was a fellow writer and so she got their agent because he was looking for more authors.

She believes a writer has to challenge themselves all the time and when she wrote short stories, she found it more difficult but anthologies sharpened her editing.

When she was 50 she decided to improve her readership by pulling in sci-fi, sex scenes, great adventures and humour.  She had to decide why a woman would date a vampire, so she thought she had to have a disability, i.e. telepathic.  She knew what Sookie looked like, a short Barbie doll, but she tries to do the right thing – she is loyal and has a spiritual life – the ethical challenge of what is the greater good?  She has a strong moral code and is Christian, the supernatural elements are to entertain, but the morality is still in.

Bill was easy as a character because he is a civil war veteran and Sookie’s South is the South of the past.  Charlaine researched the regiments he would have been in and there was a Compton in it!  She needed a foil for him like a bad boss and she believes she is riffing off Anne Rice, but she took the North part of Louisiana.  She once got an email from her saying she loves the books and Charlaine sees this as proof she is cool!

The thirteenth Sookie Stackhouse novel is the last and she felt a heavy responsibility to her readers to deliver the best story she can.  People bring their own perspectives to it, but she put a lot of signs to the ending in the books and it ended the way she wanted it to end, but readers were angry.  She has had letters cursing her and her family (some in Spanish) and due to the anonymity of the internet, she feels people say things they would never say face to face.  She has had some apologies after she had death threats but she says it is hard to appreciate the good side when she is inundated with the bad.

Charlaine explained that the TV series came about when the option on her books was about to lapse.  Three others came in and her agent talked to all three, but she was so impressed with Alan Ball’s body of work (and he’s Southern too) with its mix of tragedy and comedy.  He had another vision of the stories for TV as the books are in first person, which wouldn’t work on TV.  Because of the programme, she gets to go to Hollywood and walk on red carpets, premieres, interviews; she finds it weird and wonderful.

She has never been interested in writing screenplays, but now she is writing a set of graphic novels, the first of which is out in January, Cemetery Girl, in collaboration and Don Kremer is doing the pictures.  Her working day is mornings, 2/3 hours in an afternoon but quit at 3/4.  She has a lot of time taken up with business now, i.e. queries about foreign rights. 

In October there is to be a book entitled After Dead with an alphabetical listing of all the characters with photo’s telling you about what happens to everyone after the books are over.  Then there will be a new series, the first of which will be Midnight Crossroad, with a mystical pawn shop at a crossroads in Texas, which is due to come out next May.

She only feels the fame when she goes to public things – it is like having a split personality, it can be fun every now and again.

Charlaine thinks fan fiction is very interesting and thinks it can help you find out what kind of writer you are, e.g. NaNo tales, 500 word short stories, a story every day for a year.  In regards to her Harper Connolly novels, she has to have a great idea for her to write another, but there are three TV offers on them and there will be no more Lily Barr stories as she is done with those.  Charlaine identifies the most with Aurora as she’s based the template on herself, although there is something about her in all her characters, which should scare you!  She appals herself, but never scares herself when she writes.  She finds it hard to write a sex scene – how do you know if you have nailed it?  She advises just make it real good.  She writes one sex scene per book on average and they require a lot of thinking through to ensure they are not ludicrous – if it’s not, then you’ve done okay.

Her first book was published in 1981, there are fewer publishing houses and enormous digital and cosy writing (conventional stories without sex and violence) has a smaller niche.

Of her characters, Pam is her favourite as she is ruthless and has no conscience, with no Christian references like the fairies.  The most horrible things you can think of, you can do to your character.

She used Karin Slaughter in her book because she won the bid to be in the book; the slaughterer.  She thought of two scenes that she could not put in her Sookie novels, one was too nasty and one would sour people towards Bill forever – Sookie adding on a calculator how many people he has killed.

She believes Anna is a good Sookie, but no-one could match the people living in her head.  Andy Belfleur is perfect though.  It had been suggested that Rene Zellweger play Sookie, but she is glad it worked out the way it did as Anna met her husband on set and now they have twins.  Charlaine feels that Sookie sounds angrier in the audio books than in her novels.

Charlaine doesn’t have to work any longer, but she has to write, she needs it to hold her down and structure her day.  She revealed that if she could be one of her characters, she would choose to be a were-dog, because dogs have a pretty good life.

 

I can highly recommend the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival and I will definitely be attending next year.


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