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.
#TheakstonsOldPeculierCrimeWritingFestival
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