In Conversation with Elizabeth George

Patty here...

Elizabeth George is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels featuring aristocratic Scotland Yard Inspector Thomas Lynley and his working class partner Barbara Havers. Her books have been nominated for the Macavity and the Edgar and have won the Anthony, the Agatha, France’s Le Grand Prix de Literature Policiere, and Germany’s MIMI award. Her books have been filmed for television by the BBC and can be seen in the United States on PBS’s “Mystery.”

Ms. George agreed to speak with NakedAuthors about her new novel, What Came Before He Shot Her, which was released on October 1, 2006.

Q: In your novel With No One As Witness you did something that few authors have the courage to do. You killed off one of your series characters. What led to your decision? Did you stop in the middle of a chapter and say Helen must die or have you been plotting her demise for a long time?

EG: I had known for quite some time that Helen was going to die, but I wasn't sure what novel it would take place in because I wanted her death to be thematically unified with the rest of the book. As I was writing With No One As Witness I saw that the death would fit into the story well. This plan—to kill off a major character—was an artistic decision. Writing a series instead of writing stand-alone novels requires the author to keep opening up the story of the lives of the continuing characters, not closing down the story of their lives. Killing off Helen Lynley effectively dropped a hand grenade into the characters' lives in that it created a situation in which I can now pick up any one of a number of threads to use in an ongoing story. With Helen alive, I would have been reduced to recounting the story of their growing family, which did not interest me. Helen dead allows me to examine Lynley in extremis and in recovery, which does interest me.

Q: When fans read of Helen’s death many went through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and now, hopefully, acceptance. How does it feel when the prose you write touches readers so deeply?

EG: I've long believed that it's the responsibility of the writer to make the reader feel something. I'm trying to do this with every novel I write. John Steinbeck describes novel-writing as a trinity, which only exists when the writer, the work, and the reader are present together. I subscribe to this philosophy in that I wish to engage the reader's emotions. I wish the reader to care deeply about all of the characters. So the fact that people reacted as they did told me I was successful.

Q: Your books are considered works of psychological suspense. What in your background and/or training compels you to delve so deeply into the human psyche?

EG: I've always been interested in the human psyche and in why people do what they do. I also have a master's degree in counseling, grounded in psychology.

Q: The settings in your novels are as evocative and deeply rendered as your human characters. What is your process for researching the locales in your novels and do you ever use the settings as a metaphor for the crimes committed there?

EG: Getting the setting right is a huge endeavor for me, and I frequently feel as if I haven't done the job I would like to do, especially when I compare what I'm doing with what Martin Cruz Smith does so consistently well in his books. I love novels with evocative settings. I may, however, have to resign myself to being a character writer instead of a setting writer. That said, I appreciate it when someone thinks I've done a good job with setting. My process of researching a setting is to go there and be there: taking photos, walking, taking notes, writing descriptions when I can, speaking into my tape recorder. I try to discover the telling details of a setting and I also try to discover what makes that setting different from other settings. In Cornwall, it's all about the mining industry and the fascinating geology.

Q: How far in advance do you plot your novels? Book to book? Or have you looked into the future and seen where they might end?

EG: When I'm working on an individual novel, I plot out ten scenes at a time, which is generally as far as I can go. I know who the killer is, but I don't always know how my detectives are going to figure it out. I also don't know how the subplots are going to work out until I get into the rough draft. Sometimes I know what the next book is going to be (I was in the lucky position of knowing what the next two novels were going to be when I was writing With No One As Witness) but often I haven't the slightest idea.

Q: Many book titles these days are based on clichés. What is the process you use to come up with your unique titles?

EG: I usually start with a single word that has something to do with the plot, like deception. Then I play around with it in different phrases until I come up with one that makes a statement about the novel and also has a metric flow to it. In my latest book that I'm working on, Careless in Red, I actually used that phrase to describe a character in the character analysis and as soon as I saw it, I knew it was the title of the novel.

Q: You have outlined your unique writing process in the book, Write Away: One Novelist’s Approach to Fiction and the Writing Life. At the beginning of each chapter you include excerpts from your daily journal. In one entry you state: “I received such an outstanding review for Deception on His Mind yesterday that it made me really nervous. Several reviewers have talked about the fact that they can’t wait to read my novels and that they’re a little scared before they read them that I won’t be able to maintain the quality I’ve had in them so far. Gee. They should be on this end of things if they’re feeling scared.” So after writing fourteen Lynley novels, numerous short stories, and a nonfiction book, is the fear still there?

EG: Absolutely. I expect that for any honest writer, the fear is always there. If someone isn't just churning out the same novel over and over again (changing the names to protect the innocent, as it were), then this has to be a scary process. As PD James once said, "When I finish one of these novels, I don't know how I did it and I don't know if I'll ever be able to do it again."

Q: You have long ago passed the stage in your career where you have to do anything but write novels. Why do you continue to teach aspiring authors?

EG: I see that as part of the great tradition of writing in the US. Here we have always passed knowledge of the craft along, which is why writing is alive and well in the US and moribund in some other countries.

Q: I once heard you challenge the notion that authors should write what they know by stating that if you had taken that advice you would be writing about a high school English teacher in Orange County. What is your advice today? What should writers write?

EG: I still adhere to the same philosophy. I believe writers should write about that which excites them. If they're just writing to get published or if they're writing in order to fulfill a reader's expectation, then so frequently their writing lies there inertly, neither engaging nor challenging the reader. People who are writing about something that interests them deeply or that they care about deeply usually turn out wonderful novels. The Constant Gardener is a good example of this. Wonderful book, big passion on the part of the writer, the incomparable John LeCarre.

Q: It’s becoming more and more difficult these days to get published and stay published. What are the qualities that turn a writer into a published author? And what must they then do to sustain a career over the long haul?

EG: At one time I would have said that the qualities of a writer that will get that writer published are talent, passion and discipline. But that was in the days when publishers were interested in sponsoring the career of a writer, which they knew would take some time to get off the ground. Now, however, there seem to be a lot of one-time wonders out there who get published because they have a groovy high concept that has Hollywood written all over it and Massive Sales written all over it as well. The writing is at best sophomoric and at worst ghastly but who cares because the pages keep turning and the pace is fast and people are buying the book like hotcakes because they don't have to think when they're reading it; they just have to go along for the ride. Thus for so many writers, what's required for a onetime publishing experience is a bang-up story that can be reduced to a single sentence, fast pace, and a motion-picture style.

However, this is not to say excellent writing, passion about the process, commitment to stay the course, and discipline do not get a person published because they do. Excellent writing will find a publisher eventually.

Staying the course and making a career out of it...I think this requires an enormous commitment on the part of the artist. The writer has to be willing to suit up and show up at the computer or the typewriter or the legal pad every working day and to stay there until the work gets done. It involves being willing to engage in publicity tours (which are exhausting, let me tell you), listen to criticism from editors, write and rewrite, and continue to challenge yourself and grow.

Q: It seems as if the trend these days for many authors is to take a break between series books and write a stand-alone novel. Have you any plans to do that as well?

EG: I suppose many people will consider What Came Before He Shot Her a stand-alone novel. Right now I have no plans to do another because I have so much else going on.

Q: What is the title of your next Lynley novel and what if anything can you tell your fans about it?

EG: The book I'm working on right now is called Careless in Red and it takes place in Cornwall, in a surfing community. Lynley is featured in it, as is Havers. It takes place several months after Helen's death.

Q: What is the question you've always wanted to be asked in an interview but never have been?

EG: Why is the dachshund your choice of dog? Well, every human companion to a dachshund knows the answer to that!