BEST OF CRIME with Anne Coates

Welcome to my latest BEST OF CRIME feature, looking at crime writers' top picks, from their favourite author and fictional detective to their best writing tip. 

Today I'm delighted to welcome 

Anne Coates

for her Death's Silent Judgement blog tour

to share her BEST OF CRIME ... 

... AUTHORS

Patricia Highsmith for, among other works, The Talented Mr Ripley because I love an amoral protagonist and her writing is brilliant. 

... FILMS/MOVIES

Always enjoy a good British crime film so depending on my mood, my favourite is The Long Good Friday with Bob Hoskins or 10 Rillington Place with Richard Attenborough playing the serial killer John Christie. Both actors give fascinating portrayals of evil. 

... TV DRAMAS

So many brilliant dramas to choose from! I am glad the third series of Broadchurch made up for the blip of its predecessor but for real OMG moments it has to be Line of Duty. I love the way characters you thought were going to be essential to the narrative are killed off in such dramatic ways and I don’t mind having to suspend disbelief at times when the acting is pitch perfect. However Happy Valley and the Unforgotten take the accolade for their superlative female leads. 

... FICTIONAL KILLERS

Without doubt Hannibal Lecter. His character in Silence of the Lambs is bad enough but just reading the sequel, which is a masterpiece in understatement, gave me horrific nightmares. I had to stop reading it at nighttime. I don’t think any other killer has terrified me more. 

... FICTIONAL DETECTIVES

Has to be my beloved Morse. When Colin Dexter died in March I reread The Remorseful Day. Sublime. 

... MURDER WEAPONS

I had to think about this and the following question. I like the idea of some mundane everyday item put to grisly use. However water is one which holds the most terror for me. Just the thought of being held under water… 

    

... DEATH SCENES

This is a bit of a cheat really – not a death scene but a transformation in The Witches by Roald Dahl. When the Grand High Witch administers a potion that turns the young boy narrator into a rat, there is no antidote and the rest of his life (presumably much shorter thank a human one) must be lived out as a rodent.

... BLOGS/WEBSITES

I use Google images a lot. In Death’s Silent Judgement I found pictures of the Bull Ring at Waterloo, which housed Cardboard City. I used to walk through there years ago but didn’t have the foresight to take my own photos then. I check out popular names for the year a character was born in on the Office for National Statistics and Google dates then follow links to newspaper articles if I’m searching for something specific. 

... WRITING TIPS

Get words on the page. It helps me to strive for a daily word count that is achievable then anything more is pure bonus. My first drafts are like a skeleton that’s been assembled in a dark room – an arm where a leg should be, toes coming out of the skull and so on. But at least I have something to work with. Don’t be intimidated by what other writers say or do. Follow your own path and also read, read, read and not just crime books. And try not to compare yourself with what other people are doing/achieving. (I constantly need to remind myself of that last point!) 

... WRITING SNACKS

Not writing snacks rather snacking pauses. On a good day it’s fruit and nuts but there are lots of chocolate days…

About ANNE COATES

Anne’s latest book, Death’s Silent Judgement (the second Hannah Weybridge thriller) is just published by Urbane Publications. She is also the author of two collections of short stories and seven non-fiction books and works as a book editor.

Her freelance journalism has taken her to gas rigs on the North Sea, from a financial fraud department to interviewing Glenda Jackson when an MP with lots of writing about health and parenting in between.

Find Anne Coates on her website, FB page and on Twitter - @Anne_Coates1

About DEATH'S SILENT JUDGEMENT

Publisher's description

Following the deadly events of Dancers in the Wind, freelance journalist and single mother Hannah Weybridge is thrown into the heart of a horrific murder investigation when a friend, Liz Rayman, is found with her throat slashed at her dental practice.

With few clues to the apparently motiveless crime Hannah throws herself into discovering the reason for her friend's brutal murder, and is determined to unmask the killer. But before long Hannah's investigations place her in mortal danger, her hunt for the truth placing her in the path of a remorseless killer...

Death's Silent Judgement was published by Urbane Publications on 11 May 2017.

Look out for more BEST OF CRIME features coming soon.

Click here to read more BEST OF CRIME features.

Follow the Blog Tour

Creating Characters by Anne Coates - BLOG TOUR

I am delighted to welcome Anne Coates to my blog today for her Dancers in the Wind blog tour to talk about creating characters. Dancers in the Wind is being published by Urbane TODAY (13th October 2016).

Creating characters

By Anne Coates

A few years ago I went to the funeral of a good friend’s mother and knew it was probable that my older self would confront the boyfriend of my teenage years as he is my friend’s cousin. In the chapel, I looked around but couldn’t see anyone vaguely resembling the eighteen year old I went out with. Then a man a few rows in front of me touched his hair in such a way that immediately I knew it was him.

This is something that I observe in people – the physical actions that give them away. Even if they were heavily disguised as they might be, especially in crime fiction. Many people are recognised by their walk alone and this is something I’m very aware of when creating characters.  And, of course, my friends offer me (perhaps unknowingly) valuable quirks and traits that I can appropriate.

For Dancers in the Wind the first three characters emerged from an interview I conducted for the News of the World colour supplement.  Those three real people were transformed, rewritten and (hopefully) fictionalised out of all recognition. I have covered my relationship to Hannah, the journalist, in Hannah and Me (insert link). The other two – the prostitute and the police officer – ceased to be interviewees and became my creations. From that trio I formed the world they inhabited with colleagues, family, friends ­– and enemies.

For me the joy of creating a cast list hits a peak when the characters take over and reveal different facets of their personalities that I hadn’t thought of before. Sometimes I wake in the middle of the night with an insight, a nudge from a character and quickly make a note so all is not lost in the morning light.

Creating characters is a bit like trying out a new cookery recipe – adding a pinch of spice here, a teaspoon of malice there, so many grams of violence, whipping up a soufflé of emotions… and it’s fun. But sometimes it’s downright scary. My nasty characters terrify me.

Names play an important part. I love how Dickens uses names as a comment on a character’s personality or calling. Mr Gradgrind immediately comes to mind as do Scrooge and Uriah Heap. At times when I’m writing, a character emerges with a name, however usually I check the most popular names for the year the character was born especially as my first two books are set in the 90s. Nothing is more irritating than someone being named after a celebrity who didn’t exist then!

One mistake I made – though not a heinous sin – was calling a baby after a friend’s now grown up son. When I mentioned this to his brother, he was insistent that he should also appear as a character. And he does, in Death’s Silent Judgement but I won’t give any spoilers.

I also study photographs. both those I have taken and from searches on the internet, as a good way of creating a character’s physical appearance. Similarly I watch people when I am travelling on buses or trains. I may have a book open in front of me but the chances are I’m sizing up another passenger, and listening to conversations going on around me. How a character speaks is fundamental and part of their personality. Dialogue is a great way of revealing more about a character.

As I am now pondering the third book in the trilogy, some characters who have been “sleepers” in books one and two are coming to the fore. For them it’s time to take centre stage when the curtain rises and the spotlight shines on them.

About Anne Coates

After reading for a degree in English and French, Anne came to London to begin her career and never left. Having worked for various publishers, she moved to magazine journalism before becoming a freelance writer, editor and translator. Her first non-fiction books were written after the birth of her daughter Olivia and some have been inspired by her or various stages in her life. 

Anne also writes short stories which have appeared in magazines including Bella and Candis as well as prize-winning flash fiction, and is the author of seven non-fiction books. She is the founder and editor of Parenting Without Tears, a website for families with children from birth to teens.

Find Anne through her website and on Twitter - @Anne_Coates1

Dancers in the Wind

Published by Urbane (13 October 2016)

ISBN: 978-1911129639

Publisher's description

SHE IS HUNTING FOR THE TRUTH, BUT WHO IS HUNTING HER? Freelance journalist and single mother Hannah Weybridge is commissioned by a national newspaper to write an investigative article on the notorious red light district in Kings Cross. There she meets prostitute Princess, and police inspector in the vice squad, Tom Jordan. When Princess later arrives on her doorstep beaten up so badly she is barely recognisable, Hannah has to make some tough decisions and is drawn ever deeper into the world of deceit and violence. Three sex workers are murdered, their deaths covered up in a media blackout, and Hannah herself is under threat. As she comes to realise that the taste for vice reaches into the higher echelons of the great and the good, Hannah realises she must do everything in her power to expose the truth .... and stay alive.