DEBORAH CROMBIE: Oh, what a treat today, when nothing could suit me better than a good
STEPHEN BOOTH: Thank you for hosting
me on Jungle Red Writers!
One of the
fascinations of writing a long-running series is the complicated relationship that
develops between fiction and reality.
There’s a kind of
magic that happens in a reader’s imagination, isn’t there? When we’re completely
gripped by a novel, we can become so absorbed in the story, so involved in the
lives of the characters, that we accept the fictional world as just another
form of reality.
It’s true for the
writer too. After 16 novels in the Cooper and Fry series, I sometimes feel as
though I’m living in strange parallel universes, moving backwards and forwards
between the two like a character in the TV show Fringe.
I’ve written about Ben
Cooper and Diane Fry for 18 years now, and they feel very real to me. Nothing
gives me more pleasure than a reader who believes in them too.
Of the two characters,
Ben has gained the most fans around the world. Readers have fallen for him
because of his humanity and his sense of compassion. He cares about people, and
he always tries to do the right thing. Thousands of people have become involved
in his life and want to know what happens to him next. Will Ben find happiness? Will he get promotion? What name will he
choose for his new cat?
I’m British, but I
love the unbridled enthusiasm of American readers. A lady once emailed me from
California to say:
“I
think Ben Cooper is the most wonderful human being I’ve ever met!”
Another reader once
sent me a message via our local bookshop. She really likes the books, and she
particularly loves Ben Cooper. But she wanted me to know that she’s getting
very elderly now, and she doesn’t want to die until Ben has got married and
settled down. What sort of pressure is that for the author? I don’t think he
even had a steady girlfriend at the time…
I write about England’s
beautiful and atmospheric Peak District, and my characters work for a genuine
police force, Derbyshire Constabulary. My fictional version of Derbyshire has a
lot of similarities to the real county, but there are differences too.
Over the years the settings
have become very important to readers. When a new book comes out in the UK, I
know my readers go out into the Peak District to try to find every location
I’ve mentioned – including the fictional ones.
And it comes down to
the smallest detail. One of my books opens with a threatening phone call to the
police, which turns out to have been made from a particular public phone box,
located in the real world in a village called Wardlow. I’ve lost count of the
number of readers who’ve told me they’ve travelled to Wardlow to look at that
phone box. Well, it’s a nice traditional red one… but it’s just a phone box. So
why is that important for readers? Well, I think it’s because that phone box is
a physical connection between the real world and the fictional world they’ve
been reading about. You can go and stand in exactly the same spot that Ben
Cooper stood, which puts you right into the story.
Some of the emails I
get from readers make me think quite hard about this complex relationship
between reality and fiction. I write about real places as much as possible, but
my detectives are based in a fictional town, which I call Edendale. Although it’s
fictional, I know exactly where it would be on the map if it existed. This is
fortunate, because I get some tough questions!
In a couple of books
I’ve mentioned that Edendale has a railway station, because Cooper or Fry will occasionally
drive past it on their way somewhere else. A reader wrote to me with a very
pertinent query.
“If
Edendale has a railway station,” he said, “where do the trains run to?”
Ah, yes. Where do the
trains run to from a fictional town?
But I know where
Edendale is, and I was able to answer his question:
“So
there’s a (fictional) branch line which comes off here at Grindleford (a real
place). It runs up the Eden Valley (which doesn’t exist), and there’s a tunnel
through that hill there (the hill exists, but not the tunnel). It connects with
the (real life) Buxton to Manchester line at a (fictional) junction near (real
place) Doveholes.”
And my reader was
perfectly happy with that answer. One day I might have to supply details of the
train timetable and how long the journey takes from Edendale to Buxton, but for
now the bridge between fiction and reality is holding up!
I’m aiming for what I
call “the golden moment”. For many of us, there comes a moment when we’re so
fully engrossed in a novel that we forget there’s a difference between the real
world and the fictional one we’re reading about.
Just this week, a
reader informed me she’d been telling people about an incident she thought
she’d read about in a local newspaper. When no one else seemed to have heard of
it, she suddenly remembered that she’d actually read about it in one of my
books.
One of my novels is
set around an area called Stanton Moor, a very ancient and atmospheric place
full of stone circles and Neolithic burial mounds. A reader wrote to me who
lives so near Stanton Moor that she can see it out of her window, and she was
reading that book. She’d reached a point in the story where the police are
looking for a white Ford Transit van, which has been seen near the murder
scene. As she was reading, she looked up – and going past her window was –
guess what - a white Ford Transit van. Her first thought was: “I wonder if that’s the one the police are
looking for?” Then she remembered that outside her window was the real Derbyshire,
not the fictional one. For a moment, she’d forgotten there was any distinction.
That’s a testament to
the power of a reader’s imagination, and it’s part of the unique magic that
happens when we’re reading a good novel. It’s such a thrill to be able to
create an entire world, and the people who live there, and then invite readers
to come in and share it with me. What a privilege we have as fiction writers to
experience this magic.
So what about you? Do
you lose yourself so completely in a good book? Have there been occasions when
you’ve forgotten the difference between fiction and reality? Perhaps there are
characters and a location you love so much that you’d like to be living in
their world, at least for a visit?
DEBS: Stephen, I know exactly what you mean! My characters and setting seem so real to me after seventeen books that I sometime feel I'm living in two realities. It's very strange, but I wouldn't change it for anything.
Here's more about SECRETS OF DEATH:
Residents of the Peak District are used to tourists
descending on its soaring hills and brooding valleys. However, this summer
brings a different kind of visitor to the idyllic landscape, leaving behind
bodies and secrets.
A series of suicides throws Detective Inspector Ben
Cooper and his team in Derbyshire’s E Division into a race against time to find
a connection to these seemingly random acts - with no way of predicting where
the next body will turn up.
Meanwhile, in nearby Nottingham Detective Sergeant Diane
Fry finds a key witness has vanished . . .
But what are the mysterious Secrets of Death?
And is there one victim
whose fate wasn’t suicide at all?
And about Stephen: Stephen
Booth is a British crime novelist. He is best known as the author of 16 novels in the
Cooper and Fry series, all set in England’s beautiful and atmospheric Peak
District and featuring young police detectives Ben Cooper and Diane Fry. The series
has won accolades on both sides of the Atlantic, including an Anthony
nomination, two Barry Awards, and four Dagger nominations from the UK Crime
Writers’ Association. Ben Cooper was a finalist for the Sherlock Award for the
best detective created by a British author. The books have been translated into
16 languages, and are currently in development for a TV series.
REDS and readers, whose fictional world would you like to visit?
And Stephen, I just have to ask--who would you cast as Ben and Diane????
Oh, and Stephen will be checking in to chat, even though he is on UK time!
