Under the Spotlight - HEARTBURN by Anne Cassidy

Heartburn is set in London- do you think it is important to set your
stories in a specific place or town?

I’ve lived in London all my life. When I set a story in an urban environment I use London, in particular East London. I know the streets and the feel of living somewhere urban. It’s full of noise and smells and movement. There are great contrasts in London. There are rows and rows of terraced houses and narrow streets alongside huge skyscrapers and big public buildings. I have used the area around Canary Wharf in a couple of my books. In Heart Burn I use the river at night. A dark ominous strip of water that seems to twist and turn through the heart of London.

What was your inspiration for this story. Was it a real life event?

No, in fact it was something quite different. I used to teach creative writing and have done many workshops for young people. One of the assignments I give them to do is to imagine they were standing on the street waiting for someone. That person is late and they are getting concerned. While they’re waiting something happens. When I was working on a new book I decided to use that format. Ashley is waiting for her best friend to come along. She is late. While waiting a boy she knows comes along. He tells her that Tyler Harrington, a boyshe was in a relationship with a year before, has been badly beaten and is in hospital. This triggers her memory of what was a painful affair. Inevitably she becomes involved in Tyler’s story.

Anne Cassidy

The story has a twist in the tail and I was curious to find out if you

planned it all out before you started writing it?

I never know how my stories will end. I have a plan for the first six chapters or so and then I hope the story will grow. The characters and the plot develop and any twists or secrets grow out of this. Of course this approach means an awful lot of rewriting. But that’s OK.

The relationship between Ashe and Tyler is an interesting one. Was that something that you decided on at the beginning or did it develop as you wrote about them?

I love writing about love affairs that go wrong, particularly if one person is carrying a torch for the other. I think longing is a powerful emotion and can make people do extreme things. So Ashley longs for Tyler but won’t admit it to herself. Putting herself in danger and trying to help him, this is the way she shows her love. When I was a teenager I was always falling in love. It was hardly ever returned so I spent a lot of time

Your books are often quite dark, and often don't have happy endings. Do you prefer to write books that end happily for the characters?

I just try to imagine what would happen in real life. Unfortunately there aren’t always happy endings. I try also to leave the ending a bit ‘open’ to let the reader think about what might happen. I made an exception to this rule with Heart Burn.

Can you tell us anything about your latest project?

I am currently finishing the second book of a four book series called THE MURDER NOTEBOOKS. It’s called KILLING RACHEL and I’m getting that euphoric feeling that it’s almost done! 

These books start coming out in May 2012.

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Literature Festival with a difference!

This weekend 9th and 10th July a very special event is taking place.
The Awfully Big Blog Adventure blog  is celebrating its 3rd Birthday and holding the very first ever  ONLINE LITERARY FESTIVAL,  run entirely by children’s authors, and we want YOU to get involved in supporting us!

On 9th and 10th July 2011 40 (yes FORTY) children’s authors from the Scattered Authors’ Society, will be bringing you something new and special every half hour from 9.30am to 7.30pm.


There will be:
• Amazing Blogs
• Stunning Videos
• Exciting Giveaways
• Fascinating Interviews
• Mind-boggling Competitions

Join all the fabulous guests & contributors at the exciting ABBA Online Litfest!
To join in the conversation! Follow @AwfullyBigBlog on Twitter, tweet about us on the day and before, using the special hashtag #ABBAlitfest 
Crime Central's  very own criminal masterminds Anne Cassidy, Gillian Philip, Keren David and Linda Strachan are all taking part, as are some of our favourite contributors.

Look out for Anne Cassidy's blog Post: To Blog or Not To Blog? at 9.30am on SATURDAY morning.
 Gillian Philip will be there At 12.30pm on SATURDAY with a  Competition: Win 'Bloodstone' and 'Firebrand'
At 2.30pm on SUNDAY Fiona Dunbar & Keren David Video: In Conversation
At 5.00pm on SUNDAY Linda Strachan & Cathy MacPhail Video: In Conversation- tutoring creative writing at Arvon

And there are so many more fabulous authors taking part - There's something different every half hour on each day!   See the  Full Programme here.

Naturally, there will be virtual champagne and cake on the day, so come and join in on this fantastically fabulous literary party!  

What do I know about crime fiction? - The Bookette

Becky- The Bookette

 When Linda Strachan asked me to write about what makes a good crime novel I was more than a little apprehensive.

I mean, what do I know about crime fiction?

I thought about this more and more, I’ll be honest I don’t like to let people down. I figured there must be a reason she asked me for an opinion piece.

Am I opinionated? Probably.

The thing is I don’t really think I know anything about crime fiction. That’s because when I think about crime fiction I think of the following:

• Adult fiction  

• The crime bit in Waterstones

• Authors that I have never read including: Jo Nesbo, Karen Rose, Colin Dexter?

But then I thought well Linda can’t want me to have an opinion on these people. This would be just weird. I’m a children’s librarian. So then the penny drops and I realise she wants my opinion on crime in teen or preteen fiction.

I guess I can do that because now I think about it, I really do read such novels. Here are the crime authors I’ve read fairly recently: Keren David, Gillian Philip, Sarah Singleton, Anne Cassidy, Jenny Downham, Andrew Lane, Andy Mulligan and of course Linda Strachan!

You see I was thinking of crime fiction as a thriller, a whodunit, but in actual fact crime is a theme running through many contemporary teen novels. The issue of crime is relevant to teens today in a way that is so far removed from the murder mystery concept.   The issue of gangs and knife crime has been all too relevant to our young people in the last decade.  

Contemporary teen fiction explores many different examples of crime and deviance:

ILLEGAL POACHING in Sarah Singleton’s The Stranger

SHOPLIFTING  in Hilary Freeman’s - Lifted

INCEST in Tabitha Suzuma’s Forbidden

                   

RAPE in Jenny Downham’s You Against Me

PROSTITUTION in Kevin Brooks’ Candy

 
Crime and deviance feed into contemporary teen fiction novels because this is surely the time when teens experience peer pressure to try smoking, drink alcohol and experiment with illegal substances.


But crime is not a theme that is strictly for contemporary fiction, I have noticed a trend towards exploring the theme through paranormal fiction too.

Kimberly Derting’s The Body Finder is your traditional whodunit with a girl who senses corpses.


I’m sure we’ll be seeing crime feed into many more genres in the next few years if it hasn’t happened already.





So what makes a good crime novel? In my mind the same things that make any book a good book -

• A main character that you can relate to

• A significant problem that the main character must overcome

• A plot that twists and turns and is fast paced

• Witty dialogue

• Description which makes you feel as if you are living the story

• Humour

• The author’s own unique way of telling the story

And for me personally,

• A really dramatic opening scene!

Perhaps a novel about copyright theft would be a good place to start teens talking about the morality of illegal downloading. That could be the most relevant crime novel of the next decade. In case anyone is looking for an idea...

I guess Linda was right.............. I am opinionated!

(But in a good way, Becky! ..Ed)

Becky, The Bookette is a Children's Librarian in a London prep school and an excellent reviewer of children's and young adult fiction at thebookette.co.uk

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How I Discovered My Voice As A Crime Writer - Anne Cassidy

On 5 April the third instalment of Undiscovered Voices was announced.
Undiscovered Voices is a joint innovation between SCBWI and Working Partners.


It invites previously unpublished children's authors to enter an extract of a completed novel and have the chance to be considered by a judging panel of children’s book editors, agents, booksellers and literary scouts.

Melvyn Burgess with authors featured in 2010

The selected extracts will go into an anthology that is then circulated around the publishing industry. 
The previous two anthologies have led to several impressive deals.



This year's deadline for entrants is 1 June and the anthology will be published in early 2012. There's no submission fee but authors have to be a member of SCBWI to enter.

Hearing about this made me think about my own beginnings as a writer. I began writing when I finished my university degree. My love of reading came from a study of literature and I admired the many great books that I had read. I loved Dickens, Lawrence, Greene and many others.

When I started writing I tried to imitate these great writers. I wrote short stories and poems on many serious themes.

At the same time as this I read a lot of Crime Fiction. I loved the pace and mystery of these stories. I loved the fact that they were set in present day and often reflected the sort of life I led.

After sending off a ‘serious’ novel I had written to a publisher I got a personal letter of rejection. The publisher said she liked my writing but felt that the story wasn’t gripping enough. She told me to go into a bookshop and see what was selling. See what people wanted to read.

I went into a bookshop and saw a huge number of crime novels. I was drawn to them because they were the kind of books I loved to read.

At the time I was teaching teenage boys in a secondary school.

I decided to write a crime novel for teenagers with a girl as the main character. She would solve a murder mystery and I would use my own teenage memories as material for her life. That book was published in 1990  -      

BIG GIRLS’ SHOES

I found my own writing voice and have written crime fiction ever since. Maybe some of the UNDISCOVERED VOICES in this anthology will do the same.

 


Visit TALL TALES AND SHORT STORIES tomorrow to find out more about Undiscovered Voices.

http://talltalesandshortstories.blogspot.com/






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WHAT IF…….. Anne Cassidy

People often wonder why I write such dark stories. I tell them that I am one of life’s pessimists. I spend a lot of time imagining bad things happening to me or the people I love. This could be the beginnings of madness, I guess but for me, it has turned nicely into a job of work.

I am a writer of Crime Fiction.
I write stories where bad things happen to good people. Or where ‘normal’ people have to make choices that might mean bad things will happen.

This comes from my own attitude to life. When I’m standing on an underground platform and the train is about to come in I say to myself What If someone pushed another person onto the lines in front of the train? What If I witnessed this? What if I told the police what I saw and then got a phone call late at night where someone said,

“If you don’t withdraw your story someone in your family will get hurt!”

What would I do then?

This is often how my stories start. I have a morbid way of looking at the world and always think that I will either be the victim of a crime or somehow sucked into a crime situation. In other words because of pure luck (or bad luck) my life will change.

So I write crime books and they almost always start with WHAT IF…

(Avoid me if you see me on an underground platform.)

Anne Cassidy’s new book is  HEART BURN









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How Do You Lie About Everything? An Interview with Keren David by Anne Cassidy

Anne Cassidy loved Keren David's WHEN I WAS JOE. She decided to interrogate Keren about it. She may bring charges at a later date.

Joe’s story is written in the first person. As a writer, was it hard to get into the mind of a teenage boy?

It was hard at the beginning, but became easier as I came to know Ty/Joe. I had several guiding principles – for example he rarely says what he is thinking, and he often acts impetuously, and I also thought a lot about what it might be like being a boy going through puberty. In the end his voice became very easy – easier than writing as a girl which I’ve just done.

What made you write about knife crime?

I didn’t set out to write about knife crime - the crime that Ty witnessed was going to be very much in the background, with the emphasis much more on the experience of taking on a false identity. But as I was writing there was a horrific spate of knife killings in London, and everything I was reading in the papers seemed to tell me more about Ty and his world. So the book became about knife crime as well - and considerably longer as a result.

The girls in your book, Claire, Ashley and Ellie all seem damaged in some way. Was this an important aspect of your story?

I didn’t really think of it like that, the characters grew with the story. Ellie, in fact, came from a plot-planning exercise at the evening class in Writing for Children that I was taking. We had to get into pairs and weave out characters into a story. My partner had a disabled athlete as her character and I had my witness boy – at the end of the session I asked her if I could nick her character and write the book - she agreed, I’m sure she didn’t think it would ever happen!

I do think that the three girls all represented things about Ty’s mum, Nicki, and his relationships with them were as much about his relationship with her as about the girls themselves.

There are twists and turns in the plot which leave the reader breathless. Did you plan it all out before you started writing?

Thank you! Not really - I had an idea of a start and end point, and I knew the backstory of the murder, but apart from that the twists and turns came as I wrote each chapter. My favourite twist just came to me as I was driving the car home from dropping my son at school - I nearly crashed the car, I was so excited!

Tell us about the sequel

Almost True, which was published in September 2010 carries on Ty’s story. He’s in even more danger, and he discovers a lot of secrets about his past and his family and the crime which he witnessed. I’ve just agreed with my publishers that there will be a third book about Ty, which I’m writing now and should be published in 2012.

Thank you, Keren. You may now leave the interrogation suite!