Eighty Nine Going on Twenty Nine..

P.D.James is eighty nine, soon to be ninety. At the Hexham Book Festival last Sunday you could be forgiven for thinking she was twenty years younger …or more! She was simply fabulous, as was her host Val Mcdermid, and their on stage meeting  sparkled with good humour and wit. Their conversation was littered with gems about writing and the writing life. Val McDermid had undoubtedly done her homework, and together they made it seem effortless and above all – fun! It was a privilege to eavesdrop.

At Hexham I also talked with crime writer Ann Cleeves, who I knew in another life, in prison. It was great to meet up with her after a long gap in which she has become a star! She is as she always was, a brilliant and dedicated writer and a lovely person to know and be around. She also said some interesting and perceptive things about writing crime fiction which chimed with P.D. James earlier in the day – in particular they both spoke about structure and plot in the crime novel, as a liberating rather than constraining force: as something that looked after itself.

Being new to the genre I’d worried a great deal about coming up with a plausible and complex plot – it had seemed like venturing into unknown and hostile territory (although of course we are hard wired into the genre, if not from our reading, then from film and television.) Then when I’d finished the first draft of my novel I wondered why it  felt so easy and relaxed to write– I think now I know. I think as Ann said, ‘the plot takes care of itself.’

AND I  love what P.D. James says in, Talking About Detective Fiction – a must-read for crime aficiandos-  ‘To say that one cannot produce  a good novel within the discipline of a formal structure is as foolish as to say that no sonnet can be great poetry…’

*** To read more about the day and about Ann Cleeves’  interview on The Writing Game – read Wendy’s great post at Lifetwicetasted.