Val McDermid - Crime Writer HARDtalk

My guess today makes her living out of crime, often violent, disturbing

crime. Val McDermid is one of Britain's most popular novelists.

The stories of twisted killers and four detectives are part of a

modern John Rath of graphic crime fiction that is far removed from

the stories of Agatha Christie. Her stories now entertain millions

Val McDermid, welcome to HARDTalk. It is nice to be. I want to begin

at the very beginning of your career. You had been a working

class girl in Scotland and made it into university. You enter

journalism and were working in a national newspaper. It seemed your

career was set to take off, but then you switch to fiction writing,

why? Are that was what I'd always wanted to do. Ever since I realise

that writing was a job that you could get paid for. That was what I

wanted to be. I wanted to tell stories by a living. I realised

fairly early on that people like us did not get to the right is

straight out of the bat. You had to work on it. I was told that you

always had to have a proper job. I became a journalist. All the time,

I was trying to write fiction. were working on a tabloid and

obviously one of the staples of tabloid journalism is crime. We're

beginning to look at real grind and thinking to yourself, I can turn

this into fictional gold? really. I did not do much a crime

reporting. I worked for a Sunday paper, so there was not a lot of

direct covering the stories in the news. I have never been drawn to

using real crime cases as a springboard for fiction. I think

mostly because when I was a journalist, I saw enough of the

aftermath of sudden, violent death do not want to do something that

felt like I was feeding off somebody's grief. I also understood

that, however much you think you know about what is happening in a

case you do not know the entire story. It could very easily,

inadvertently, caused more pain and grief by wandering into the mind

with space of real emotions. Recently, we had a Swedish writer

on and he said, we hold in there up to crime to observe society, is

that the way you see crime writing? It used to be that way. I think a

lot of the time in the 80s and 90s, the literary novel abdicated that

roll. It became much more interested in literary theory than

it did in narrative and engaging with the reader. Where there is a

vacuum, people tend to feel it. Around that time, crime fiction

became an attractive alternative for people interested in writing

novels about society. That leads me to an obvious point, that is,

reading your novels leads one to believe that you must have a pretty

bleak view of modern society. It has to be said that extreme,

horrifying violence is at the centre of many of your stories.

is at the centre of some of my stories because it is violent and

shocking. The crime novel is no longer just entertainment. It has

become quite something quite different. It examines who we are

and why we do the things we do. The kind of characters at the heart of

my books are people who deal very directly with these kinds of cases.

It seemed somehow it is on us to write about these things and not be

direct about what they are and what they do. There is a very difficult

line here and there is a line between exploited hipness and

showing what violence is and what it does. I just wonder then how you

find the line. You say it is not just entertainment, but first and

foremost, it is entertainment. Let's face it, people buying your

books and other crime novels want to be entertained. The story is

entertaining. The characters are interesting because the situation

is interesting. That is what draws the reader in. How can horrifying

and brutal violence and I can't even begin to explain some of the

things that happen to the characters in your book because

they are so horrifying, but how can that be entertaining? At I think

you are exaggerating there. I am really not. The mutilations, the

torture that is inflicted on some of your characters, it is

dangerously horrible. I would say that it is a lot less horrifying

than what we here on the news at regular intervals about what is

done by our own security forces. What I am saying is that is not why

people are coming to the box. do you know that? The way that they

talk about the books. I get a lot of correspondence with people who

read my books. What they talk about, primarily, it is the characters.

They talk about the characters and their relationships with each other.

They speculate on the Ritz that the relationships and where they may go.

-- Brits. I tried to throttle back the directors of the violence as

much as possible, while remaining honest about what violence is and

what it does. I do not see that we have to airbrush when we write

about these things, but equally, it did not glorify the things that

happen. I do not think, this will really wind them up. So there are

lines you were not cross? There are a lot of lines. There are writers

are will not read because I find their work disgusting. Who? I am

not saying, but it is not my job to side of other writers. It is not my

job to come on their and put down other riders. They make their

choices. They are not the choices I would make. Ms off, every time I

write a scene that involves violence, which is by no no means

in all of my books, whenever I write the scene, I am sitting there

looking at it from a technical point of view. I am always looking

at it from that point of view of have I gone too far? Interestingly,

I talked to a clinical psychologist about the stuff I write and asked

if it is psychological plausible. More than once, he has said to me,

yes he would do this, he would also do this. He would then go on to

enumerate things that other killers had done. Sometimes it goes way

beyond what I would have to say to convey to the reader what this

character is like. It is interesting the talk about the

process of writing and how you do it. In your mind's eye, is there

also a reader and a consideration on your part of the impact of some

of the scenes? I do not think about the reader when I am writing

because I think even begin to sell some staff. What I am think about

when I am writing is that I am writing a book that I would like to

read. I am always thinking about whether it would work in a

technical sense. I am always looking at it from the perspective

of is this defective as a piece of writing? Not, is this going to

shock the people? If you start going down that road, you start to

second-guess your own work and your own decisions. At the end of the

day, a novel comes from inside the writer. It is what I want to say

and it is how I want to express myself. I am the only person to who

I am answerable. I wonder if you have changed over the years? You

have written an awful lot of novels now and I just wonder, I'm not

suggesting all the novels involve the sort of violence, but plenty do,

I wonder if you have noticed yourself becoming desensitised to

violence? I do not think so. If anything, I think I am more

sensitive to it. When I am reading other people's books, I think I

become more readily discuss to do what I'm reading. -- disgusted. I

do find it quite amusing, in some ways, that I had become the poster

girl for writing violence, purely and simply because I was at the

heart of a media storm about as a pose of road that -- suppose it row

between me and another writer. When you examine the texts, I am weighed

down there. You mention this well with Ian Rankin, who is another

well-respected Scottish writer. His point seemed to be that that a lot

of the graphic crime novels today are being written by women. He went

on to say, most male crime writers would flinch morally from over

describing an act of violence against a woman - a rape or a

murder. He went on to say that women writers went to a place that

men were not prepared to go to. had said many times what I have to

say on this subject. What I would say is, I do not think this is an

accurate statement of the position of the genre at the moment. I think

there are plenty of male writers who write practically about all

sorts of violence. I do not think it is the exclusive preserve of

women. The dinner think it is also the exclusive preserve of women,

The degree to which most crime fiction involves a male

perpetrators. A lot of it involves male perpetrators inflicting

terrible pain and violence on women. Is that a fair comment? Is that the

way you see it? It is not the way I see my own fiction. I do not sit

there and think about my fiction epic about who I'm going to inflict

violence on. For me, a book always starts with a story and something

that interests me. It starts with an idea that I want to explore. I

do not sit there thinking, what lovely violence am I go in to

perpetrate in this book. That could not be further from my mind. That

is not what I think I am starting out from them. Of course we write

about violence. We are writing about murder. Murder is not a tea

party. Noda is not a cross word part of -- murder is not the

crossword puzzle of Agatha Christie. The novel is the entertainment of

which murder is part and parcel of the story telling. What is actually

at the heart of the best crime fiction in Britain these days his

character. It is what happens when you put people under pressure and

we see how they react and how they behave and what that tells us about

themselves. I do believe that we get the crimes that we deserve in

our society. When you live in a materialistic society, you will get

crimes of materialism. You'll get people looting. If you couldst

change the society in certain way, you get what you deserve to some

Let me quote a point that was made by in author who is also a long

time crime fiction reviewer, she quit because she said she was

sick... She quit the business of reviewing certain novels. She said

she was sick of too many novels that depicting situations of

statistic misogyny. She said dead, brutalise women to sell books and

dead men do not. That is a cynical view but it is a view that has some

merit. There is a certain area of the genre that does glorified

misogyny and sexual sadism. But it is not the core of the genre. It is

not the books that have respect. We would not say this is the best of

contemporary crime fiction's. There is always an element of dross. 95%

of any field of artistic endeavours are there. It always annoys me that

crime fiction is thought of to be the worst of the output. What other

genres appraised. Let's stop trying to sensationalise what we're doing

here. Let us look at the good stuff, the quality staff and about writers

that care about what they are doing. They are concerned about the

storytelling. You have studied crime writing over time. You have

written about a host of other crime writers. Is it true to say that

they have to be a resolution? the bad guy have to enter in crime

fiction has been captured or killed? It is not as clear-cut as

it used to be. Nowadays, we are a bit unsophisticated than that. It

is not unusual for there to be a resolution that is less than clear-

cut. Sometimes the villains appeared to walk away. Would also

happens is that the central issues are resolved but the side issues

are not. So there is a sign that things are not as clear-cut.

say you're depictions of violence is mean a fall and that they are

saying about the nature of society. The reason that it is still fiction

because de rigueur at the end of the day is that they see the order

has been restored and that the villain has been put to an end. If

that is not the case then is not crime books unsettling and fear

inducing? People say to me they find some books disturbing. That is

good because if you do not find it disturbing you might need

professional help. In general, the genre's create a moral landscape

but bad things happen to people who do bad bins. There is still room in

Dijon rough for more experimental things and experimental ways of

ending a novel. Patricia has it was writing at a time where it the

moral landscape around her was not how it is today. She wrote novels

where the villain it did not come to a bad end. Do you actively seek

to escape some of this formula that surrounds crime fiction draw? Your

readers are delighted when you stray from the Formula. I do not

take all my readers with me to all my books. That is fine. I am more

ambitious as a writer to be -- then to be constrained by the market.

You have written short stories and non-fiction as well. Can imagine

that as you develop as a writer you might abandon crime altogether?

suppose. But what angers me to crime is that the genre has become

more up wider and deeper when it -- than when I first started writing.

When I started writing it was just the basic police procedural. Now a

lot of new styles and turns have emerged. It seems there anything I

want to write about will fit into that category. I am also a bit of

an adrenalin junkie. It is exciting. I do not if I can sustain the

society meant on a book that is not dealing with such things.

strikes me that quite a number of your detectors and the good guys

are troubled. -- detectives. There are good people but they are very

difficult and have deeply flawed personalities. They are also not

very happy. Does that reflect you and some of the yacht own

unhappiness? Is that something that feeds into the way you portray

characters? There was nothing dramatic. It just was complicated.

I skipped a year and has caused. I was with a group of people who

regarded as experiments by the system. I think I am a pretty happy

person. I have not had a traumatic life. I am aware that my life has

been a smooth passage so far. The things that have -- cause pain and

grief has largely passed me by. was just thinking about what Gordon

Brown said who shared Europe educational past. He was groomed

for academic success at a young age and he said it had done it real

harm, mental harm. Did you come away from that experiment feeling

the same way? I think I was one of the better off. One of the lasting

things was an overpowering need to succeed. An overpowering drive. I

only relax at around 50. A lot of people crashed and burned. I saw a

lot of people suffering around me. You always thought you had to do

better? Your chest. The top kids from all the Paris cousins were

taken out and sent only to high school. We were not spread evenly

through be. River in separate classes and groups. Everybody

called us the experiment. By the time we were mixed into the general

population with a labelled as experiment. The staff were also

given -- giving us the concert message that we read supposed to do

better than everyone else. It is not easy when you try to fit into a

social group that is older than you. One-year makes a big difference. I

did not think I fitted in at all. One of the reasons was that I

wanted to be a writer which has always considered to be an outsider.

And then there was also the part of my sexuality. When I was a teenager

there were no lesbians. They were like mythical creatures. There was

no Templar, no books, no films portraying lesbians. I knew was

thereby did not acknowledge it. went from working-class roots to

Oxford which is patently not for working-class people. They knew

when into a tabloid rooms -- newsroom which was full of men.

Anyone into creative writing which some in novel-writing looked down

at the limited John Rowe of crime fiction. We have a word that means

something like bloody minded. I was brought up in a household where the

message I was given was I could be were ever I wanted to be. Even