:00:15. > :00:21.My guess today makes her living out of crime, often violent, disturbing
:00:21. > :00:25.crime. Val McDermid is one of Britain's most popular novelists.
:00:25. > :00:31.The stories of twisted killers and four detectives are part of a
:00:31. > :00:37.modern John Rath of graphic crime fiction that is far removed from
:00:37. > :00:47.the stories of Agatha Christie. Her stories now entertain millions
:00:47. > :01:14.
:01:14. > :01:19.Val McDermid, welcome to HARDTalk. It is nice to be. I want to begin
:01:20. > :01:23.at the very beginning of your career. You had been a working
:01:23. > :01:27.class girl in Scotland and made it into university. You enter
:01:27. > :01:31.journalism and were working in a national newspaper. It seemed your
:01:31. > :01:37.career was set to take off, but then you switch to fiction writing,
:01:37. > :01:44.why? Are that was what I'd always wanted to do. Ever since I realise
:01:44. > :01:49.that writing was a job that you could get paid for. That was what I
:01:49. > :01:52.wanted to be. I wanted to tell stories by a living. I realised
:01:52. > :01:56.fairly early on that people like us did not get to the right is
:01:56. > :02:01.straight out of the bat. You had to work on it. I was told that you
:02:01. > :02:08.always had to have a proper job. I became a journalist. All the time,
:02:08. > :02:14.I was trying to write fiction. were working on a tabloid and
:02:15. > :02:18.obviously one of the staples of tabloid journalism is crime. We're
:02:18. > :02:24.beginning to look at real grind and thinking to yourself, I can turn
:02:24. > :02:29.this into fictional gold? really. I did not do much a crime
:02:29. > :02:34.reporting. I worked for a Sunday paper, so there was not a lot of
:02:34. > :02:38.direct covering the stories in the news. I have never been drawn to
:02:38. > :02:43.using real crime cases as a springboard for fiction. I think
:02:43. > :02:46.mostly because when I was a journalist, I saw enough of the
:02:46. > :02:53.aftermath of sudden, violent death do not want to do something that
:02:53. > :02:58.felt like I was feeding off somebody's grief. I also understood
:02:58. > :03:03.that, however much you think you know about what is happening in a
:03:03. > :03:08.case you do not know the entire story. It could very easily,
:03:08. > :03:13.inadvertently, caused more pain and grief by wandering into the mind
:03:13. > :03:23.with space of real emotions. Recently, we had a Swedish writer
:03:23. > :03:24.
:03:24. > :03:30.on and he said, we hold in there up to crime to observe society, is
:03:31. > :03:34.that the way you see crime writing? It used to be that way. I think a
:03:34. > :03:39.lot of the time in the 80s and 90s, the literary novel abdicated that
:03:40. > :03:44.roll. It became much more interested in literary theory than
:03:44. > :03:49.it did in narrative and engaging with the reader. Where there is a
:03:49. > :03:52.vacuum, people tend to feel it. Around that time, crime fiction
:03:52. > :03:59.became an attractive alternative for people interested in writing
:03:59. > :04:04.novels about society. That leads me to an obvious point, that is,
:04:05. > :04:10.reading your novels leads one to believe that you must have a pretty
:04:10. > :04:14.bleak view of modern society. It has to be said that extreme,
:04:14. > :04:18.horrifying violence is at the centre of many of your stories.
:04:18. > :04:25.is at the centre of some of my stories because it is violent and
:04:25. > :04:31.shocking. The crime novel is no longer just entertainment. It has
:04:31. > :04:37.become quite something quite different. It examines who we are
:04:37. > :04:43.and why we do the things we do. The kind of characters at the heart of
:04:43. > :04:46.my books are people who deal very directly with these kinds of cases.
:04:46. > :04:52.It seemed somehow it is on us to write about these things and not be
:04:52. > :04:58.direct about what they are and what they do. There is a very difficult
:04:58. > :05:03.line here and there is a line between exploited hipness and
:05:03. > :05:07.showing what violence is and what it does. I just wonder then how you
:05:07. > :05:11.find the line. You say it is not just entertainment, but first and
:05:11. > :05:16.foremost, it is entertainment. Let's face it, people buying your
:05:16. > :05:20.books and other crime novels want to be entertained. The story is
:05:20. > :05:24.entertaining. The characters are interesting because the situation
:05:24. > :05:30.is interesting. That is what draws the reader in. How can horrifying
:05:30. > :05:32.and brutal violence and I can't even begin to explain some of the
:05:33. > :05:38.things that happen to the characters in your book because
:05:38. > :05:47.they are so horrifying, but how can that be entertaining? At I think
:05:47. > :05:52.you are exaggerating there. I am really not. The mutilations, the
:05:52. > :05:58.torture that is inflicted on some of your characters, it is
:05:58. > :06:02.dangerously horrible. I would say that it is a lot less horrifying
:06:02. > :06:11.than what we here on the news at regular intervals about what is
:06:11. > :06:16.done by our own security forces. What I am saying is that is not why
:06:16. > :06:24.people are coming to the box. do you know that? The way that they
:06:24. > :06:31.talk about the books. I get a lot of correspondence with people who
:06:31. > :06:35.read my books. What they talk about, primarily, it is the characters.
:06:35. > :06:40.They talk about the characters and their relationships with each other.
:06:40. > :06:44.They speculate on the Ritz that the relationships and where they may go.
:06:44. > :06:49.-- Brits. I tried to throttle back the directors of the violence as
:06:49. > :06:52.much as possible, while remaining honest about what violence is and
:06:52. > :06:56.what it does. I do not see that we have to airbrush when we write
:06:56. > :07:06.about these things, but equally, it did not glorify the things that
:07:06. > :07:06.
:07:06. > :07:15.happen. I do not think, this will really wind them up. So there are
:07:15. > :07:20.lines you were not cross? There are a lot of lines. There are writers
:07:20. > :07:26.are will not read because I find their work disgusting. Who? I am
:07:26. > :07:30.not saying, but it is not my job to side of other writers. It is not my
:07:30. > :07:37.job to come on their and put down other riders. They make their
:07:37. > :07:40.choices. They are not the choices I would make. Ms off, every time I
:07:40. > :07:45.write a scene that involves violence, which is by no no means
:07:46. > :07:50.in all of my books, whenever I write the scene, I am sitting there
:07:50. > :07:56.looking at it from a technical point of view. I am always looking
:07:56. > :08:01.at it from that point of view of have I gone too far? Interestingly,
:08:01. > :08:07.I talked to a clinical psychologist about the stuff I write and asked
:08:07. > :08:14.if it is psychological plausible. More than once, he has said to me,
:08:14. > :08:20.yes he would do this, he would also do this. He would then go on to
:08:20. > :08:24.enumerate things that other killers had done. Sometimes it goes way
:08:24. > :08:27.beyond what I would have to say to convey to the reader what this
:08:27. > :08:31.character is like. It is interesting the talk about the
:08:31. > :08:36.process of writing and how you do it. In your mind's eye, is there
:08:36. > :08:44.also a reader and a consideration on your part of the impact of some
:08:44. > :08:50.of the scenes? I do not think about the reader when I am writing
:08:50. > :08:55.because I think even begin to sell some staff. What I am think about
:08:55. > :08:58.when I am writing is that I am writing a book that I would like to
:08:58. > :09:04.read. I am always thinking about whether it would work in a
:09:04. > :09:09.technical sense. I am always looking at it from the perspective
:09:09. > :09:15.of is this defective as a piece of writing? Not, is this going to
:09:15. > :09:19.shock the people? If you start going down that road, you start to
:09:19. > :09:23.second-guess your own work and your own decisions. At the end of the
:09:23. > :09:30.day, a novel comes from inside the writer. It is what I want to say
:09:30. > :09:34.and it is how I want to express myself. I am the only person to who
:09:34. > :09:38.I am answerable. I wonder if you have changed over the years? You
:09:38. > :09:44.have written an awful lot of novels now and I just wonder, I'm not
:09:44. > :09:48.suggesting all the novels involve the sort of violence, but plenty do,
:09:48. > :09:52.I wonder if you have noticed yourself becoming desensitised to
:09:52. > :10:02.violence? I do not think so. If anything, I think I am more
:10:02. > :10:02.
:10:02. > :10:08.sensitive to it. When I am reading other people's books, I think I
:10:08. > :10:12.become more readily discuss to do what I'm reading. -- disgusted. I
:10:12. > :10:16.do find it quite amusing, in some ways, that I had become the poster
:10:16. > :10:24.girl for writing violence, purely and simply because I was at the
:10:24. > :10:30.heart of a media storm about as a pose of road that -- suppose it row
:10:30. > :10:40.between me and another writer. When you examine the texts, I am weighed
:10:40. > :10:43.down there. You mention this well with Ian Rankin, who is another
:10:43. > :10:47.well-respected Scottish writer. His point seemed to be that that a lot
:10:47. > :10:51.of the graphic crime novels today are being written by women. He went
:10:51. > :10:58.on to say, most male crime writers would flinch morally from over
:10:58. > :11:02.describing an act of violence against a woman - a rape or a
:11:02. > :11:06.murder. He went on to say that women writers went to a place that
:11:06. > :11:11.men were not prepared to go to. had said many times what I have to
:11:11. > :11:14.say on this subject. What I would say is, I do not think this is an
:11:14. > :11:18.accurate statement of the position of the genre at the moment. I think
:11:18. > :11:22.there are plenty of male writers who write practically about all
:11:22. > :11:26.sorts of violence. I do not think it is the exclusive preserve of
:11:26. > :11:36.women. The dinner think it is also the exclusive preserve of women,
:11:36. > :11:40.
:11:40. > :11:45.The degree to which most crime fiction involves a male
:11:45. > :11:51.perpetrators. A lot of it involves male perpetrators inflicting
:11:51. > :11:57.terrible pain and violence on women. Is that a fair comment? Is that the
:11:57. > :12:01.way you see it? It is not the way I see my own fiction. I do not sit
:12:01. > :12:07.there and think about my fiction epic about who I'm going to inflict
:12:07. > :12:13.violence on. For me, a book always starts with a story and something
:12:13. > :12:17.that interests me. It starts with an idea that I want to explore. I
:12:17. > :12:21.do not sit there thinking, what lovely violence am I go in to
:12:21. > :12:25.perpetrate in this book. That could not be further from my mind. That
:12:25. > :12:30.is not what I think I am starting out from them. Of course we write
:12:30. > :12:37.about violence. We are writing about murder. Murder is not a tea
:12:37. > :12:42.party. Noda is not a cross word part of -- murder is not the
:12:42. > :12:46.crossword puzzle of Agatha Christie. The novel is the entertainment of
:12:46. > :12:49.which murder is part and parcel of the story telling. What is actually
:12:49. > :12:53.at the heart of the best crime fiction in Britain these days his
:12:53. > :12:56.character. It is what happens when you put people under pressure and
:12:56. > :13:06.we see how they react and how they behave and what that tells us about
:13:06. > :13:11.themselves. I do believe that we get the crimes that we deserve in
:13:11. > :13:18.our society. When you live in a materialistic society, you will get
:13:18. > :13:22.crimes of materialism. You'll get people looting. If you couldst
:13:22. > :13:32.change the society in certain way, you get what you deserve to some
:13:32. > :13:35.
:13:35. > :13:39.Let me quote a point that was made by in author who is also a long
:13:39. > :13:48.time crime fiction reviewer, she quit because she said she was
:13:48. > :13:53.sick... She quit the business of reviewing certain novels. She said
:13:53. > :14:01.she was sick of too many novels that depicting situations of
:14:01. > :14:06.statistic misogyny. She said dead, brutalise women to sell books and
:14:06. > :14:16.dead men do not. That is a cynical view but it is a view that has some
:14:16. > :14:16.
:14:16. > :14:22.merit. There is a certain area of the genre that does glorified
:14:22. > :14:30.misogyny and sexual sadism. But it is not the core of the genre. It is
:14:30. > :14:40.not the books that have respect. We would not say this is the best of
:14:40. > :14:42.
:14:42. > :14:49.contemporary crime fiction's. There is always an element of dross. 95%
:14:49. > :14:57.of any field of artistic endeavours are there. It always annoys me that
:14:57. > :15:01.crime fiction is thought of to be the worst of the output. What other
:15:01. > :15:07.genres appraised. Let's stop trying to sensationalise what we're doing
:15:07. > :15:11.here. Let us look at the good stuff, the quality staff and about writers
:15:11. > :15:19.that care about what they are doing. They are concerned about the
:15:19. > :15:27.storytelling. You have studied crime writing over time. You have
:15:27. > :15:36.written about a host of other crime writers. Is it true to say that
:15:36. > :15:41.they have to be a resolution? the bad guy have to enter in crime
:15:41. > :15:51.fiction has been captured or killed? It is not as clear-cut as
:15:51. > :15:56.
:15:56. > :16:00.it used to be. Nowadays, we are a bit unsophisticated than that. It
:16:00. > :16:10.is not unusual for there to be a resolution that is less than clear-
:16:10. > :16:11.
:16:11. > :16:17.cut. Sometimes the villains appeared to walk away. Would also
:16:17. > :16:26.happens is that the central issues are resolved but the side issues
:16:26. > :16:30.are not. So there is a sign that things are not as clear-cut.
:16:30. > :16:36.say you're depictions of violence is mean a fall and that they are
:16:37. > :16:40.saying about the nature of society. The reason that it is still fiction
:16:40. > :16:43.because de rigueur at the end of the day is that they see the order
:16:43. > :16:49.has been restored and that the villain has been put to an end. If
:16:49. > :16:56.that is not the case then is not crime books unsettling and fear
:16:56. > :17:00.inducing? People say to me they find some books disturbing. That is
:17:00. > :17:07.good because if you do not find it disturbing you might need
:17:07. > :17:12.professional help. In general, the genre's create a moral landscape
:17:12. > :17:16.but bad things happen to people who do bad bins. There is still room in
:17:16. > :17:26.Dijon rough for more experimental things and experimental ways of
:17:26. > :17:33.ending a novel. Patricia has it was writing at a time where it the
:17:33. > :17:41.moral landscape around her was not how it is today. She wrote novels
:17:41. > :17:51.where the villain it did not come to a bad end. Do you actively seek
:17:51. > :18:01.
:18:01. > :18:07.to escape some of this formula that surrounds crime fiction draw? Your
:18:07. > :18:14.readers are delighted when you stray from the Formula. I do not
:18:14. > :18:20.take all my readers with me to all my books. That is fine. I am more
:18:20. > :18:28.ambitious as a writer to be -- then to be constrained by the market.
:18:28. > :18:35.You have written short stories and non-fiction as well. Can imagine
:18:35. > :18:40.that as you develop as a writer you might abandon crime altogether?
:18:40. > :18:45.suppose. But what angers me to crime is that the genre has become
:18:45. > :18:51.more up wider and deeper when it -- than when I first started writing.
:18:52. > :18:56.When I started writing it was just the basic police procedural. Now a
:18:56. > :19:01.lot of new styles and turns have emerged. It seems there anything I
:19:01. > :19:11.want to write about will fit into that category. I am also a bit of
:19:11. > :19:19.an adrenalin junkie. It is exciting. I do not if I can sustain the
:19:19. > :19:26.society meant on a book that is not dealing with such things.
:19:26. > :19:33.strikes me that quite a number of your detectors and the good guys
:19:33. > :19:36.are troubled. -- detectives. There are good people but they are very
:19:36. > :19:46.difficult and have deeply flawed personalities. They are also not
:19:46. > :19:48.
:19:48. > :19:54.very happy. Does that reflect you and some of the yacht own
:19:54. > :20:01.unhappiness? Is that something that feeds into the way you portray
:20:01. > :20:08.characters? There was nothing dramatic. It just was complicated.
:20:08. > :20:17.I skipped a year and has caused. I was with a group of people who
:20:17. > :20:24.regarded as experiments by the system. I think I am a pretty happy
:20:24. > :20:31.person. I have not had a traumatic life. I am aware that my life has
:20:31. > :20:41.been a smooth passage so far. The things that have -- cause pain and
:20:41. > :20:42.
:20:42. > :20:52.grief has largely passed me by. was just thinking about what Gordon
:20:52. > :20:52.
:20:53. > :20:57.Brown said who shared Europe educational past. He was groomed
:20:57. > :21:03.for academic success at a young age and he said it had done it real
:21:03. > :21:12.harm, mental harm. Did you come away from that experiment feeling
:21:12. > :21:21.the same way? I think I was one of the better off. One of the lasting
:21:21. > :21:31.things was an overpowering need to succeed. An overpowering drive. I
:21:31. > :21:41.only relax at around 50. A lot of people crashed and burned. I saw a
:21:41. > :21:42.
:21:42. > :21:49.lot of people suffering around me. You always thought you had to do
:21:49. > :21:54.better? Your chest. The top kids from all the Paris cousins were
:21:55. > :22:00.taken out and sent only to high school. We were not spread evenly
:22:00. > :22:05.through be. River in separate classes and groups. Everybody
:22:05. > :22:10.called us the experiment. By the time we were mixed into the general
:22:10. > :22:14.population with a labelled as experiment. The staff were also
:22:14. > :22:18.given -- giving us the concert message that we read supposed to do
:22:18. > :22:28.better than everyone else. It is not easy when you try to fit into a
:22:28. > :22:36.
:22:36. > :22:42.social group that is older than you. One-year makes a big difference. I
:22:42. > :22:52.did not think I fitted in at all. One of the reasons was that I
:22:52. > :22:52.
:22:53. > :23:00.wanted to be a writer which has always considered to be an outsider.
:23:00. > :23:08.And then there was also the part of my sexuality. When I was a teenager
:23:08. > :23:15.there were no lesbians. They were like mythical creatures. There was
:23:15. > :23:23.no Templar, no books, no films portraying lesbians. I knew was
:23:23. > :23:26.thereby did not acknowledge it. went from working-class roots to
:23:26. > :23:31.Oxford which is patently not for working-class people. They knew
:23:31. > :23:39.when into a tabloid rooms -- newsroom which was full of men.
:23:39. > :23:49.Anyone into creative writing which some in novel-writing looked down
:23:49. > :23:51.
:23:51. > :23:56.at the limited John Rowe of crime fiction. We have a word that means
:23:56. > :24:06.something like bloody minded. I was brought up in a household where the
:24:06. > :24:11.
:24:11. > :24:15.message I was given was I could be were ever I wanted to be. Even