I’ve been kicking Book Four of the Davie McCall series into some kind of shape. Boy, is my foot sore. It’s called ‘Open Wounds’ (well, for now) and it’ll be the final instalment in the series. Given that it was originally written before ‘Blood City’ – the first in the series – I thought it would be an easy job. A few tweaks here and there, that’s all.
Eh, no…
It would’ve been simpler if I could just put lots of violence and swearing down on the digital page but my editor’s a stickler for stuff like character and motivation. And boy is that hard. I mean, really hard. Who knew your books had to be about people and emotions and – gulp – the human condition? Louise, my editor, has never used that phrase but she likes to see a bit of humanity here and there.
I’m kidding, of course. Naturally I know that the books can’t be all about the action stuff. The humanity has to be there, the quiet moments, the moments that help your characters become more than a collection of words and take flesh. I hope I manage it. I certainly work hard at it.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Davie McCall and not just because of the books. I’m heading to Bristol this week to take part in Crimefest, a fabulous convention for crime writers and readers, and the panel I’m on is discussing central characters who are not paragons of virtue. And that pretty much sums up most of my characters.
Off to Bristol this week for Crimefest
Having a Glasgow hard man as your hero, or anti-hero, can be problematic. There are readers who just cannot accept it. He’s a crook, a thug, he hurts people. Yes, he does, but then so does James Bond and Dirty Harry. At least McCall can agonise about it afterwards, if only to himself. For that’s the trick with him – the reader knows he’s not quite the monster he’s painted, but not the characters in book. He’s involved in the underworld because that’s what fate had in store for him. His father was a crook and a killer, his mentor a crook and a killer, his friends were crooks, some of them killers. There really was no other direction Davie McCall could go.
The question is, will be stay on that path?
That, really, is what the four books are about. He found love in book one, lost it by book two. Book three – DEVIL’S KNOCK, due next month – will see him face further challenges. All leading to book four, of course.
Will it end happily?
The author smiles enigmatically and turns away…
