Making the cut
Last week I received some fantastic (and almost unbelievable news) - that I made the shortlist in the ‘CrimeBits’ opening gambits competition as judged by Lee Child and run by Black Spring Press (who run Black Spring Crime).
Calling for the best opening page (well 50 - 200 words) of an unpublished crime fiction or thriller novel, the competition came when I was struggling with what sort of thing I want to write and why?
Don’t get me wrong, I want to write all the ideas I have, but like many amateur writers, I am juggling work, family and other personal commitments with my passion. And as someone with young kids to help look after and develop, I don’t have the luxury (and I’ll be honest nor the energy) to be as productive as I want to be while still maintaining a certain level of quality… one of which that also demands frequent learning of the craft - again taking time away from writing in the short term but is absolutely necessary if I want to reach a professional level.
Anyway, with several ideas in my brain, I struggled to decide which one to pursue, and which would help develop my writing career, but the competition’s short copy requirement essentially gave me the opportunity to give them all a go.
So, I submitted three entries and vowed that whichever one did well (if any at all) then that is what I would do after my current work-in-progress.
These entries included:
‘No sleep for the dead’, which was in the vein of a Lee Child thriller, aimed at a broader audience and delivering direct action.
‘An eminent corpse’, which was more an every-day man (more-or-less) put in a desperate situation as an adulterous wife frames for murder him.
‘Skin of a cop’, which came from a single sentence I developed into a short story idea, and then wanted to go further. It’s a good guy turned crooked cop, and getting in too deep.
Months passed and my indecisiveness continued, but then I received the news that all three of my entries made the top 100 and they would include them in the planned ‘CrimeBits’ anthology alongside puzzles, trivia, and writing challenges.
I was pretty buzzed at that news alone. Sure, it didn’t help me decide which route to pursue, but that didn’t really enter my mind. The news then became almost unbelievable when they announced the shortlist and included ‘Skin of a cop’, one of my three entries, in the top five. Even now, I’m waiting for the email to announce that they made an error.
But until that fateful email, the knowledge that Lee Child had not only read a snippet of my work but enjoyed it really was more than I could have hoped for (and I can’t wait to read the feedback and see what, as an avid and knowledgeable reader, he thought worked and didn’t work).
The story for ‘Skin for a cop’ is the most challenging for me to make the right decisions regarding the story, location and character. It all started with a single sentence, which I developed into a short story and reached out to friends and contacts to solicit advice. This gave me a new way of working, absorbing constructive criticism and pursuing new ideas, in a way that only a short story can. The location changed countries, characters changed jobs and motivations developed all within under two thousand words.
But none of that mattered. With a new title, the first twist had made itself obsolete, and of course the character resolutions wouldn’t work, so I went back to the drawing board. However, that is all part of the fun. As the title says, getting under the skin of a character is really what can make a book work for the reader.
Now, it’s back to the keyboard for working on my Gigi the loser short story collection, which I am hoping to have out by the end of the year (and is my best work yet).
On a final note, congratulations to everyone who will be included in the anthology, all the other shortlisted contestants and especially the winner Richard Burke.
If you are interested in reading my three entries and the other ninety-seven, including the winner, then ‘Crimebits’ will be released on 11 July and you can find it available from all the usual places, as well as directly from Black Spring Press.
