PATRICK LENNON – guest speaker 16^th October 2007

Patrick Lennon had his first crime novel, Corn Dolls, published last year and it is now out in paperback. The sequel ‘Steel Witches’ will be out in hardback in March next year and he has a contract for two more novels, the first of which he is writing now. A book takes about a year from the time it is received at the publishers until it hits the bookshelves, he explained. Patrick studied English at A Level and at university, where you had to discuss ‘what you thought the writers really had in mind when he wrote’ which he said was not a lot of use for writing commercial novels. After university he taught English in Italy for two years before returning to this country to work in industry.

He always wanted to write but with the pressures of his job he kept putting it off. In the end he decided to take the plunge, gave up his job and started a small business with his wife. This allows him to have the afternoon free to write, about 1000 to 2000 words a day. Patrick starts his writing with a short statement. For Corn Dolls this was ‘Revenge in a small village’. He kept this before him when writing to avoid the temptation of going off course. He then plans the story on a ‘story board’, examples of which he brought along. Each chapter is planned in a few words written on an A4 sheet of paper. This was also useful as he progressed through the story as he could easily refer to what happened previously and why.

Stories he thought should come from personal experiences or incidents observed as well as research. Whilst on business in Russia for instance he had witnessed the importance given to tractors, which plays a significant part of the plot of Corn Dolls. He had the story read twice by a professional reader, which he felt well worth the expense, before sending the book to an agent who immediately accepted it. How would he describe the psychology of crime writing? In his opinion it was closer to melodrama than other forms of novels. The lessons he learnt from his first book are that you have to be ruthless not to put in things that you like if they have no relevance and too much back story holds things up. His second book has far fewer flash backs.

His second and third books were easier as he had an understanding of what the publisher wanted and didn’t want but writing was still very difficult and very stressful. What keeps him going through the black times is that he has given up a lot to write, so he couldn’t consider not going through with it.