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Dawn Brookes

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Blog Posts

Travel Journal from 1982

June 16, 2022

Forty years ago today, I embarked on the trip of a lifetime. A friend and I set off for Asia and visited eight countries over three months. This is extract from the journal I kept is from day one. I’m keeping it pretty much as I wrote it, so not making too many corrections.

Day 1: June 16th 1982

Weather Forecast for the day Source: https://weatherspark.com/h/m/147876/1982/6/Historical-Weather-in-June-1982-at-London-Heathrow-Airport-United-Kingdom#Figures-Temperature

The weather forecast was correct; a dull and drizzly day when we left.

Well, today’s the big day. Woke up at 9:30am following a wonderful sleep. Who knows whether we’ll sleep tonight, perhaps not!

We have slight hassles at the moment, our reliable travel agent, alias Mr Messy hasn’t quite sorted out our insurance correctly, we haven’t got the premium in other words – so it’s 12 midday and we’re off to Regent St to collect it. It’s all part of what’s going to be a totally disorganised holiday for two in Asia. Perhaps we should have gone for two weeks to Bognor Regis!

Poor old J is having ladies problems at the moment! Went to travel agent and sorted out insurance (sigh!). Also gained his father’s address in Delhi. One more for the road.

We contacted the agent’s father when in Delhi a few months later and were invited for dinner. I’ll cover this in a future post.

Arrived at Heathrow at 1:30pm and checked in. Having a quiet time preparing ourselves for the flight.

3:30pm passed through customs. J was searched on her way through by a lady who was rather sour faced and she became even more unhappy when I laughed at the prospect of J being towed away before we even set off! We’re now sitting in the boarding lounge waiting to board a rather ferocious looking aeroplane which has its nose staring through the window at us.

The aeroplane that took us as far as Karachi

4:40pm boarded the plane five minutes later than takeoff. Fortunately it didn’t take off before us. 5pm we’re off!

Landed at Frankfurt airport at 6:30pm and went for a walk around the airport. Due to take off for Dubai at 8:20pm local time (7:20 UK time). 9pm flew into darkness and suppers came round. I thought it would be OK being vegetarian on Pakistani Airlines but it’s a little more difficult. Still I managed to get a dish with rice and vegetables although I almost burnt my mouth out with a green chilli pepper.

They showed ‘Arthur’ on a screen on the aeroplane. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing that again. The film finished at 11:30 pm. Have now been flying for 6 hours without a break.

The film Arthur had been released the year before and I’d seen it at the cinema in Leicester Square.

Dawn Brookes Fiction Reading Order

May 6, 2022

Chronological Reading Order

This is the order in which you should read if you want to follow characters through each series by chronology, rather than each series individually. All of the books are written so they can read as standalones without major spoilers. Some people prefer to read in series order and others might want to follow the characters develop chronologically.

The Rachel Prince Mysteries feature Rachel Prince as the main character and are set on a fictional cruise ship. Rachel enjoys meeting up with her best friend who is a nurse on board the Coral Queen. Lady Marjorie joins her on alternate cruises. It wasn’t planned like that… it just happened!

The Carlos Jacobi series features Rachel’s love interest; a PI intent on changing the world with the help of his ex police dog and a quirky detective sergeant, Fiona Cook.

The Lady Marjorie Snellthorpe series follows an elderly quartet who get together for holidays and end up solving murders. This is a developing series.

A Cruise to Murder (Rachel Prince #1)

Deadly Cruise (Rachel Prince #2)

Body in the Woods (Carlos Jacobi #1)

Killer Cruise (Rachel Prince #3)

The Bradgate Park Murders (Carlos Jacobi #2)

Dying to Cruise (Rachel Prince #4)

Body at the Jewry Wall (Carlos Jacobi #3) – coming in 2022

A Christmas Cruise Murder (Rachel Prince #5)

Murderous Cruise Habit (Rachel Prince #6)

Death of a Blogger (Lady Marjorie Snellthorpe Prequel Novella)

Murder at the Opera House (Lady Marjorie Snellthorpe #1)

Honeymoon Cruise Murder (Rachel Prince #7)

Murder in the Highlands (Lady Marjorie Snellthorpe #2)

Murder in the Strawberry Tent (Lady Marjorie Snellthorpe #3) – coming 2022

A Murder Mystery Cruise (Rachel Prince #8)

Hazardous Cruise (Rachel Prince #9)

Captain’s Dinner Cruise Murder (Rachel Prince #10)

Corporate Cruise Murder (Rachel Prince #11)

More to be added in the future.

Monday 7th March 2022

March 7, 2022

I finalised events for the literature festival I chair and managed to get them all up on the website. The day pass tickets are now up for sale, so if you live near to Derby, feel free to take a look here.

I’m continuing edits on my two-thirds finished draft of Murder in the Highlands and made steady progress with it today. It’s starting to come together and I’m getting a handle on the characters and suspects, developing them at the same time.

I’ve spent a few months exploring the social media platform Tiktok and will be creating more videos for my author presence there. If you would like to follow me you can find me here.

Sunday 6th March

March 6, 2022

Work in Progress

I’m going through the editing process of Murder in the Highlands before taking the work forward. This helps me to refocus my attention and sets the stage for the final third. I’m almost two-thirds of the way through so it makes sense to do this now, making sure that what I’ve written so far is making sense. At this stage in almost every book I’ve written, I hit a brick wall and get a little bit bogged down by my internal critic. Once I come out of editing mode, I’ll be able to silence the critic and switch back into creative mode! Looking forward to that.

To be honest, I’ve been distracted by world events of late… who wouldn’t be?

Other Stuff

As it was Sunday, I tried to take some rest and get other more mundane things done around the house. I went to virtual church as I have been doing since the pandemic started. Funnily enough, I’ve been able to go to a church in London which I went to when I lived in the capital forty years ago. All Souls Church in Langham Place has been putting on virtual services throughout lockdown and is continuing to do so. I’ve enjoyed returning to somewhere that seems familiar in spite of the number of years that have elapsed since I last went there physically.

Literature Festival

In 2018, I founded a literature festival which I now chair. I spent the morning creating and adding the final few graphics for events to the website and put the day pass tickets on sale. Tomorrow, I’ll need to read through some guest blog posts for the site.

I love doing the festival but while it was cancelled for two years during the pandemic, I’d forgotten just how time consuming it can be.

Morality in Crime Writing

December 15, 2020

Introduction

As a writer of murder mysteries I have had to make some decisions in relation to the ethical dilemmas of writing about crime and murder. Some authors go down the road of graphic violence and explicit detail while others steer clear, focusing on the mystery element rather than the crime itself.

Sometimes there appears to be an appetite in society for sensationalist gratuitous violence or sex, and scenes that shock within suspense fiction. This is often coupled with frequent use of strong language whether or not it fits the story. It’s almost expected. But do we always need a sledgehammer to break an egg?

Sensationalist Fiction

Sensationalist fiction is not new and emerged as a genre in the Victorian era. Murder was just one of the many scandalous topics addressed in books of the late 1800s (Rubery, 2011). The difference between then and now is that such literature produced an outcry when it was first introduced, whereas now there is a general hunger for more of the same. Why might this be?

Chandler (1950) argued that the classic genre of crime novels was too detached from reality due to the murders occurring off-screen. He was scathing of classic crime writers such as Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan-Doyle, arguing that their characters lacked depth. His opinion was that hard-boiled (at the time, American) crime portrayed the real world and crime writers should incorporate this. His point being that fiction is intended to be realistic.

I agree with Ainsworth (2014) who argues in her dissertation that Chandler missed the point that, although the murders are more subtle in classic crime, writers such as Sayers addressed real psychological issues. Shell shock being one of these (Sayers husband had been a sufferer post WWI).

Arthur Conan-Doyle also included the topic of nerves and trauma suffering in his work and there is none sharper or more adept than Agatha Christie at delving into the human psyche. 

The Growth of Crime Fiction

Crime fiction grew in popularity from the mid 1970s but not everyone believes this is due to voyeurism. Some suggest it might be more of a way that people come to terms with their own mortality.

Or it could be that readers have become desensitised by graphic novels in the same way that news broadcasts no longer shock us. The more we are exposed to suffering, violence, swearing and graphic sex, often through the television screen and also through reading, the less shocking watching or reading it becomes. Perhaps that’s why there’s a trend towards the horrific.

Chandler would argue that its necessary for authors to portray the ‘real’ world and highlight the horrific and darker side of society through hard-boiled crime writing. It’s not either/or, it’s down to choice both as a reader and a writer. Crime novels are many and varied with many striking a balance between that which is gratuitous and that which is realistic.

The Cozy Audience

There are those who buck the trend towards the more graphic novels, and never more so than during the pandemic. Many people have found and do find the world shocking enough without subjecting themselves to hours of reading grim novels. It’s this audience that takes pleasure in the cleaner side of crime and lean towards classic crime novels alongside the popular trend of humorous cozy crime.

Sticking with Clean Crime 

There is more to writing crime fiction than shock value, and there’s an audience for every type of writing, including clean crime. I have made a deliberate and personal choice to focus on plot and psychology rather than feeding a shockaholic frenzy. Having recently published a crime novel grittier than a cozy mystery, but emphasising the investigation and the people rather than the forensic detail, I believe it can be done. I hope you like my latest offering.

What about you?

Cozy Mystery Writing Conventions

October 16, 2020

Genre Fiction

I’m a mystery writer with my fiction falling into the cozy/cosy crime niche. I’ve now published seven books in one series with an eighth on the way. Cosy mysteries and the majority of detective novels fall into the category of writing known as genre fiction and on the whole, follow a defined set of conventions.

Agatha Christie Monument

These conventions/rules developed out of the Golden Age of Crime novels. Authors such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Margery Allingham, Dorothy L Sayers and Agatha Christie created the widely recognised genre. The cosy mystery has evolved over the past few decades as new writers attempt to stretch boundaries, although many still adhere to the Decalogue or ten commandments described by Knox in 1929. 

Escapist Literature

I admit to being challenged by proponents of literary fiction and literary debate such as Albert Camus, but I prefer to write books to enable people to escape from the reality of life. This is one of the reasons I write books where the criminal is always found and justice is served. The popularity of genre fiction could highlight the need for people to feel safe while – at least in terms of crime fiction – being given the opportunity to experience vicarious excitement. The excitement comes through readers exercising their brains to solve the puzzle, working alongside the sleuth. 

As a former nurse, I studied Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs in great detail. He described the need to feel safe in the hierarchy. He postulated human beings needed to satisfy certain needs in order to grow, mentally and physically. Maslow’s definition of safety was more about protection from external elements. Such safety requires a person to have shelter and security of body and mind; order in the world outside; laws that reinforced safety; stability in work and finance and freedom from fear.

Escapist literature does help people to remove themselves from the harsh realities of the world for a time. 

Writing within Genre Conventions

A major challenge with formula writing is that of staying within genre constraints while adding enough variation to make the work unique and interesting. Lethem, (2007) argues that no work is completely original and Eliot (1920) stated that ‘mature poets steal’. King Solomon complains even in Biblical times that ‘there is nothing new under the sun’ (Ecclesiastes 1:9). 

Genre Conventions

When a reader sits down to read a book based on a formula they are familiar with such as a crime novel. They and the writer will have been influenced by previous books. Julia Kristeva called such a relationship within the academic world, intertextuality but the same applies to reading and writing formula fiction. The reader expects to find new layers within each novel, without which, they will feel dissatisfied. 

Genre, or formula writing doesn’t claim complete originality but there still needs to be something different about each work to keep it interesting. Bloom (1997) suggests that authors can be original although his text spends a lot of space arguing why it might not be.

Opponents of Formula Fiction

Stories falling within formulaic modes are commonly defined by those who oppose such literature as ‘sub-literate (as opposed to literature), entertainment (as opposed to serious literature), popular art (as opposed to fine art), lowbrow culture (as opposed to highbrow)…’ (Cawelti).

Describing formula writing in this way denigrates its artistic ability to fulfil a need within the human being to find pleasure through reading such works, and denies its own purpose and justification. 

Pacing

One of the main issues authors have with writing genre fiction – or any fiction for that matter – is pacing. 

Cosy mysteries tend to be written at a meandering pace where the plot unfolds gradually in an enclosed space, for example an English country village or, in my case, on board a cruise ship. 

Some crime fiction is written in this style but suspense thrillers generally require more tension. Writing the first Carlos Jacobi mystery has involved a change of pacing for me as a writer. I’ve had to think about phrasing and creating hooks at the beginning of the work. On reflection, this applies to all fiction and all writers improve over time.

New Series: Carlos Jacobi PI

For me, opting to remain true to crime fiction, but attempting to write a grittier series has been a new experience. Many people believe that the original detective fiction novel formula began with Edgar Allen Poe.

Carlos Jacobi PI

In Body in the Woods, there is one character (brother-in-law of protagonist) who is deliberately long-winded as he is the sort of person who goes into the minutiae of detail even in normal conversation. He is a scientist and a bit of an anorak. My challenge was, how to incorporate these characteristics into the story so that the reader understands his long-windedness is deliberate. I wanted the reader to be able to relate to this person as someone they might know in real-life. 

Valuing Genre Fiction

With my new series – although more gritty than the Rachel Prince Mysteries – I’ve remained true to my ethical stance as a writer that not all crime fiction needs to be gory. Neither does it have to include bad language nor explicit sex. I believe the challenge for me as an author is to create page-turning work without the use of sensationalist shock value. There is as much room in the market for clean crime today as there was when the forerunners of cozy crime penned their works.

Cawelti’s work has had the most profound influence on me as a writer in that it has reinforced my belief that writing genre fiction is just as valuable as writing literary fiction. He argues that formula literature (which crime fiction fits into) has a cultural value and I believe such literature fulfils an important function in human psychology. 

What about you?

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