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Dawn Brookes

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  • My Readers Top 20 Books Read in 2021

Creative Writing

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.

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?

Crime Writers’ Daily Writing Habits

October 6, 2019

Crime Writers’ Writing Habits

I thought it would be fun to select a few crime writers and discuss their writing – or not – habits! Much emphasis is placed on ritual and routine when it comes to art, but as these few examples show, every writer is different.

Ian Fleming (1908-1964)

Ian Fleming described himself as a writer rather than an author and writing in an article on the topic or writing he suggested that writing 2,000 words per day, five days a week for six weeks enabled him to produce his first draft for his Bond novels.

The novels he produced were around 60,000 words which is acceptable in series writing even to this day.

Agatha Christie (1890-1976)

Agatha Christie didn’t have a special room to write in and carried notebooks around and jotted down plots, labelling her notebooks. She wrote longhand and then typed it up later. In later life she dictated her books. She never had a daily routine of writing and would nip off to write when the opportunity presented itself it.

Strangely, it appears that Agatha Christie was the only one of these four to admit to having difficulties writing with the process causing her much stress at times. And yet it is Christie’s works that are among the world’s top bestsellers with her estate claiming she is third only to Shakespeare and The Bible. Her books are still enjoyed today with Miss Marple and Poirot being crime mystery staples. I remember seeing The Mousetrap on stage in London, the longest running play in London still enjoyed by so many readers today.

Dorothy L Sayers (1893-1957)

Dorothy L Sayers wrote at night as she worked full time for a London advertising agency.

I couldn’t find  anything written about her habits but would assume that as one of the first female graduates of Oxford she was methodical.

Sayers moved away from crime writing after WWII, her last being published before the war’s outbreak. She later concentrated on writing Christian drama for which she was well regarded.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930)

Arthur Conan Doyle, one of the earliest writers to use an agent claimed not to have much of a routine once money wasn’t an object.

In an article, he explained he would spend a whole day on a work if he was engrossed but less time if he wasn’t. He seemed to intimate spending less time writing his short stories (Sherlock Holmes novels seemed to be short stories to him), and was also less concerned with their accuracy as they were a product of what he termed, fantasy.

Conclusion

It seems from just these four examples that routine isn’t everything and yet so many writers today swear by it.

I personally set myself a goal of 2,000 words when writing but don’t write every day. I’m perhaps more akin to Ian Fleming at this point in my career although I will be much more like Arthur Conan Doyle as I develop I think. It pays to remember there is no such thing as one size fits all.

If you would like to read more about writer/artist rituals, the two books listed here might be worth a read. Daily Rituals: how artists work seems to be out of print but is available as an audiobook.

Dawn Brookes is author of the Rachel Prince Mystery series of cozy mysteries and the Hurry up Nurse series of memoirs.

Nursing biography published & goodbye to the London Chest Hospital

August 11, 2017

Posted on 11th August 2017 

I finally finished the second book in the Hurry up Nurse series. I must admit that I enjoyed writing this one just as much as I did the first. It takes place in London and brought back wonderful memories of working at the London Chest Hospital. This post is written with fond memories and gladness that I have finished my second nursing biography but tainted by a tinge of sadness at having to say goodbye to the London Chest Hospital.

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Bittersweet

Whilst writing the book I discovered that the wonderful London Chest Hospital that has stood for over a hundred years and survived bomb damage in the Second World War has now been closed and like so many old hospitals, it is soon to become modern housing. I was pleased to see that after much campaigning by the residents in the area, that some of the older features will remain and be incorporated into the new build.

The grounds also featured one of the East End’s oldest Mulberry Trees – I believe permission was granted for its removal by the developers. The tree stood beside the chapel which was destroyed in a bombing raid in World War 2. It will be transplanted but is unlikely to survive the move, it makes you want to cry.

London Chest Hospital

nursing biography

London Chest Hospital 1980

Situated in Bethnal Green, the hospital cornerstone was laid by Prince Albert in 1851 and it opened in 1855. It was principally a respiratory hospital for its first fifty years. Victorian England was rife with what was known as consumption (TB) and the hospital was a Godsend for people living in the overly populated and poverty stricken East End.

Later on heart treatments were introduced and when I worked there from 1980-1982 it was a cardio-thoracic hospital with pioneering heart surgery and cancer chemotherapy taking place. TB was still quite common and new treatments were given to patients to try to stop the spread of the disease.

My book refers to many of these treatments and my experiences of working at this wonderful hospital.

The hospital hit the headlines in 2012 when a consultant cardiologist from the hospital, who was attending the match, resuscitated the footballer Fabrice Muamba, who was subsequently admitted there.

Cardio-thoracic nursing

The hospital specialised in cardio-thoracic nursing and I was there to do a post-qualifying training course which lasted a year. The course was certified by what was then, the Joint Board of Clinical Nursing Studies or JBCNS for short. JBCNS validated and certified post-qualification training until 1984 when it was disbanded.

The training involved rotating through various specialisms including: chest medicine, chest surgery, coronary care, cardiac medicine, cardiac surgery.

In the early 1980s medicine was advancing at a rate as cancer chemotherapy and cardiac surgery were developing. London hospitals were often at the forefront of new treatments and this was certainly my experience.

HIV & AIDs were yet to come, first emerging in the USA in 1981. Although scientists believe the disease was present in humans much earlier – I didn’t come across the disease until the mis 1980s after I had left the London Chest Hospital.

Conclusion

Nursing biography

A nurse’s account of working at the London Chest Hospital

So it is with sadness that I say goodbye to my beloved London Chest Hospital but I hope that this memoir and others will help to keep its legacy alive. I wish the Bethnal Green campaigners every success with protecting as much of this historic building and its grounds as possible.

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