Imran Mahmood, author of 'Finding Sophie' - Crime writing lawyer discusses our changing attention span, pursuading a jury, and getting the words down
Writer's Routine
Dan Simpson
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 28 February 2025
⏱️ 52 minutes
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Summary
Imran Mahmood has 30 years experience as a criminal defence lawyer, working on all manner of high-profile cases. He's taken that knowledge and forged a successful 2nd career as a crime writer. His debut, 'You Don't Know Me', was presented as a closing argument to a jury. It was long-listed for the Theakston Crime Novel of the year, the CWA Gold Dagger in 2017, and was a BBC Radio 2 Book Club Choice. It's been adapted for a BBC/ Netflix Crime Drama.
He followed that up with 'I Know What I Saw', which was a Sunday Times Crime Novel of the Month, and is now back with 'Finding Sophie'. It's about Harry and Zara, parents struggling to come to terms with their daughter who is missing. The police are unable to find any leads and they're growing ever more frantic and obsessed with their supicious neighbour who won't answer the door.
We discuss his busy life as a barrister with a young family, and why he's chosen to spend what little free time he has writing novels. You can hear how both jobs have affected each other, why talking to a jury has helped novel writing, and why he thinks his greatest skill is simply getting words down.
This week's episode is supported by Scribe Shadow, a game-changing tool for writers trying to reach international readers. Find out more at app.scribeschadow.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, welcome along to a brand new episode of writers' routine, where this week we're with |
| 0:13.9 | Imran Mahmood. Imran's new novel, Finding Sophie, is out right now. We discuss how |
| 0:19.9 | storytelling has adapted to our changing attention span |
| 0:24.1 | and how much he is adapted with that. |
| 0:27.1 | Also, why he believes that his greatest skill is just getting the words down, |
| 0:32.2 | actually producing the stuff, |
| 0:35.0 | and he reveals what he needs to begin. |
| 0:38.4 | I tend to start with place, trying to work out what the world is for the story I want to tell. |
| 0:46.9 | And that will usually be decided by where I want to be mentally. |
| 0:52.2 | Like, am I looking for something an open landscape? |
| 0:56.0 | Am I looking for something |
| 0:58.0 | kind of grittier and more noiry |
| 1:00.0 | or more in a city? |
| 1:02.0 | Once I've got the world set up, |
| 1:04.0 | the plot and the characters kind of go together |
| 1:06.0 | because of the |
| 1:08.0 | particular characters |
| 1:10.0 | inhabit particular worlds. |
| 1:12.6 | And so the two can be wise spontaneously. |
| 1:14.9 | It's all on the way in a brand new writer's routine. |
| 1:25.9 | This week's episode is sponsored by Scribe Shadow, a game-changing tool for writers trying to reach international readers. And it uses AI. Now bear with me, I know the idea of artificial intelligence can be terrifying for a creative. But I believe it could also be invigorating. It can help |
| 1:47.0 | you streamline some of your method, give you new tools to use to help you worry about what's most |
... |
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