Mari Hannah, author of 'The Longest Goodbye' - Crime award-winner discusses planning across a series, her Murder Wall, and the book she never wanted to write
Writer's Routine
Dan Simpson
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 21 March 2024
⏱️ 44 minutes
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Summary
Mari Hannah is a prolific writer. Over the last 12 years she's won the Northern Writer's Award, the Polari First Book Prize, the CWA Dagger in the Library Award, and Capital Crime's Crime Book of the Year. She's a series authors, publishing books in the 'Stone and Oliver' series, the 'Ryan and O'Neil' novels, and the 'Kate Daniels' thrillers.
Her newest novel is 'The Longest Goodbye', and it sees Kate Daniels involved in a case incredibly close to her. It's the story Mari never wanted to write. Inspired by a moment she thought her partner, a police officer, had been killed in the line of duty.
We talk about series writing and how she plans characters and arcs over a long time. Also, about the precision across details that is needed when writing crime, her murder wall, and the tool-box that moves with her through the series.
You can hear how closely she works with her partner, to uncover the unknowns of police life, also how working in a prison has helped Mari deal with some of the tougher parts of writing crime, and the rules of genre.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome along to a brand new episode of writers' routine. This week we are chatting to |
| 0:13.7 | Mari Hanna, whose brand new novel The Longest Goodbye is out now. We talk about why it was the book |
| 0:20.5 | she never wanted to write. Also, |
| 0:22.9 | how the experience of working in a prison helped her switch off from the tough parts of being a |
| 0:28.3 | writer and why she had three books done in one series without even a hint of being published. |
| 0:35.6 | It was because I was having fun. |
| 0:39.3 | I really enjoyed doing it. |
| 0:45.1 | When I was writing book one, I never thought about book two or even, you know, |
| 0:50.6 | the difficulty of writing book two because sometimes book two can be one of those pains that you don't want to. |
| 0:52.0 | So I didn't have that. |
| 0:56.8 | I was literally just enjoying myself. At that point, |
| 1:03.4 | I knew nothing. I didn't, I'd, in fact, the first book, I don't think I really had aspirations to get it published. I was just having fun. It's all on the way in a brand new |
| 1:07.9 | episode of writer's routine. |
| 1:18.3 | Yes, welcome along to the show. |
| 1:19.4 | My name is Dan Simpson. |
| 1:21.5 | This is where we take a look through an author's working day. |
| 1:27.3 | We see how they get stuff done, how they plan their work, their life, their entire space to give them the best chance of getting |
| 1:29.3 | words down on the page. And this week, we are supported by the new true crime podcast, who is |
| 1:36.2 | the cheese wire killer. If you love crime writing, storytelling and podcasts, which is, |
| 1:46.5 | well, a pretty holy trinity, I would say, |
| 1:49.6 | considering that you're listening to this. I think this is right up your street. |
| 1:56.5 | Who is the cheese wire killer is about a 1983 murder, which is now regarded as one of Scotland's most gruesome unsolved cases. Nothing was known about it, not a lead. The killer is still on the run |
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