Steve Cavanagh, author of 'The Devil's Advocate' - Award-winning author discusses ideal routines, writing America, and why he's always learning
Writer's Routine
Dan Simpson
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 12 November 2021
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week we're chatting to Steve Cavanagh. He's won the CWA Gold Dagger Award, the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, has published many Sunday Times Top 10 Bestsellers, and his new book has just been named as one of the Best Crime and Thriller Books of the Year by Waterstones.
It's called 'The Devil's Advocate', and is the newest Eddie Flynn book. Telling the story of Andy Dubois, sent up for a killing Alabama, and the lawyer who tries to get him free. He talks about the jaw-dropping statistic which gave him the idea for the book.
We discuss his ideal writing day and why he's not quite managed it yet, also how he's always trying to learn and grow, why he's tried to be a plotter but always returns to his pantsing routes, and what makes crime authors different from each other.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, welcome along to a brand new episode of writers' routine this week, chatting to the multi-award winning, immensely successful crime writer Steve Kavanaugh. |
| 0:19.5 | He tells the stories of the lawyer Eddie Flynn, and he's back |
| 0:22.9 | with a brand new book. It's called The Devil's Advocate. You can hear about why he's not been |
| 0:27.6 | able to get into his ideal routine, almost ever. Also, about the Masterclass series that he's |
| 0:34.8 | constantly learning from and that's really kept him going through |
| 0:37.8 | lockdown. And we talk about what happens when he tries to plot, but never quite fancies it. |
| 0:43.8 | I just couldn't plan out what could possibly happen. It just didn't come to me. I mean, |
| 0:49.8 | whatever ideas I had didn't feel, you know, real. So it's just, it's just my brain just doesn't work that way. |
| 0:58.0 | I just, for me, it's much easier and it's much more exciting to be able to write it, |
| 1:04.3 | you know, to make it all up as I go along. |
| 1:06.2 | You know, some people say, I wait for the muse to come to me and all this stuff. |
| 1:09.8 | Or I wait for characters to talk to me and all this stuff, or I wait for characters |
| 1:10.8 | to talk to me and I'm like, no, I make it all up as I go along. |
| 1:15.1 | That's what I really mean. |
| 1:16.1 | There is more on the way with Steve Kavanaugh in this week's Writers' Routine. Yes, welcome along. My name's writer's routine. Thank you for finding us. If you've not followed us yet, give that I go wherever you get your podcasts, then all these chats that we bring you every week, twice a week really, with the best authors around, then they automatically download to wherever you get your shows from, wherever you're listening right now. This is where we talk to the best authors around, then they automatically download to wherever you get your shows from, |
| 1:44.9 | wherever you're listening right now. This is where we talk to the best authors around about how they |
| 1:49.5 | get stuff done, about how they get to work, how they take ideas from their head and get them |
| 1:53.8 | down onto the page. This week, we're with Steve Kavanaugh. Let me just read to you a list of his accolades. His first book, |
| 2:04.4 | debut novel The Liar, won the CWA Gold Dagger Award. The follow-up to that, 13, won the |
| 2:13.1 | Thexton Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year. It's twisted and 50-50. They were both |
| 2:19.2 | Sunday Times top 10 bestsellers. His new book, The Devil's Advocate, has just been named one of the |
| 2:24.5 | best crime and thriller books of the year by Waterstones. And apparently they know what they're |
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