Working: Where a Crime Writer’s Ideas Come From

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3.8 • 546 Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2023

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, host June Thomas talks to Val McDermid, a prolific crime novelist whose books have sold millions of copies worldwide. Val has even been dubbed the “Quine of Crime,” a Scottish alternative to the title “Queen of Crime,” which the Agatha Christie estate objected to. In the interview, Val explains where her ideas come from and how she decides which of her on-going series to pick up next. She also talks about incorporating Scottish slang into her books, including her latest one, Past Lying: A Karen Pirie Novel. After the interview, June and co-host TK Dutes talk about the problem of having too many creative ideas. In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, Val discusses some of her side gigs. Then she talks about the practice of incorporating real-life events into her novels. Send your questions about creativity and any other feedback to working@slate.com or give us a call at (304) 933-9675. Podcast production by Cameron Drews. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get an ad-free experience across the network and exclusive content on many shows—you’ll also be supporting the work we do here on Working. Sign up now at slate.com/workingplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	People say where do you get your ideas from?
0:11.0	It seems to me to be the most absurd of questions because ideas are everywhere.
0:17.0	You pick up a newspaper.
0:19.0	It's not the big stories about the war in Gaza. It's not the stories about what Donald Trump's being up to. But it's those little three paragraph throwaways that make you go, what?
0:29.8	Welcome back to working. I'm your host, TK. Dutess. And I'm your other host, June Thomas. June, I am so excited to be back with you.
0:39.0	I've been waiting all week to learn about who you were chatting with today.
0:42.0	So who did we hear at the top of the show there?
0:44.2	So that Scottish accent belonged to mystery writer Val McDermid.
0:48.7	And why did you want to speak to her?
0:50.5	So I've been reading her books for a long time.
0:53.9	Her first one came out in 1987. She's been
0:57.0	producing really high quality work ever since, and I've been reading along. And one of the
1:02.0	things I really like about her books is that her characters change over time in her most recent
1:07.6	book, which is called Pass Lying. It features her cold case cop, Karen Piri.
1:13.1	And Karen has just gone through the ringer over the course of the seven books she's appeared in.
1:19.2	She's changed.
1:20.3	The other characters and the books have changed.
1:22.2	And I like that.
1:23.4	And I wanted to talk to Val about how she does it, why she does it.
1:27.7	Before she turned to writing books, Val was a journalist who worked for British tabloids.
1:32.9	And she's also now two books into a series about a journalist who writes for one of those papers.
1:38.1	So she's a big deal in Britain.
	...

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