Stealing People For My Characters....

by Tom Cain

I’m seeing my therapist this afternoon, like you do … well, like you do when you’re the kind of screwed-up neurotic who becomes a writer for a living. And oddly enough, I’ve been writing about my therapist, too: or a fictionalised, thinly-disguised version of him anyway. He appears in the standalone, non-Carver thriller I’m working on at the moment (on spec: I must be out of my mind … oh, yeah, I AM out of my mind, that’s why I need a therapist), dispensing handy insights to my first-person protagonist.
The words ‘first-person’ suggest that this story will be more than usually autobiographical, but that’s not entirely true. The ‘I’ character is a blue-eyed six-foot-three architect from York, who has a brother and a foreign wife. None of those characteristics are in any way true of me. On the other hand, his emotions, his responses to the situations he encounters and his perceptions of life as a whole are entirely my own. Likewise, many of the key characters, like the shrink, are drawn directly from people I know or have met while researching the book.
This isn’t anything new for me. But what’s interesting, I think, is the way the process works and the degree to which even characters who appear to be direct representations of living people turn out to be very different, with lives of their own on the printed page.
For example, Alix Petrova, the heroine of the first two Carver books –The Accident Man and The Survivor (or No Survivors as it confusingly known in the US and Canada) - was inspired by one detail of an actress’s appearance. I was interviewing Anastasia Griffith, who was recently in that US series Damages, with Glenn Close, when I noticed she had a fractional, barely perceptible asymmetry in her beautiful blue eyes. She told me that she had been cursed with a terrible squint as a girl, and been much-mocked for her wonky eyes. Then, at 14, she had an operation to fix her eyes and – hey presto! – she was a beauty. But in her head, there was always the memory of that plain girl with a squint. When I came to write Alix, I wanted to have a properly sexy heroine, but I also wanted her to have a bit more depth and complexity than the average spy-candy. I remembered Anastasia and gave Alix her eyes and the history behind them. That one detail made the character far more interesting for me to write and, I hope, for other people to read.
Likewise, Carver’s best friend Thor Larsson, a beanpole Norwegian with a mass of pale red dreadlocks is so improbable-looking that I could never have invented him. On the other hand, I have gone on many a journalistic assignment with a fantastic photographer called Pal Hansen, a beanpole Norwegian, etc, etc … Like Larsson, Pal has another unexpected facet to his character, in that beneath his mild, laid-back Scandinavian façade he’s an extremely determined character who did his national service as an army intelligence officer. Nicked that from him too!
But here’s the strange thing … as much as Thor Larsson started out as Pal Hansen, the moment I began writing him, he developed a character entirely of his own. I never, ever stopped to say, ‘What would Pal do in a situation like this?’ I only thought in terms of the fictional, but absolutely alive-in-my-mind Thor Larsson.
The issue is particularly acute in the Carver I’ve just finished in which one character is, quite plainly and undeniably based on a specific political figure. There are very obvious parallels between the facts of the real man’s life and the fiction in my book. I hate to break this to my publishers’ lawyers but the resemblance is entirely intentional. But there is a reason why I have not simply gone the whole hog and named the person in question, and it’s this: my book is fiction. The characters are equally fictional. Even when they seem to be the same as their real-life inspirations, they aren’t. And I want the freedom to make them as different in their own rights as I choose, without having to worry about accuracy or verisimilitude. It’s hard to be specific about those differences, but I think it’s very easy to sense them when one reads the books in question. My sole concern as a writer is to make those characters credible, likable or even loathsome on the page. They may have some DNA taken from a real-life prototype, but I put all the flesh on their bones; I give them the life-experiences that mould them; I cause them to fall in and out of love; to make and break friendships and alliances; to run in fear or to stand and fight.
And there lies a deeper truth about fictional characters. An author – Martin Amis if memory serves – was once asked if one of his characters was autobiographical. ‘No, ‘ he said, ‘they all are.’ In the end, the person all my creations are based on is … me.

Hooray for Hollywood ... or not ...

I woke up on Saturday morning to find an email from my agent in LA waiting on my iPhone ...

OK, all right, he's not MY agent, exactly: he's the sub-agent hired by my real agent who works in a small office just off the North End Road in West London, which isn't quite so glamorous ... but anyway ...

The two scriptwriters who have spent the past few months, in between their other projects, honing The Accident Man into a potential high-concept movie franchise had, the message said, concluded their negotiations with A Major Studio and been given a deal. So now all I have to do is wait to see what I'm offered for the movie rights to my actual book, sign on the dotted line and then the whole project can enter the strange half-life of 'development', in which a script is written (and re-written, and re-re ... etc), a director and stars are sought and the producer does his level best to create a package that will persuade the Major Studio to shell out the mega-money required to go ahead and make a thriller like The Accident Man.

Assuming it's still called The Accident Man ... or has a hero called Samuel Carver ... or bears any resemblance at all to anything I ever wrote. Because I, as the author, am by far the least important person involved in the project and my opinion counts for less than Jack Shit.

This is something that the average punter - quite reasonably - does not understand. People assume that having spent years creating my characters and writing stories about them, I might have some idea about who would be good to play them. They imagine that I would have a say in how they would be portrayed. Above all they think that I have just become very, very rich.

All these presumptions are 100% wrong for any author who does not happen to be Stephen King, Dan Brown or JK Rowling. The major casting will be determined by which actor likes the script, is available, seems marketable to the studio and is prepared to work for the fee they have in the budget. The story will be far, far more influenced by the lowliest, dumbest 'creative' executive at the studio, making notes on the fourteenth draft of the script, than it ever will be me, or what I wrote. And as for the money, forget it. You hear about mega-deals for authors and sometimes the stories are true. More often they're grossly inflated inventions, dreamed-up by agents and PRs. Studios are cutting back savagely on all non-essential spending, and book-rights certainly come into that category, especially when the book isn't already a massive global bestseller. Plus, all you get when the book is first picked up is the 'option' payment: i.e. the studio acquires an option on the right to buy the book outright at some point in the next 18 months. The full value of the contract is only payable on the first day of production, and 99% of all film projects never get to that point. So I expect to get an option in the low tens of thousands of pounds. If the film gets made, I'll get (very) low six figures. Nothing remotely wrong with that, of course: but I won't be retiring on the proceeds just yet.

I know this because I've done a deal for Accident Man before, the last time it was in development at Another Major Studio. Back then I took a look at the contract, observed how cheaply I was selling my soul and started moaning to my agent (the real one, just off the North End Road) that I was being ripped-off. He pointed out that would only be true IF the film got made and IF it was a huge hit. In that case, yes, the amount I'd be getting was absurdly low. BUT ... if my book had just been the basis of a global mega-movie, then I'd immediately start selling a load more copies, and get a ton of massively-improved publishing deals, and be in with a chance of a far better price when the studio made the sequel. So I'd be laughing.

Plus, I'd get the words TOM CAIN, all by themselves, in big capital letters on the screen smack-bang in the middle of the opening credits, So I'd essentially be giving away my most cherished artistic creation, just so I could sit at my local multiplex and gaze at my (false) name.

Is that a deal worth making? Oh, come on, what do you think? Of course it bloody is!!

PS: It's not always a bad idea for studios to change books, irrespective of the author's wishes or intentions. The only elements of The Bourne Identity that survived from the Ludlum book to the Doug Liman film were the title, the name Jason Bourne and the opening sequence that set up the character and his predicament ... oh, and the idea that Bourne picks up a girl along the way. But since they're the only good - even great - things about the book, that was an entirely sensible decision. The Accident Man, of course, is brilliant from beginning to end, so any deviation from the original would be an aesthetic abomination ... ;)

Please Sir, Can I Write Some More? Or, Franchise v Freedom

In 1993, Steven Spielberg directed Jurassic Park, a family action-flick about reconstituted dinosaurs, and Schindler’s List, an Oscar-winning film from a Booker Prize-winning novel about the Holocaust.
Between December 1855 and August 1861, Charles Dickens followed Little Dorrit, a social critique based on his hatred for debtors’ prisons, with the historical Tale of Two Cities and the sweeping contemporary drama of Great Expectations.
Shakespeare wrote historical plays, tragedies, comedies and sonnets. Picasso explored every possible way in which line, colour and form could be used to create art. Mozart composed virtually every form of music available in his time. Bowie spent the mid-70s changing his look and sound with every new album.
My point being, it has always been considered perfectly normal for creative people (and granted, I’ve picked some very, very creative people) to explore different ways of expressing their creativity. And audiences have gone along with them.
So why aren’t genre authors allowed to write more than one kind of book?
I ask because I write a character-based series. I have no complaints about that. I enjoy writing about Samuel Carver, my very own pet killer and the cast of characters that swirls around him. I’m extremely grateful for the fact that other people seem to enjoy reading about Carver, too.
But he isn’t the only thing I want to write about. Since, for family reasons, I am unable to take a holiday this year, I’ve been giving myself a working break by starting a stand-alone book: a psychological thriller, told in the first person by a protagonist who, like me, has no personal experience of violence, until it strikes right at the heart of his life.
I also have two historical sagas and a domestic comedy – what I call an ‘Up Against the Aga Saga’ – that I’d like to write. But the fact is, it will be extremely hard to find a publisher for them, because people want what they’ve already had, and that means more Sam Carver.
God knows far greater writers than I will ever be have had the same problem. Just look at the efforts Conan Doyle made to get rid of Holmes, or Flemings repeated attempts to leave Bond dead (or at least dead-ish_ at the end of his books. And I have to confess tot total hypocrisy, since as a reader I want Lee Child to write about Jack Reacher, James Lee Burke to keep giving me Robicheaux, and I bitterly resent Dennis Lehane for (apparently) quitting on Kenzie and Gennaro.
I can see the commercial argument, from the publisher’s point-of-view, too. It usually takes a while to establish a franchise in the minds of the reading public. So it’s vital to keep going – ‘Punch the bruise’ as Mandelson likes to say.
But how many franchises, in all honesty, produce more than half-a-dozen great books and ten reasonably good ones? And who lasts longer in general: the one-trick pony, or the artist who is willing to take risks, challenge his audience, but keep coming up with unexpected delights.
If anyone from Bantam is reading this, don’t worry: you’ll get your next Carver, as promised. But I’d like to give you, and anyone who reads my stuff, something else as well. Something new. Something that might just be better …

Samuel Carver: the Bloodsport Project

Samuel Carver is an angry man. The protagonist of The Accident Man, The Survivor and Assassin, whose speciality is creating deniable assassination by means of unattributable ‘accidents’ has just discovered that one of his former brother officers in the SBS has been killed in Afghanistan. The man died very horribly and painfully in the hands of the Taliban, lost for want of the helicopter that should have airlifted him to safety.

Suddenly, a situation that has long been a matter of principled outrage to Carver has become very personal. So he reacts in the way that he knows best. He decides to make a bad thing happen to what he believes is a bad person; the person he holds responsible for the death of his friend and many other fine soldiers, the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

In the tradition of Rogue Male and Day of the Jackal, Carver stalks his prey. In this case he does not choose the boulevards of Paris as his hunting ground, nor the hills and forests of Germany. Instead he goes to the Lake District, where the Prime Minister is taking his summer holiday.

What happens next will be told in a series of three online episodes, to be released this coming Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

I’ve already been having some fun trailing the whole Saga on my Twitter and Facebook pages.

If there is any truth at all to all the talk of the mysterious Echelon listening in on all our phone and online chatter on behalf of America’s National Security Administration and our own GCHQ, then there may already be flags being flown and questions asked about the threats being made by a pseudonymous British crime writer and his online henchmen to the safety of the inhabitant of No10.

So to put the spooks’ minds at ease, let me just say this …

The Carver novels may contain elements based on actual events, but the events they depict are pure fiction, as are all the characters in them. So Bloodsport will play by the same rules as The Accident Man. That book centred on the fictional killing of an unnamed princess in the Alma Tunnel, Paris. Similarly, Carver will be stalking an unnamed, fictional Prime Minister. It's a story, pure and simple.

Above all, though, I am in the business of writing thrillers. That means that stories twist and endings are uncertain. People reading this may feel sure they know what is going to happen. When they read the opening lines of the first episode and find themselves sharing the view through Carver’s sniper sight, they may be even more convinced of the likely outcome.

But in fiction, as in life, nothing ever works out quite the way one expects …

And Episode One of Bloodsport will arrive at Author's Place on Friday …

Tom Cain