Evil E, the monthly blog perpetrated by Elaine Flinn, has a new edition up and it features a terrific interview with Michael Connelly.
Here are my questions from it:
DAVID MONTGOMERY:
You’re probably tired of hearing this question, but I’ll ask it
anyway... Do you foresee an end to the Harry Bosch series? He’s aging
in real time, so we know he can’t last forever. But I’d sure be sad to
see him go. How much more life does he have in him?
MICHAEL CONNELLY:
Well, I certainly see the need to end the forward progression of the
series with Harry as a cop. He’s 58 this year and the reality is I have
maybe 4 or 5 years before it starts bending reality. But I can always
go backwards. There are a lot years in his life I haven’t written
about. I could also extend the series with his life after LAPD. So it
will all come down to whether or not I continue to be interested in
him. If that continues then i think Harry will continue in some way.
DAVID J. MONTGOMERY:
So many of the best crime writers are former journalists... Robert
Ferrigno, Laura Lippman, Jon King, Denise Hamilton, etc. What is it
about being a reporter that lends itself to writing great crime fiction?
MICHAEL CONNELLY:
I can only guess at it, and of course there are so many great crime
writers who were not journalists. But the one thing I think has helped
me is the process of journalism. No matter what the story is, you never
get enough space to say what you want to say. So you learn to make
every sentence count. You make them short and to the point. You look
for the one telling detail rather than 50 details that don’t get to the
point of what you are communicating. You try to have every quote carry
information the reader needs. So in a perfect news story nothing is
wasted. It creates a certain velocity in the story. I have tried to
carry that over to my fiction, even though now I don’t have the same
constraints in terms of space and length.
Check out the whole interview -- there's some interesting stuff in there.
In other news, Elaine injured herself and is currently laid-up. We all hope she makes a full recovery soon!
Very sorry to hear about Elaine's accident and wishing her the best!
I like Michael Connelly's answer about future Bosch novels. That's one of the great things about being a writer. There's always another story that can be told about a good character.
On CrimeSpace there's a discussion about "lean prose." I think Connelly defined it very well above.
Posted by: I.J.Parker | August 08, 2008 at 09:54 AM
Who's Michael Connelly?
Posted by: Guyot | August 08, 2008 at 11:59 AM
Make your life more simple take the business loans and all you need.
Posted by: FarrellMolly34 | March 23, 2010 at 10:35 PM
I like Michael Connelly's answer about future Bosch novels. That's one of the great things about being a writer. There's always another story that can be told about a good character.
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