{"id":18132,"date":"2013-03-28T06:00:18","date_gmt":"2013-03-28T10:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=18132"},"modified":"2013-03-27T20:04:28","modified_gmt":"2013-03-28T00:04:28","slug":"ten-questions-about-runaway-town-by-jay-stringer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2013\/03\/28\/ten-questions-about-runaway-town-by-jay-stringer\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten Questions About Runaway Town, By Jay Stringer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Jay Stringer’s one of those guys who kicks ten kinds of ass with his simple, stripped-down crime fiction prose. He’s also a dangerous deviant and should be Tasered on sight. But you didn’t hear it from me. He’s a helluva guy and here he’d like to duct tape you to a chair and tell you about his new book:<\/em><\/p>\n

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF: WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I\u2019m a novelist. I write crime and social fiction and blog at Do Some Damage<\/strong>. I was also a founder member of seminal 80\u2019s beat combo The Replacements. (I wasn\u2019t.) (That is one of the biggest regrets of my life.) \u00a0I grew up in England and now live in Scotland, so I\u2019m very good at frying things.<\/p>\n

GIVE US THE 140-CHARACTER STORY PITCH:<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Romani detective Eoin Miller is asked to find a rapist preying on young immigrants. He wanders into a web of racism, betrayal and violence.<\/p>\n

WHERE DOES THIS STORY COME FROM?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I want each project to be a tightrope walk. I need there to be the risk of failure. I also need to be angry about something, or to have a question that I need to spend 80-or-so thousand words exploring.<\/p>\n

A few things came together to get me started on Runaway Town. I\u2019m uncomfortable with the way violence against women is used in a lot of fiction. I think we see a lot of people declare that they want to write about how women are objectified, but then it just seems to become an excuse to write graphic scenes. They\u2019re then also used to set up revenge scenes, as if that is the way to balance things out. And revenge in fiction is a slippery slope. For instance, I\u2019ve never been entirely comfortable with the \u201cgetting medieval\u201d scene in Pulp Fiction, and the way the audience is primed to cheer for what\u2019s about to happen. It feels like the joke is on us for laughing.<\/p>\n

I set out to walk the tightrope myself and write about them. I wanted to try and tell a story that treated victims of violence (both woman and men) as more than a punch line or plot device.<\/p>\n

HOW IS THIS A STORY ONLY YOU COULD\u2019VE WRITTEN?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Both this and Old Gold<\/strong> \u2013 my first book – are very personal. They\u2019re both love and hate letters to my hometown. I come from the Midlands in the UK, which rarely gets a mention in the national news and almost never gets to be front and centre in a film, novel or television show. There are things to love about the region (hey, world, Shakespeare? Industrial Revolution? Alan Moore? You\u2019re welcome.) But equally there are a lot of things worth challenging. I hope I do both.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not the first person to set crime novels in the region (people should check out Charlie Williams) but I don\u2019t think there are many who take on the social issues in the way I do. And I don\u2019t think there are any who have a Romani protagonist. That\u2019s a culture that is more often used as a clich\u00e9 or the butt of jokes.<\/p>\n

WHAT WAS THE HARDEST THING ABOUT WRITING RUNAWAY TOWN?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Fear. Also \u2018getting over myself.\u2019 I knew I was going to have to write openly and honestly about the issues in the story. That meant writing characters whose opinions I didn\u2019t agree with, and try to be fair with them and walk in their shoes. I had to get into their heads and stay there for a while.<\/p>\n

WHAT DID YOU LEARN WRITING RUNAWAY TOWN?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

To embrace that fear. Yoda was wrong. Fear leads to good writing. It keeps us honest. I also learned to trust the reader; they\u2019ll know the characters aren\u2019t all speaking and acting for me. Once I got my head around that, I was sorted.<\/p>\n

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT RUNAWAY TOWN?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I think it\u2019s the best thing I\u2019ve ever written, and I don\u2019t think I could have written it five years ago. Also, because I\u2019m shallow, I love the cover. The publisher have done me proud.<\/p>\n

WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I\u2019d sleep more often. Also drink coffee earlier in the day. Also, if I was writing this story without it being part of the Eoin Miller trilogy, I might have written it from the point of view of one of the immigrants, try to find the person whose story isn\u2019t being told. I\u2019m getting interested in exploring noir fiction from a young adult point of view; see what it looks like to them.<\/p>\n

GIVE US YOUR FAVORITE PARAGRAPH FROM THE STORY:<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Here\u2019s where I cheat. I have a passage of dialogue that I like, and my Wife – much smarter than me – tells me each new line of dialogue is a new paragraph. So, hey, let\u2019s pretend I\u2019m not cheating, yeah?<\/p>\n

\u201cI caught Springsteen on the radio the other day, that Philadelphia song. Man, I was ready to slash my wrists. How\u2019ve you not done yourself in?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not all like that. I mean, I actually find \u2018Streets of Philadelphia\u2019 <\/em>a hopeful song\u2014redemption and rest, you know? But he\u2019s written tons of upbeat songs that you\u2019d like.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike what? Name one<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Born to Run.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut see, that\u2019s exactly it. What\u2019s he running from?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cZombies.\u201d <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

WHAT\u2019S NEXT FOR YOU AS A STORYTELLER?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I\u2019ve turned the third Eoin Miller book into the publisher, and so I have a big decision to make. Write a stand-alone crime novel? Write the Young Adult novel I keep threatening my agent with? Write a fantasy epic about the dwarf who invented spaghetti? It\u2019s a choice between consolidating what I\u2019m already doing, or branching out into a new genre. It\u2019s a big choice, and I think probably an important one for all authors in these crazy post-apocalyptic times.<\/p>\n

Jay Stringer: Website<\/span><\/a> \/ @jaystringer<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Runaway Town: Amazon<\/span><\/a> \/ Amazon UK<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jay Stringer’s one of those guys who kicks ten kinds of ass with his simple, stripped-down crime fiction prose. He’s also a dangerous deviant and should be Tasered on sight. But you didn’t hear it from me. He’s a helluva guy and here he’d like to duct tape you to a chair and tell you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18132","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-4Is","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18132"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18136,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18132\/revisions\/18136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}