There's now a little more than a week until the publication of Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs - the eBook edition will contain a splattering of bonus material and one of these bonus items is a Q&A with myself, which I have posted below for readers of the Archive.
I like the idea of bonus material and think there are great possibilities for such material to add an extra dimension to the novel itself. And of course to give the reader more value for money.
And so here, to get you all ready for Granny Smith, is a small selection of the Q&A from Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs.
Q&A With Author G. M. Dobbs
Q- So what next for Granny Smith?
A-
Well, of course we have Gerald’s wedding to look forward to
which will be detailed in a short Granny Smith story that will be published
later this year. The next full-length novel will be called Murder Plot and
concerns murder and intrigue at the allotments society.
Q-Where did the idea for Granny Smith come from?
A- The back of my brain, likely.
I’ve a fondness for classic crime fiction and also the old Ealing comedy
movies. I think that the Ealing movies and Agatha Christie, particularly her
Miss Marple series are the two biggest influences on the Granny Smith series,
but there are other influences that all meld together to form the unique
universe of the novels, the Granniverse of you like. I love Tom Sharpe for
instance and although my writing maybe more PG Tips than PG Wodehouse I do hope
there’s a lot of good humour in the books. I’m aiming for the sky with Granny
Smith, but if I only reach the shithouse roof then at least I've tried.
Q – The books usually concern a murder and the subsequent
investigation. Does humour have a place amongst such dark themes?
A- The novels would fall loosely
into the cozy crime category, so yes there is a murder but this takes place off
page and there is very little gore or graphic detail. And of course the
characters are all so much larger than life that we know we’re not dealing with
a real world murder and all the ramifications resulting from such. There’s fun
than blood. It’s all fantasy as is our detective the very wonderful Granny
Smith. Miss Marple on steroids, indeed.
Q- Which character from the Granny Smith books would you
most compare yourself to?
A-
Gerald, obviously! But no I think there’s a bit of myself in
all the characters. I love the way Granny sees political correctness for what
it truly is and I hope I share this trait. Also Gerald’s flamboyance, Arthur’s
lust for solitude and Twice’s self importance are swirling around in my DNA.
Q- Granny aged ten years from the original draft of the
first novel. Why was this?
A-
It’s true when I first wrote Granny Smith she was in her early
Sixties, but I always wanted her to be older. I always thought her early
Seventies was the correct age for the character but I was worried that it would
be too much of a stretch to imagine all the things she does and so I created
her as an extremely fit woman in her Sixties – which is not old by modern
standards. Of course I soon realised that this was a mistake and that she had
to be an older woman – and so I republished the first novel and made her 72
years old. That’s the beauty of electronic publishing in that it is so easy to
go back and revise a book that’s already been published. I guess I’ll age
Granny into her Eighties over maybe ten books.
Q- So you see the series going on for at least ten books?
A-
And more. Granny’s a fun character to play with and I love the
way the world looks through her eyes. I’ve become a fan of series characters in
cozy crime and especially enjoy the works of Simon Brett, M. C. Beaton and
Lesley Cookman and if these guys can continue to come up with ideas for their
characters then I’m sure I can too.
Q- You have had some success writing westerns as Jack Martin
so isn’t cozy crime a big switch?
A-
Not really. My westerns contain a lot of humour so I don’t
think they are that far removed from the Granny Smith series. And I see no
reason why a writer is expected to stick to one genre. That doesn’t happen in
other fields where creators are free to switch genres whenever the fancy or need
takes them. Stephen Spielberg doesn’t only make one kind of movie and The
Beatles switched genres from track to track. I write the story that takes over
my imagination at any given time and the genre is a secondary issue.
Q- So would you write Erotica?
A-
Good God, no. I find it difficult to type one-handed.
Q- Where can people find out more about your writing?
A-
That’s a convenient question – thank you. Well you can follow
me on Twitter @jackmartinwest and I keep a Facebook page under the name Gary
Martin Dobbs and then there’s my very active blog, The Tainted Archive which
you can find at
http://tainted-archive.blogspot.co.uk/
.
Q- Finally where you get your ideas?
A-
Well I do a lot of people watching – well one woman really but
the police have told me I’ve got to stop. Where do ideas come from? Anywhere
and everywhere – from other books, movies, events in newspapers. Sometimes I will be walking down the street and an idea will pop into my head and sometimes I dream story-lines as I sleep.
Q- Tell the truth: you made these questions up yourself
didn’t you?
A-Yep
Granny Smith and the Deadly Frogs will be published 31st March 2013
Granny Smith Investigates is available now.
The world Granny Smith operates in is very much a reflection of the real world, and whilst I may not have held a mirror up to the real world, I've most certainly held up one of those amusement park bendy, twisty mirrors. All of the characters who seemed to make an impression on readers in the first book are back - Dai Twice is on the case, Gerald is preparing to take a big step forward in his life and Chief Inspector Miskin is fuming away in the corner of the pages. And of course our intrepid amateur sleuth, the geriatric crime-fighter, Miss Marple on Steroids herself, is out there ensuring justice is delivered.
I'll be writing more about Granny for the Archive this week - hey, I've got to make a living and also have a Vlog planned - that's a video blog post in which I will tell Archive readers a little of what they can expect from the second Granny Smith novel. So be here or, as they used to say in Granny's day, be square.
