My guest today not only wrote one of my top reads in the past 12 months but also, I’m happy to say, is a jolly good person to have a giggle with via Messenger! But that doesn’t tell you a whole lot about her so here is her author Blurb:
“Dal Maclean comes from Scotland. Her background is in journalism, and she has an undying passion for history, the more gossipy and scandalous the better. Dal has lived in Asia and worked all over the world, but home is now the UK.
She dislikes the Tragic Gay trope, but loves imperfect characters and genuine emotional conflict in romantic fiction. As an author, and a reader, she believes it’s worth a bit of work to reach a happy ending. Agatha Christie, English gardens and ill-advised cocktails are three fatal weaknesses, though not usually at the same time.
Her first book, “Bitter Legacy”, was a 2017 Lambda Literary Award Finalist for best Gay Mystery and was chosen by the American Libraries Association for their 2018 Over The Rainbow Recommended Books List.”
Welcome Dal. so pleased to be your host today!
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When you aren’t writing, is there any other creative activity you enjoy? Have you ever written about it?
Gardening, which is very boring of me. But it can be really creative, as well as energetic and nurturing and a bit of a puzzle sometimes. So great all round. But no I haven’t written about it.
What are you reading? Can you recommend something that you wished you’d written yourself?
I’m re-reading The Time Travellers Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer. The conceit is that you’re going to travel there as a tourist and this is like a Rough Guide to help you fit it, like… the cultural dos and don’ts, and the importance of a chicken and what the concept of time meant then, and where to go to the toilet. It’s not a new book but it’s absolutely brilliant and yes, I definitely wish I’d written it
In that crucial inspiration stage of a new story which comes first? Plot, situation or character?
Probably plot, though character is close behind. I don’t have a complete picture of the plot when I start out – just a general one – and the twists and turns often come or change as I go. But a lot happens on instinct or by accident. I didn’t know for example that Object of Desire was going to be so much faster paced than Bitter Legacy, or a psychological thriller as well as mystery. But that happened I think because OOD takes place over a number of days (maybe that’s what makes it a thriller); BL’s plot covered months. That in itself changes the feel of a book I think. The faster and more urgent the plot, the less time the characters have for contemplation and thinky things, and in depth analysis of relationships etcs.
Sometimes it does become incredibly complicated writing largely as you go – trying to make sure multiple strands intertwine and all make sense and don’t leave holes. Trying to ensure every character has logical and believable motivations that fit who they are. And alibis. I talk to myself a lot. I’m very embarrassing to be around.
Do your characters arrive fully fledged and ready to fly or do they develop as you work with them? Do you have a crisp mental picture of them or are they more a thought and a feeling than an image?
When I start, main characters generally have basic characteristics, but as I write, nuances develop on their own. I didn’t know when I started to write, for example, that Tom Gray used to play football (soccer) recreationally before he modelled and then had to stop. Or that Ben and Jamie in Bitter Legacy both did martial arts.
I find that when any of my characters face particular situations, I do have a very definite idea about what they each would and wouldn’t do.
Tom the POV character in Object of Desire is a more astute observer of human nature than James Henderson in Bitter Legacy. They’re both definitely unreliable narrators of course, and Tom is even fooling himself a fair amount of the time. They both get a lot wrong. But James’s upbringing has made him a bit more of a Visitor To Planet Earth than Tom at times.
The side characters are probably less formed at the start and their little peccadilloes grow on the page, for example Alec Scrivenor’s devotion to Costa coffee in BL and Pez’s gimlet eye for trends in OOD.
All my characters do come to feel real to me though, so I get protective of them. Which is a bit disturbing when I think about it.
What inspired you to write about modelling?
An article I read about the realities of male modelling which was fascinating – both male and female attitudes to modelling and male models were very different. And the attitudes of men and women to being models was different. As I read, Tom and a basic plot began to form. I could seriously bore the arse off you with the realities and the psychology behind it. Elin,where are you going?
Just kidding! 🙂 Male models are lovely but my rather atrophied mothering instinct makes me want to give them soup and a roll. Do you find there to be a lot of structural differences between a relationship driven story and one where the romance is a sub plot?
Well I think what I write is a kind of hybrid. Neither fish nor fowl. It’s not a romance and it’s not a mystery so I’m not sure what it is exactly. A romstery? A mysmance? I imagine, with some longing, that it would be easier to write one or the other, than try both equally at the same time. But I follow both basic structures – mystery and romance — and sometimes they do fight with each other. I’ve learned a lot about it from working with Nicole Kimberling at Blind Eye Books who has a lot of knowledge and astonishing instincts.
I write far too much as well and I’m going to try to do better on that score in my next effort. I wrote 25% too much for Object of Desire including a sex scene that lasted for more than 20 pages. (My editor tried to save it but alas… ah, the guys were probably chafing by then anyway)
20 PAGES!! What would they even … no, never mind, I don’t need to know. But I would like to know what measures do you take to keep track of those annoying little details – eye colour, car type, name of ex-spouse’s dog – that are so easy to drop into text and so easy to forget about on the next book in the series?
I’ve only done two books so far so I don’t have very much to keep track of. But I’m very anal about details so I’ll go back and check whenever a date or description comes along. I actually have to admit I have detailed timelines of each book and the characters entire histories, most of which never get near the actual story- that’s how anal I am. Sometimes I mess up, but up until now, its been caught in the edit thankfully.
Maps *nods* I spend far too long drawing maps. Villains are incredibly important in fiction since they challenge the main protagonists and give them something to contend with beyond the tension of a developing relationship. The cruel sea. The serial killer. The society itself. Your hero’s inner demons. What sort of villains do you prize?
Complicated ones. Human ones. Ones who don’t twirl the ends of their pantomime moustaches. Occasionally ones you can understand and even sympathise with – though that’s not something you can do often as a writer I think. I especially like villains who care – who have some personal stake in the story and the hero/es be it positive or negative. I think when you’re talking about an inanimate villain like the sea as you said, that’s one thing, but I need three dimensions if the villain’s human.
What are you working on at the moment? Can you discuss it or do you prefer to keep it a secret until it’s finished.
I’m starting the third book in the Bitter Legacy universe set after Object of Desire and the POV character this time is Will Foster, now back in the Met. I think there are still some legs in his relationship with Tom and there are loose ends all over the place. So we’ll see how it pans out. There’s a large cast of main, secondary and tertiary characters though over both books so it’s going to be a challenge deciding who and what to put in. And an established relationship is new ground for me. I may run away to sea if it gets too tough.
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Title: Object of Desire
Genre: Gay, m/m, thriller, psychological thriller, mystery
Blurb:
Tom Gray is one of the world’s top models – an effortless object of desire. Self-contained, elusive and always in control, he’s accustomed to living life entirely on his own terms. But when Tom comes under suspicion in the gory death of his employer, his world spirals into chaos.
Someone’s framing him. Someone’s stalking him. And as old secrets come to light, Tom finds his adversary always one step ahead.
Will Foster is the only man Tom trusts to help. But Tom brutally burned all bridges between them two years before, and Will paid a bitter price. If he wants to survive, Tom must prove his innocence to Will–and to the world.
Buy links:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/807492
Print: $18.95
Digital: $6.99
You can follow Dal on these social media links:
Author: Dal Maclean http://www.dalmaclean.com
Author Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15408926.Dal_Maclean
Author Twitter: @MacleanDal – Dal Maclean
Author Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Dal-Maclean/100010371585020
Author Insta: dalmaclean
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Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty is a wonderful book – and I wish I’d written it! It’s set in 1980’s London, and recalls a brutal time in Britain’s history. But Hollinghurst writes it with great wit and pace. It’s not just a damn good plot, it’s also a great piece of social history. His novel The Stranger’s Child is also a very good piece of social observation, and a very complex structure, set in multiple historical periods. Hollinghurst handles the switch between periods deftly and with great lightness of writing. 
Blurb:
Elin Gregory 