Literary Birthday – 29 October – Desmond Bagley

1. ‘If a man is a fool, you don’t train him out of being a fool by sending him to university. You merely turn him into a trained fool, ten times more dangerous.’
2. “…the characters and environment interact (I regard the place as another character in the book) and the plot grows organically like a tree.” (via)
3. “My books are not specifically about crime although some people think they are. Yet, all novels must have suspense or they are nothing.” (via)
4. “The only time I wrote the synopsis of a book before attacking the typewriter was the time the book never got written.” (via)
5. “So I have a group of interesting people set in an interesting landscape. I have no plot. This is not to say that I do not have a theme, which must not be confused with plot, although it often is. The theme of Running Blind was the sheer damned stupidity of international espionage.” (via)
6. “Act I displays to us the characters and the situation in which they find themselves, tells us who they are, their relationship to each other, what they are doing and where they are doing it. Act II develops and complicates the opening situation in various interesting ways. The author of the drama seems to be painting himself into a corner, and our attention is held by figuring how he intends to get himself out. Act III is the denouement; all the complications and problems inherent in the opening situation, and magnified in the development, are solved.” (via)
7. “While the task of writing novels is as lonely a job as being a lighthouse keeper there are associated compensations, the biggest of which is the opportunity to travel once one is away from the typewriter keyboard. This is a real bonus. ” (via)

Desmond Bagley was the UK’s best-selling crime novelist in the 1970s. He was known, along with fellow British writers, Hammond Innes and Alistair MacLean, for establishing the basic conventions of the thriller genre. He wrote 16 books including The Golden Keel and The Vivero Letter. Visit Desmond Bagley Online.

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