1) So, who are you & what have you written?
Hi, I’m Sam Carrington, a debut author writing psychological thrillers with a crime element. SAVING SOPHIE is set in a family environment and deals with the fallout of a missing teenager – Sophie’s friend – and how the family unravels when a body is found. Sophie’s mum suspects that her daughter knows more than she’s letting on, but both have their own demons to face …
SAVING SOPHIE is available as an eBook on 12th August and paperback December 15th 2016.
You can find me on Twitter as @sam_carrington1. Find me on Facebook, HERE and check out my blog, HERE.
2) Why do you write crime fiction?
I’ve always had a morbid fascination with all things dark – I’m not sure where that came from! I enjoyed psychology at college and that continued in to later life and led to me taking a psychology degree. From there, I worked in a prison delivering offending behaviour programmes aiming to reduce offenders’ risk. My experiences there definitely had an impact on me and my choice to write crime fiction. But, on the whole I think I write it because that’s what I love reading most.
3) What informs your crime writing?
The biggest thing that has informed my writing has to be my time working with offenders, as I acquired knowledge about lots of different types of crime and criminals and the effects of crime on victims. Other real-life cases that I hear about in the news, or see in the media, also get ‘catalogued’ for future ideas. Having a genuine interest in people (and possibly a tendency for being nosey) means that I always want to dig deeper; find out what makes people do what they do, or act in a certain way. I find myself wondering what someone would do if they suddenly found themselves in a challenging situation and this is something that drove the narrative in my book. For SAVING SOPHIE it was a real-life incident that sparked the “what if…” questions that ultimately led to the novel being written.
4) What’s your usual writing routine?
I try to get up between 6 and 7 a.m. and I fire up the laptop as soon as I’ve made a coffee. I generally go to social media sites first as I like to catch up on what’s been happening before I turn my attention to writing. I have a word count aim but don’t always hit it. I find it’s better if I can write in the morning (although I’m flexible on that and it depends on what else I have going on in my life!) I take a fair few snack breaks and also stop writing around 2 p.m. to take the dogs for a walk. I’ll either carry on writing when home, or do other writing-related things like blog posts or research. I don’t tend to write in the evenings unless I’m nearing a deadline. Likewise, I don’t usually write at the weekends, spending time with the family instead.
5) Which crime book do you wish YOU’D written, and why?
Oh, there are many I wish I’d written! Probably though, Post-Mortem by Patricia Cornwell, because that was the first book introducing chief medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta and the one that got me hooked on crime novels. I loved the detail of the post-mortems, it really tapped into that dark, morbid fascination that I’ve since cultivated! Patricia’s plotting and suspense building was brilliant, and I think it was also the first book I’d read where there was a strong female lead.
Thanks, Sam!
