International Thriller Writers Interview

Simon Tolkien was born in England in 1959, and let's get this out of the way up front: yes, he is related to THAT Tolkien. He is in fact the grandson of J.R.R. Tolkien, of whom he has many fond memories.

Tolkien is a former barrister (that's attorney, for us Yanks) who now lives in Santa Barbara, California with his family. His first novel, Final Witness, was published in 2002, and his second novel, The Inheritance, has just been released. The Inheritance starts out with a horrific crime committed by two British soldiers in World War II, and then moves to what is familiar territory for Tolkien: a trial at the Old Bailey. To raise the stakes, he sets the story in a time in Britain when the death penalty was still legal, and a very real possibility for the young man on trial in Tolkien's novel.

Tolkien's second novel has debuted to rave reviews, such as the Booklist review which describe it as "written with great surety and absolutely compelling."

With a famous writer as a relative, you'd think that Tolkien would have been born knowing that he was a natural, but in fact for many years he found that it held him back.

In fact, he says, "I didn't succeed in writing any fiction until I was forty. I think what really stopped me is that I used to be very self-conscious so that the sound of the words in my head got in the way of the creative flow. Now, for some reason, I can still hear what I write but this has become a help, not a hindrance. Perhaps this is a question of confidence, and in hindsight I do think that having the creator of Middle Earth as my grandfather didn't help my self-belief and was a hurdle that I had to overcome in starting out as a novelist. I'm a self-taught writer and have never taken any creative writing classes, although I think I'd have enjoyed them if I had."

Q: How long did you work as a barrister? Have you retired from that  profession now?

A: Unlike in the US, there are two types of criminal lawyer in England - the solicitor who prepares the case and the barrister who presents it in court. I started out as a solicitor in 1987 and then got frustrated taking a back seat and switched to being a barrister in 1994. It was one of the best decisions I ever made. I gave up the law in 2003 and emigated last year to California which I love. I miss the excitement of jury trials but not the stress, and writing is a whole new challenge!

Q: Like many authors, your first book was rejected. How did you convince yourself to carry on in the face of that rejection? Did you discuss it with your family, receive support from your family, etc.?

A: A very good question. I now see that there was a great deal wrong with my first book, which is hardly surprising given that I'd written nothing before, but at the time I thought the novel was wonderful and I found its rejection very difficult to cope with. A bloody-minded refusal to be beaten and enormous encouragement from my wife, Tracy, enabled me to keep going and get Final Witness published in 2002. I have huge sympathy for other authors who go through this experience.

Q: Any plans to revisit that first book and rewrite it?

A: No, the first book is over and done with. I see it in retrospect as a kind of apprenticeship. I feel I learnt a great deal from writing it and I remember it with considerable affection, but I have now moved on and must look forward, not back.

Q: When you are writing, do you show your work to anyone? Do you get  critiques as you go along? How much plotting do you do beforehand?

A: My books take about two years to complete. I need about a year to come up with a story and to plot it out and do the necessary research. Then, at the end of the year I hope to have a detailed synopsis which I show to my wife, my agent and my editor for approval. Then I use the synopsis to write the book which takes about another year, and afterward, of course, there's editing and revision. The synopsis is critical as the kind of books I write require detailed plotting to succeed, and I find my legal training helps in this area. The art is to make the synopsis sufficiently detailed to provide a clear road map through the book while not fleshing it out to the extent that it inhibits character development and creativity during the writing process. My mother was a sculptress and I think of the synopsis as the armature underneath the clay; the skeleton without the flesh. It is a mystery to me how a ten page synopsis ends up as a three hundred and forty page book each time, but that's what happens - up to now at least. Once I have finalised the synopsis, I write entirely on my own, starting at the beginning and going on to the end. With my first book I read it to my wife chapter by chapter, but now I cannot work this way. A good British writer called Alan Sillitoe has just died and I was much struck by a quotation from him that appeared in his obituary in the L.A. Times today - he said: "The occupation of a novelist is a lonely one: labouring like the coalminer far underground - he has only the light from his helmet to illuminate the unique ore he has discovered, at which he must work undisturbed."

Q: Do you write at a certain time every day? Do you set yourself a  certain amount of writing to accomplish daily, or just write for as  long as you feel inspired?

A: The process of dreaming up a plot requires quite a lot of lying around looking up at the ceiling, which looks very lazy but isn't. The actual writing, however, needs a lot of discipline and I think having had the experience of doing a job for many years does help. I start work at about 7 in the morning and work till 12 or 1 and then read over what I've written for an hour later in the day, making corrections. I try to do at least 800 words a day but sometimes that's impossible. The writing suffers if I try to do too much. It often feels like mountaineering and requires a peculiar mixture of graft and inspiration.

Q: What led you and your family to move to California?

A: My wife is American and we felt it was overdue for us to spend time in her country after 25 years in mine. We chose Santa Barbara, California because of the climate, its position by the sea, and the lovely look of the town. It's worked out wonderfully and the friendliness of the people is a big bonus. Sometimes driving down out of the hills toward the sun over the Pacific I feel carried away by the beauty of the place. Your book is set in 1959 - the year that you were born. How did  you go about researching life in the 1950s for The Inheritance? How  did you find out the authentic day to day details? The memories of wartime England? I think that the 1950s are a good fit for me as my writing has a somewhat dated quality, probably arising from all the 19th century books I read when I was growing up. I've read social histories and done research on the internet to get a feel for the time and I have also garnered a lot of period material from the movies, especially Hitchcock. The wonderful television series, Mad Men has been a godsend to me as it is set in exactly the same time frame. I have always loved history and, starting with The Inheritance, I have been working on developing a historical dimension to my novels. The 1960 time frame helps with this as I think it points Janus-like in two directions - into a new world and yet overshadowed by the cataclysm of the Second World War.

Q: Were you at all intimidated by the challenge posed by creating a new twist to the classic "locked room mystery"?

A: No, this didn't occur to me. The Inheritance is a courtroom drama and so I needed a plot where there would be strong evidence against a person charged with murder while there would also be a cast of other persons present in the house who might have committed the crime. These ingredients made a murderer caught apparently redhanded inside a locked room in a manor house an ideal fit for me.

Q: Are you currently working on a new book? If so, can you tell us about it?

A: I have just finished a new novel entitled The King of Diamonds which is going to be published by Minotaur next April. The book features the same investigating policemen as in The Inheritance - Inspector Trave and his assistant, Detective Clayton. Trave is convinced that two murders have been committed by a wealthy diamond dealer who is having an affair with Trave's wife, and he stands to lose everything if he is proved wrong.

Q: I know on your website you describe some of your fond memories of your grandfather.  What sort of things do you tell your children about him? When did you first introduce his books to them? Can you share a couple of your favorite memories about him?

A: I tell my children not to be overshadowed by their great-grandfather but to be proud of their relationship to a man who wrote such wonderful books. I read my 19 year son The Lord of the Rings ten years ago and I am now in the middle of reading it to my daughter. She was recently very pleased to find out that Gandalf survived his encounter with the balrog in the mines of Moria. I went to stay with my grandparents in Bournemouth on many occasions when I was a boy and had a close relationship with both of them. My grandfather was very affectionate and we went for walks by the sea and played word games together. He had a good sense of humour and was often laughing. In the last year of his life he came back to Oxford after my grandmother died and I would go and have lunch with him at the Eastgate Hotel. I think he knew then that his book, The Silmarillion would never see the light of day in his lifetime which made him sad, and it was also hard for him to be alone after being married for fifty years, but he still had an extraordinary capacity for enjoying life. My last memory of him is playing a wicked game of croquet on a hot summer afternoon and winning with a flourish.

Q: I know that a courtroom drama is far away from Middle Earth, but do you feel that you learned any lessons or picked up any techniques  from your grandfather's writing?

A: Yes, I think The Lord of the Rings has been an important influence on my writing. I have been inspired by my grandfather's great gift for describing the power of evil, and I am drawn like him to the idea that events and objects from the past can exert power over those living in the present.