Fran Connor Interview Published on: 23, Feb 2018
Tell us about your favourite childhood memory and why it's special to you.
Walking in the Pennines (England) as a teenager and enjoying the fresh air and freedom up there in the hills. The remote barren beauty has stayed with me and perhaps helps me get poetic at times.
Do you remember the first story you ever wrote? Who was your first audience and how did they react to your story?At college we were set a task of writing ‘A day in the life of a caveman’. So I wrote a story that impressed the lecturer so much he read it out to the class and suggested I had a future in writing stories.
Have your parents always been supportive of your career as an author? If they had their way, what profession would you be in?My parents died before I took up writing. Though my ambition after college was to be a journalist I joined the police force instead. My parents were happy with that career choice. So was I. I got to retire with a pension at the age of 53 and was able to take up writing.
What made you decide to move to France? What are some fantastic sites or foods in France that not many tourists know about?When I was due to retire my wife and I looked at several options. We liked France, the countryside, the towns, the food, the culture and one could buy a property there for much less than in England. So we decided to move there. In the area where Iive, we have lots of fortified hilltop villages dating back the the eleventh and twelfth centuries that are still lived in. The have a ‘romantic’ feel and that can trigger some ideas for writing. Duck is a speciality in my area but so are prunes (which I don’t like) and we have many vineyards and orchards.
What are some differences as to how you approach a book when writing a crime fiction/thriller book vs a romance?One has to remember who will be reading the novel and tailor it to that audience. If it is a romance then the usual format is boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back and it is usually written from the point of view of the girl. In a thriller the reader,male or female wants an edge of the seat page turner that rockets through the story with a great protagonist. I tend to have a female protagonist because women are far more interesting characters than men. They have to think their way out of jeopardy rather than fight their way out. Crime stories have to have a believable investigator and a crime and much of the story is how the investigator finds the perpetrator. Though I am an ex police officer I tend not to write police stories. They don’t interest me. However, although all genres are different, when I write I usually have a romance story intertwined.
Your story "Honourable Lies" focuses on an orphan named Victoria. Was it difficult trying to put yourself in her shoes, since she went through so many struggles, and write from her point of view?I don’t think it was difficult to put myself in her shoes. I’m a man and I’m not an orphan and I wasn’t living in Victorian times but I have an imagination and I carry out a lot of research. People often doubt whether someone like me can write from a female POV but my answer is that I have never visited far off star systems but I can write science fiction set in space.
How did your writing process change from "Operation Hydra" to "The Alcázar Code"? Could you tell us about some of the main characters in this book and the people that inspired them?I don’t think the writing process changed during the writing of the series that includes Operation Hydra, The Genesis Project and The Alcazar Code. The original idea came from am idea I had about cover ups in the political upper echelons and I developed it from there with a organisation of ‘good guys’ (ARTEMIS) fighting against a global nasty group (IOAGI)
What brought about the idea for your book "The Devil's Bridge"? What are some things you hope you readers can take away from reading this book?I’ve always been interested in WW1 and WW2. I was also interested in the FAUST story. It all came together in The Devil’s Bridge. I hope the reader can see that evil can be overcome if we are prepared to go to great lengths to overcome it.
When you write, who do you write for? The readers or for yourself? Do you ever find yourself compromising, when it comes to writing, if you think that your readers might or might not like a particular idea or plot?I only write what I want to write because I like the idea and subject. If I am not passionate about what I write I can’t expect a reader to be. My main motivation for writing is enjoyment. I enjoy the writing and the research and it keeps the old brain working.
Your book, "Sophia and the Fisherman", takes place in SW France which is where you live. Was this book inspired in any way by your life experiences?Sophia and the Fisherman was the first novel I wrote. It is pure fiction and in no way relates to my life, just my imagination. I set it in SW France because I know and love the region. There is an African section in the novel and I put that in after a visit there where I was impressed by the fortitude and ingenuity of the people.
What is the best money you've ever spent as an author?On a fiction writing course run by two best selling novelists
Name your favourite under-appreciated novel or novelist.I don’t think I know that answer. There are so many and it would be churlish to pick out one.
What are some ethics or rules that you follow when writing about historical figures? What about when you write a thriller?I try to make sure that I portray historical figures accurately in any genre but it is still subjective and I’m sure I sometimes do them an injustice or over praise them.
What is a story you've been playing around with for a while and you think you'll ever put it down to paper?Sometimes a writer falls in love (platonic of course) with a character and that happened writing The Devil’s Bridge. A minor character ‘Elvira’ who is an immortal Trojan seemed to deserve her own novel so I am working on a series that will tell her story from the fall of Troy to where she appears in The Devil’s Bridge. This idea of taking a character from one novel and giving them their own seems to be attracting me because a minor character, the gypsy ‘Rawnie’, in Honourable Lies is pencilled in for a series of three novels of her own.
