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" I never write about CIA conspiracies or the FBI or mafia or anything like that because I just don't understand that world. But I think I do understand individual human harmfulness. "
Sophie Hannah
Think
Never
World
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" Just because someone has stylistic limitations doesn't necessarily make them a worse writer. "
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" Agatha Christie's writing is incredibly skillful because her books are incredibly intellectually puzzling and challenging. "
Sophie Hannah
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" My crime novels are highly structured. I never start out with a dead body. I start with an impossible scenario. Opening questions should be mysterious, weird, intriguing, and contain the seeds of the solution. The structure has to be meticulous - I'm a structure freak. "
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" In West Yorkshire, I'd have to drive three quarters of an hour to go shopping. "
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" Poirot is a classic character from fiction, not a MacBook Air; he would not benefit from updates. "
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" Reading is the only area of my life in which I prefer to be non-autonomous. "
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" I always notice the dysfunctional dynamic of human relationships because most places where you encounter it, people are trying to pretend it isn't happening. "
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" No highbrow literary type would ever say 'Moby Dick' is good but it's just about a whale, or a Jane Austen would be important if she wasn't just writing about romantic relationships. "
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" A lot of women feel like they should be enjoying motherhood, they should be fulfilled and shouldn't be thinking, 'I wish I didn't have to do this.' "
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" With me, even if my life depended on it, I wouldn't be able to cry. Not with somebody there. Because even if I'm talking about bad and upsetting things, if there is somebody else in the room, I am trying to entertain them. If there is somebody there, I am in performance mode. I can only cry if I am on my own. "
Sophie Hannah
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" Some writers, I'm told, look for their characters' surnames in telephone directories. I don't - it seems too obvious. Or too deliberate: if you go looking for names, you're bound to find them, of course, but I've always had a superstitious hunch that the names you find by accident are always going to be better and more satisfying somehow. "
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Find
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" The brilliant thing about swimming is that, while you're doing it, there's nothing else you could be getting on with, like the ironing or sorting out the children. My mind goes into free-float mode; some of the best ideas for plots come into my head while I'm ploughing up and down the pool. "
Sophie Hannah
Best
Mind
Ideas
" I am trying to write novels for properly clever people, but I also want them to be proper novels that also stick in a person's mind and have an atmosphere about them. "
Sophie Hannah
I Am
Want
Trying
" All through childhood, I wrote verses and mysteries. There is, for me, one connection: structure. My poetry is metrical, rhyming. "
Sophie Hannah
Wrote
Childhood
Poetry
" Agatha Christie never wrote books that just started with a dead body, and a 'Let's find out who the murderer is', which is kind of mysterious but not that mysterious. She always started with, 'How can this thing be happening; isn't it strange?' "
Sophie Hannah
Find
Body
Strange
" If you ask people if they enjoy crime novels, they'll say, 'Oh, my guilty pleasure is...' then name a really brilliant crime writer. "
Sophie Hannah
Name
People
You
" I know a lot of crime writers feel very underrated, like they're not taken seriously, and they want to be just thought of as writers rather than ghettoised as crime writers, but I love being thought of firmly as a crime writer. "
Sophie Hannah
Thought
Feel
Know
" I want my books to explore motives which make people think, 'Wow! Imagine the psychological state you'd have to be in for that to be your motive!' Whereas things like blackmail, jealousy - they're rational reasons for committing murder. "
Sophie Hannah
Like
Want
You
" My favourite Friday treat is to drive out of the centre of Cambridge, where we live, and go for a swim at the health club I've just joined out in the countryside at Quy. It's a lovely pool, inside a converted barn. Usually it's just me and a couple of other swimmers there. "
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" I was working as a secretary in Manchester and thought I would always do that. Then I got this letter offering me a two-year fellowship where I could write; they would pay me a salary and give me a flat to live in. It was heaven. "
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Live
Pay
Thought
" Nobody has ever written as many enjoyable, fun-to-read crime novels as Agatha Christie. It's all about the storytelling and the pleasure of the reader. She doesn't want to be deep or highbrow. "
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Nobody
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" Cambridge is heaven, I am convinced it is the nicest place in the world to live. As you walk round, most people look incredibly bright, as if they are probably off to win a Nobel prize. "
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I Am
Win
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" In a crime novel, if you are going to have a big revelation in chapter 30, you have to plant the information in chapters three and 11. "
Sophie Hannah
Three
You
Plant
" No one has been buried at Mill Road Cemetery in Cambridge, England, for many years, and so the place has a shady, overgrown magic about it. "
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Road
Cemetery
Place
" I'm snobby about books that aren't crime fiction: if I start reading a literary novel and there's no mystery emerging in the first few pages, I'm like, 'Gah, this obviously isn't a proper book. Why would I want to carry on reading it?' "
Sophie Hannah
Reading
Start
Book
" When a writer tries to copy another writer, it's doomed to fail. "
Sophie Hannah
Doomed
Fail
Writer
" I've got lots of favourite authors, but I would say Nicci French because I look more forward to reading her next new book than any other author. "
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" My father, whose hobby was collecting secondhand cricket books, came back from a book fair one day with a copy of 'The Body In The Library.' "
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" When I set out to write crime fiction, I didn't think to myself, 'I'm going to model myself on Agatha Christie' or 'I am going to be a crime writer in the Christie tradition'. "
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Myself
Crime
Tradition
" Most crime fiction plots are not ambitious enough for me. I want something really labyrinthine with clues and puzzles that will reward careful attention. "
Sophie Hannah
Attention
Reward
Enough