Passion, Lucidity, and Tenacity: Keys to Being a Writer

Passion, lucidity and tenacity: keys to being a writer

 

Anne Trager, founder of Le French Books, talks with international bestselling author Frédérique Molay

 

Imagine writing a book in your spare hours, between work in politics and home life. Imagine keeping it in your drawer until your friends say you have to submit it for a prize. Imagine then that you win France’s most prestigious crime fiction award, that your book rockets to the top of the bestseller list and is named Best Crime Fiction Novel of the Year, that you leave your day job and dedicate your life to writing. No, this is no fairy tale. It is the story of Frédérique Molay, the author of the international blockbuster The 7^th Woman, which is now available in English. She’s been called “the French Michael Connelly,” and I was lucky enough to translate this book. She and I talked about writing and here I share some of her secrets.

 

Can you describe what motivated you to become a writer?

When I was a rookie journalist, by luck and stubbornness, I had the opportunity to do an exclusive interview of Mary Higgins Clark and spent several hours with her face to face on May 14, 1992. It was an unforgettable moment. I found her so professional, so kind. The picture of the two of us together still hangs above my desk. I remember one scene that day in particular. We were in a limousine that had just stopped at a red light in the middle of Paris, and Mary Higgins Clark began to talk. It was like she was building the scene for a new novel. She whispered, ‘Imagine, a man you don’t know approaches and opens the unlocked door and, there the story starts!’ I still can’t get over the opportunity it was for me, a rookie writer, to meet one of the greats. It was necessarily motivating. I would write at night, while holding down a job with responsibilities and raising three kids. When I won Quai des Orfèvres prize andThe 7^th Woman was so well received, I took the leap and I dedicated my life to writing.

 

Where do your stories come from?

 

I set The 7^th Woman in Paris, a city I know well, as I was born there. Often, when I see a building or a stairwell I think to myself, “Now that’s a good address for a victim.” Each story stems from encounters, articles I’ve read in the papers or heard about. I like to start with human reality in what it has that is darkest, stepping in the real settings and then building a story from it. But beware, you need to have a Cartesian approach, because each piece of evidence must have a consequence in the story. It’s like a Rubik’s cube. You can’t take anything for granted.

 

What are you trying to do with your writing?

 

More than anything, I want my readers to keep turning the pages. Weaving suspense over the pages in a mystery plot right through the resolution is a fine game between the author and the reader. In no other genre do you get this kind of interaction as in crime fiction. Ultimately, you can only write what you have inside. I am an eclectic reader, and as an author I have a taste for criminal investigations, and more generally for thrillers and suspense. Some people claim that crime fiction writers are constantly looking for the truth, that they pinpoint what is lurking in the shadows, they love to raise people’s awareness. This is certainly true, without forgetting that the goal, simple, is to give readers a good time and some chills!

 

What does it take to write?

 

A book is like a child you bring into the world. You keep it inside of you for months, and then it’s born and takes on a life of its own. It’s a curious feeling. You need to be a bit of a solitary wolf when you write. You find yourself alone in front of the page or your computer screen, along with just your imaginary characters. Very few people can actually have this kind of intimacy, I think. I need to have someone I can trust, to whom I read my chapters, with whom I work things out when I’m feeling doubts, someone who encourages me in my passion.

 

Writing requires regular work. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. Writing is a passion, a necessity. You have to be modest, self-critical, and be able to get people to help you. After your imagination has worked full out, and the last word has been put on a manuscript, corrections take time. Writing, like so many things in life has something to do with talent, but it is mostly about work. It takes passion (obviously), lucidity (a minimum that grows over time), and tenacity (limitless).

 

Le French Book is having a special promotion of The 7th Woman starting on October 23. This edge-of-your-seat police procedural has all the suspense of Seven, with CSI-like details, set in Paris. It won France’s most prestigious crime fiction award, was named Best Crime Fiction Novel of the Year, and is already an international bestseller. For the launch, Le French Book giving away a trip to France, French wine and lots of other gifts. They also dropped the usual list price for a limited time. Check it out: http://www.the7thwoman.com

About the author

She’s been called “the French Michael Connelly.” After The 7th Woman took France by storm, former politician Frédérique Molay dedicated her life to writing and raising her three children. She has five books to her name, with three in the Nico Sirsky series, with a fourth in the writing.

About the translator

The translator, Anne Trager has lived in France for over 26 years, working in translation, publishing and communications. In 2011, she woke up one morning and said, “I just can’t stand it anymore. There are way too many good books being written in France not reaching a broader audience.” That’s when she founded Le French Book to translate some of those books into English. The company’s motto is “If we love it, we translate it,” and Anne loves crime fiction.http://www.the7thwoman.com/

5 Ways to Convey a Sense of Place—Guest Post by Anne Trager

By Anne Trager, the founder of Le French Book, @LeFrenchBook
I recently translated a fun, classic whodunit from French into English for Le French Book. It’s called Treachery in Bordeaux and was written by two Epicurean French men, Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noël Balen. It is set in, well, Bordeaux. When you hear the name Bordeaux, you think wine. In my case at least. And wine is a large part of the story, and a key element in the whole Winemaker Detective series (there are 20 books to date in French).

Yet, as much as the story is about wine, it is also about place, about Bordeaux, city and region, past and present. Here are five of the ways the authors got across that sense of place.

1) Opening with setting. The authors chose to give an immediate sense of place in the opening paragraph. Note the hint of timelessness:

The morning was cool and radiant. A west wind had swept the clouds far inland to the gentle hills beyond the city of Bordeaux. Benjamin Cooker gave two whistles, one short, the other drawn out, and Bacchus appeared from the high grass on the riverbank… The Médoc was still wild, despite its well-ordered garden veneer, and it would always be that way. In the distance, a few low wisps of fog were finishing their lazy dance along the Gironde Estuary.

2) Focusing on details. Notice the use of something everyone can relate to, which immediately puts the readers right there in Bordeaux itself:

As they approached the limits of Médoc, traffic slowed little by little until it stopped entirely on the boulevards. Construction bogged the city down, disfiguring it everywhere with orange-yellow signs that looked like they belonged in a cheap carnival. Cranes stood with empty hooks, and aggressive bulldozers lumbered like large lazy insects. The tramway—silent, shiny and bright—would soon rise from this tangled mess that had mired the city for several months. Some irritated Bordeaux residents honked without any illusions of being able to move along, while others just put up with it silently.

3) Using the senses. The five of them have this way of grabbing the imagination:

The Rue des Faures smelled of lamb. A heavy aroma of spices and grilled meat rose up in thick swirls from the hodgepodge of Arab shops, suitcase salesmen and faded bistros.

4) Juxtaposing disparate elements. After a scene that advances the story, we return to the same street. Notice the modern and historic all mixed together, and the refined Cooker with his greasy sandwich:

When he stepped out of the workshop, he crossed the Place Saint-Michel and bought a lamb kebab from a tiny take-out. Then he went to sit at the base of the bell tower facing the church. Around him, a group of acne-faced teenagers were playing with a soft-drink can. Young Kabyles from northern Algeria formed another group under a basketball hoop near the Gothic bell tower. On the steps in front of the church, a couple of lovers whispered to each other. Nobody paid any attention to Benjamin Cooker. The sun was warm, and no heads turned to see him savor his too-fatty, too-spicy overcooked sandwich that should have ended up in the first garbage can he found.

5) Using dialogue. Not to be neglected to introduce elements of place:

“This is the first time I’ve been here. I had no idea that the development was so spread out,” Cooker noted, thinking it best to change the subject.

“It’s a ghost town, a concrete cemetery, that’s what it has become! And the middle classes get off on moving into a historical area. It’s all being bought up by architects, doctors, lawyers—people who think they know something. They invest in cultural heritage. Some heritage. Just junk!”

The authors use other techniques as well, such as character descriptions that compare and contrast with preconceived ideas readers may have about a place and the use of a painting compared to an actual place. They are particularly skilled at getting across a sense of actually being there, in the city of Bordeaux in transition, but also in the vineyards. I’d feel I were cheating you if I didn’t give you one more quote from among the actual grapevines:

The winemaker took advantage of the moment to get a closer look at the new cabernet franc stock that had just been planted on a small parcel. Tender sprouts were starting to bud; they would not give clusters for another two or three years. He glanced over the meticulous rows of vines, quickly judging the state of the soil composed of thick Gunz gravel, sand and clay and noted with pleasure that the vineyards had just been plowed. His eyes stopped for a moment on the Haut-Brion estate hilltop that dominated the neighborhood.

I’ll leave you to read it for the descriptions of the wines!

Le French Book is having a special promotion ofTreachery in Bordeaux starting on October 9. They are giving away a trip to France, French wine (of course) and lots of other gifts, and dropped the usual list price for a limited time. Check it out: http://www.treacheryinbordeaux.com

About the authors

Jean-Pierre Alaux is a magazine, radio and television journalist when he is not writing novels in southwestern France. He is a genuine wine and food lover, the grandson of a winemaker and exhibits a real passion for wine and winemaking. For him, there is no greater common denominator than wine. He gets a sparkle in his eye when he talks about the Winemaker Detective series, which he coauthors with Noël Balen. Noël lives in Paris, where he shares his time between writing, making records, and lecturing on music. He plays bass, is a music critic and has authored a number of books about musicians in addition to his novel and short-story writing.

About the translator

The translator, Anne Trager has lived in France for over 26 years, working in translation, publishing and communications. In 2011, she woke up one morning and said, “I just can’t stand it anymore. There are way too many good books being written in France not reaching a broader audience.” That’s when she founded Le French Book to translate some of those books into English. The company’s motto is “If we love it, we translate it,” and Anne loves crime fiction about as much as she loves wine.

Buy links for Treachery in Bordeaux:
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Overcoming Writing Challenges: Guest post by Anne Trager

Guest post by Anne Trager, @lefrenchbook, the founder of Le French Book and translator of The Paris Lawyer by Sylvie Granotier

I recently founded Le French Book, an independent publisher dedicated to bringing readers around the English-speaking world, “French books you’ll love in English.” My husband found that tagline. I found our motto: “If we love it, we’ll translate it.”Because I’m the one doing some of the translation. I have many years of translating behind me, but when I took on our first crime fiction novel, The Paris Lawyer by Sylvie Granotier, I encountered some unique challenges that required some creative thinking, a lot of research, and then, well, some real questioning about what we were trying to do. That is where I found the answer.

The Paris Lawyer is a legal procedural set in France. The heroine is a rookie lawyer who takes on a big felony case, pro bono, to boost her career and ends up having to confront her own past. It’s a great book. It’s well written. I love it. So what was the problem?

Well, France and the United States have very different court systems. Lawyers do not do the same thing. Court procedure is different. The very purpose of a trial diverges. Oh dear, oh dear.

My worries began when I was walking around the outside of the Palais de Justice in Paris, getting a feel for the place, since the main character is a lawyer and some scenes take place there. It occurred to me as I did so that there is no way you can translate “Palais de Justice” by “courthouse,” which is not nearly grand enough for this edifice. Justice has been dispensed in this building since medieval times. It still holds the Sainte Chapelle, the chapel of the royal palace that once stood here, not to mention the Conciergerie, the former prison where Marie-Antoinette was held before losing her head (literally). OK, OK, none of these details actually impact the story. I ended up making the decision that the story is more important. I called it the courthouse. That’s what it was for the main character.

But then how would I deal with the defendant standing at a bar in front of three judges, not one, who are the ones firing out questions, while the lawyer stands on the side? That is court procedure in France, so there was no question of changing it. I had to make sure that the differences came across smoothly, without them keeping the reader from enjoying the story. I had to find ways to make sure the characters or context explained things, explained that in France, the court appearance is more a ritual confrontation with the law than it is for presenting evidence and facts. This is because there is a prior inquiry during which several judges have actually made a decision. I had to work with the French author to make sure that these adaptations did not denature the story.

Long-time translator David Bellos, in his book, Is That a Fish in Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything, writes that translators are matchmakers, because ultimately, they “find matches, not equivalences…in the hope and expectation that their sum will produce a new work that can serve as an overall substitute for the source.” Ultimately this means recreating a reading experience, so it brought me back to the very important question, “What are we trying to do here?” Our goal with Le French Book is to publish entertaining books, my goal as a translator is to make sure the read in English gives the same shivers of expectation, longing to read more and pangs of emotions. I had to make sure nothing took the reader out of the story or undermined suspension of disbelief. Imagine my satisfaction when Edgar Award-winning author Thomas H. Cook read the translation and said it was“beautifully written” and that “it captures the reader from the first page and never lets go.”

Le French Book is so excited about The Paris Lawyer that they are giving away a trip to France and lots of free books, surprises and gifts just to celebrate. This party starts on September 18. Go see for yourself: Great promotion from Le French Book (http://www.theparislawyer.com)

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About Anne Trager: Anne Trager has lived in France for over 26 years, working in translation, publishing and communications. In 2011, she woke up one morning and said, “I just can’t stand it anymore. There are way too many good books being written in France not reaching a broader audience.” That’s when she founded Le French Book to translate some of those books into English. The company’s motto is “If we love it, we translate it,” and Anne loves crime fiction.

About Sylvie Granotier:  Author, screenwriter and actress Sylvie Granotier loves to weave plots that send shivers up your spine. She was born in Algeria and grew up in Paris and Morocco. She studied literature and theater in Paris, then set off traveling—the United States, Brazil, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, ending with a tour of Europe. She wound up in Paris again, an actress, with a job and some recognition. But she is a writer at heart, and started her publishing career translating Grace Paley’s short story collection Enormous Changes at the Last Minute into French. Fourteen novels and many short stories later, Sylvie Granotier is a major crime fiction author in France. Sylvie splits her time between Paris and the Creuse.

The Paris Lawyer:

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