by Barbara D'Amato
R. D. Wingfield, born in 1928, was working in the sales office of an international oil company and writing radio plays in his spare time. His first, Compensating Error, was produced by the BBC in 1968. His plays became so successful that by 1970 he gave up his day job to write.
Wingfield was a very private man. I’ve not been able to find a photo of him, other than a very early one.
His first novel, FROST AT CHRISTMAS, introduced Detective Inspector Jack Frost, Denton Division. Wingfield had intended the book as a stand-alone, planning to kill Frost off at the end of the book, but fortunately for readers, changed his mind. There followed:
A TOUCH OF FROST
NIGHT FROST
HARD FROST
WINTER FROST
KILLING FROST
.
Frost gets no respect.
Frost is bawdy, slovenly, humane, insulting, and surprisingly humble. He ignores his boss, and steals his cigars. When he sees somebody bent over a desk, he gooses him or her. He’s an equal opportunity gooser. In HARD FROST, he appears in his superior’s office in a shower of cigarette ash. “There he was. Detective Inspector Jack Frost in the same battered mac, a button hanging loose, and an old scarf trailing from his neck.” But he’s not Columbo. He’s a far more complex character. He is insubordinate, and devious in evading directives and budget restrictions, generous to people who have broken a law but need help more than punishment.
In the end, Frost finds the bad guy, usually by sheer reasoning ability, which few of the people around him recognize. It’s not just that Frost gets no respect; he doesn’t ask for it. In fact, he permits or even plans for colleagues to receive the credit for his solutions. He’s interested in stopping bad people from doing bad things. He doesn’t care what he looks like or what people think of him.
This series is a wonderful example of the police procedural in which several crimes are being pursued at the same time. In terms of witness and suspect characterization, it goes well beyond its ground-breaking predecessor, John Creasey’s Gideon series. The social and physical background is brilliantly rendered. It is a lesson in how to plant clues and how to interweave plots.
I realize I’m not conveying what fun this series is. Frost cannot be summarized. Read one of the novels and meet him.
Wingfield died in 2007.
Showing posts with label john creasey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label john creasey. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Persistence
By Barbara D'Amato
English author John Creasey is said to have received 743 rejection slips before he got an acceptance and a publisher. He is famous for his productivity, publishing 564 books in the years following, using thirteen pen names.
How do you take 743 rejections? It is often said that being told your novel is no good is like being told your baby is ugly. Well, maybe. But usually when that happens you usually keep the baby. A writer may just give up.
Rejection?
Libby Hellman has a rejection story:
‘After finishing my second novel, I got an agent. A reputable, solid, NY agent. He took the mss and submitted it to everyone. It was roundly rejected by everyone (in retrospect… it should have been. It wasn’t ready) But I didn’t know that at the time. Six months later he called and said, “Libby, I haven’t been able to sell your mss.” I replied, “Oh, that’s okay. I’ve been working on a sequel, and it’s better. The characters are more developed, the plot is tighter, everything’s better.” He said, “No. I don’t think you heard me. I don’t think it will sell. In fact, I think you should change your stories. Change your characters. Change your voice. And change agents too, because I don’t want to represent you anymore.”
‘After I picked myself off the floor, I ended up doing what he suggested. The result was “An Eye for Murder.” I got another agent once I completed the mss, and she sold it 10 weeks later.’
Sara Paretsky says, ‘I had 37 rejections before I sold my first novel. Most of them were oral to my agent, but 13 put them in writing to me..."wooden, talky, derivative, Chicago setting of regional interest only" are a few that I remember. As for how I handled it--and how I handle current rejection of new story ideas, or bad reviews--Oscar Brown, Jr's "But I was Cool," pretty much sums it up.’
Kevin Guilfoile says, ‘I don't know if this counts but when John Warner and I agreed to write MY FIRST PRESIDENTIARY (which had to be produced in less three weeks following the 2000 election) we basically told the publisher that we could illustrate it because we didn't want to split the money with a third person. Unfortunately, neither John nor I had ever drawn anything in our entire lives except for Chemistry notebook doodles of Asia album covers. We basically flipped a coin and I lost and so I ended up illustrating the book. Or doing my best anyway.
‘After MFP made a couple bestseller lists I received a call from an editor at a major national political magazine. He said their Pulitzer-winning cartoonist was moving on to a new gig and they were looking for someone to take his place. He asked if I would be interested in auditioning for the job by submitting a handful of cartoons.
‘Figuring he had been impressed by my work in the book, I was suddenly very full of myself. I put together a few single panel gags and sent them off. The next day the editor called me back and he said, "Um, this is an embarrassing question but do you not know how to draw?"’
Sure, these are people who went on to publish. But suppose they’d given up at the first, or seventh rejection? Oh, maybe we could have survived without Kevin’s drawings. My good friend, the late Hugh Holton, had written seven seven-hundred page novels before he sold on – it was number five. Then he sold six and seven, but not the earlier ones. As he said later, “They weren’t polished.”
So, bottom line. We aren’t born knowing how to write a novel. How do you get published? Persist.
Although I kind of grieve for those unpublished Guilfoile drawings.
English author John Creasey is said to have received 743 rejection slips before he got an acceptance and a publisher. He is famous for his productivity, publishing 564 books in the years following, using thirteen pen names.
How do you take 743 rejections? It is often said that being told your novel is no good is like being told your baby is ugly. Well, maybe. But usually when that happens you usually keep the baby. A writer may just give up.
Rejection?
Libby Hellman has a rejection story:
‘After finishing my second novel, I got an agent. A reputable, solid, NY agent. He took the mss and submitted it to everyone. It was roundly rejected by everyone (in retrospect… it should have been. It wasn’t ready) But I didn’t know that at the time. Six months later he called and said, “Libby, I haven’t been able to sell your mss.” I replied, “Oh, that’s okay. I’ve been working on a sequel, and it’s better. The characters are more developed, the plot is tighter, everything’s better.” He said, “No. I don’t think you heard me. I don’t think it will sell. In fact, I think you should change your stories. Change your characters. Change your voice. And change agents too, because I don’t want to represent you anymore.”
‘After I picked myself off the floor, I ended up doing what he suggested. The result was “An Eye for Murder.” I got another agent once I completed the mss, and she sold it 10 weeks later.’
Sara Paretsky says, ‘I had 37 rejections before I sold my first novel. Most of them were oral to my agent, but 13 put them in writing to me..."wooden, talky, derivative, Chicago setting of regional interest only" are a few that I remember. As for how I handled it--and how I handle current rejection of new story ideas, or bad reviews--Oscar Brown, Jr's "But I was Cool," pretty much sums it up.’
Kevin Guilfoile says, ‘I don't know if this counts but when John Warner and I agreed to write MY FIRST PRESIDENTIARY (which had to be produced in less three weeks following the 2000 election) we basically told the publisher that we could illustrate it because we didn't want to split the money with a third person. Unfortunately, neither John nor I had ever drawn anything in our entire lives except for Chemistry notebook doodles of Asia album covers. We basically flipped a coin and I lost and so I ended up illustrating the book. Or doing my best anyway.
‘After MFP made a couple bestseller lists I received a call from an editor at a major national political magazine. He said their Pulitzer-winning cartoonist was moving on to a new gig and they were looking for someone to take his place. He asked if I would be interested in auditioning for the job by submitting a handful of cartoons.
‘Figuring he had been impressed by my work in the book, I was suddenly very full of myself. I put together a few single panel gags and sent them off. The next day the editor called me back and he said, "Um, this is an embarrassing question but do you not know how to draw?"’
Sure, these are people who went on to publish. But suppose they’d given up at the first, or seventh rejection? Oh, maybe we could have survived without Kevin’s drawings. My good friend, the late Hugh Holton, had written seven seven-hundred page novels before he sold on – it was number five. Then he sold six and seven, but not the earlier ones. As he said later, “They weren’t polished.”
So, bottom line. We aren’t born knowing how to write a novel. How do you get published? Persist.
Although I kind of grieve for those unpublished Guilfoile drawings.
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