Author Interview: Tim Wickenden

Tim loves to write, and reads with a passion: the one sets him free, while the other allows him to walk in the shoes of others. We are nothing without stories. Tim’s began in Zimbabwe. He spent his childhood there, in Hong Kong, and then Germany. Aged five, a serious accident left a deep impression on him, and after his well-meaning parents packed him off, aged eight, to boarding school in England, he suffered abuse and negelct, all of which have become grist to his mill and essential inspiration with which he infuses his characters and their stories.

His childhood was punishing, but he believes in forgiveness, and the art of survival. There is no black-and-white. We are all morally grey: complex, and beautiful. There is nothing more powerful than an act of love. This is what Tim writes about.

He adores stories from our past, devouring history books and writes historical fiction and non-fiction. He loves the chase, running down the stories, making the past come to life for his readers. Everything he writes about has happened.

His complex past led him to a quiet part of Southwest Wales, where he has lived since 2005. In 2012, Tim joined a creative writing group, since when he has toiled at crafting his art. The stories have always been in him; it is learning to make them real that takes perseverance. He published his first book in 2019. There are many more to come.

Let’s start with getting to know Tim Wickenden better. Would you like to tell us about yourself?

First, I’d like to thank you so much for interviewing me. The youngest of three, I was born in Zimbabwe but left when I was very young. Back in the UK, at age five, a car hit me! I was running off to meet my sister from school to give her a bright red hair band mum had bought for her. I didn’t think or know better, and mum took her eye off the ball for a few moments. I was badly injured, and it left me with post-traumatic stress.

Of course, back then doctors knew nothing about such things. My dad was cross with me and insisted I go straight back to nursery school. It began a long problem I had with schooling and was the beginning of a poor relationship with my psychiatrist father. I wrote a semi-autobiographical short story, called Alice Band to Myrtle Beach about it. I recovered from my physical injuries and soon after, we left the UK for three years in Hong Kong. I loved it there and got back a little of my self-confidence.

There was a sizeable group of us kids and we ran wild; we did back then, mum never knew where we were or what we were up to. We went skinny-dipping in the local reservoirs and got up to all kinds of crazy stuff. Everything changed when we returned to the UK in 1970. I was eight and got sent off to a strict boys-only boarding school in Sussex. Mum and dad went off to Germany. The headteacher of this school was a sadistic paedophile.

Because I wasn’t a good student, and mum and dad were abroad, he targeted me and for the next two years subjected me to some awful abuse. Mum and dad read to us when we were little, but it was in that school, in its well-stocked library, that I discovered books and an escape: salvation between the pages of grand adventures. I read everything and anything. It sparked my imagination and laid the seed for me becoming a writer; books are my safe place. I spent ten long years in three boarding schools. Of course, I went home during the school holidays, but most of the time I languished deep in the English countryside cut off from a normal life.

Adding that to the abuse and my earlier accident left me with mental health issues that plagued me for years. I left school with few qualifications and was forty years old before I told anyone about what had happened to me at school and dealt with the PTSD and other related issues. The slim payoff is in my writing and stories, I well use my unique experiences. It allows me to get under the skin of my characters. I am reconciled with my past and writing helped me survive it. Now, I live quietly with my family in West Wales. I love to swim in the sea, walk along the beautiful coast, read books, and most of all, write stories.

Thank you for sharing such an important and traumatic experience with us and your audience. When I finished reading “Girl Hunter” I felt like Max Becker was a real person, a very realistic detective. How difficult was it to create such a character?

Gosh, thanks, I’m happy I gave Max and his team a sense of reality. Doing so is quite tricky. You must use what you know but also do lots of research, background reading, and planning. Before I wrote one word of Girl Hunter or Angel Avenger, Max Becker’s character sketch had run to fifteen hundred words. I considered things like his favourite colour, what jokes he likes, what his parents were called, and his childhood. It is how you work out your character’s unique traits and give them depth.

From what I’ve been told, it’s not very easy to write a story based on a different country than the one you live in. Was it difficult for you?

I guess I am, maybe, unusual. For most of my life, I moved and travelled a great deal. As a child, I spent my school holidays in Germany. I knew Germany better than I did England, I love the country and German people. In my experience people are much the same wherever you go. We are all one and we want the same things. I guess that is why you can translate a good story. Naturally, I engage in copious research and have visited Berlin.

I first went there in the 70s, the Cold War at its height, and the Berlin Wall an ugly, jagged, scar through the streets. The city is much changed now, but it is historically important. I’m not the first UK writer to create a German detective. Philip Kerr created the great Bernie Gunther. Kerr is an inspiration but, sadly, he died in 2018, a year before I published Girl Hunter, so I’ll never meet him. Max Becker and Bernie Gunther are quite different, but if Max can have the same success that Bernie has, it will be a fine thing.

If you could meet Max Becker, what would you say to him? What would you do?

I’d take him out for beer, of course. We’d talk bikes, fighting crime in a Cold War city surrounded by the old enemy, and I’d like to tell him to forgive himself for his part in the war. He wasn’t a Nazi but of course he took the oath and went to fight for a criminal regime. Like so many Germans they allowed things to get out of control and became victims themselves. Max is a decent man trying to make amends and bring his children up to reflect the true German identity. You see this strongly in Angel Avenger.

Which part of “Girl Hunter” was the hardest to write?

Girl Hunter began life as the opening chapter for Angel Avenger. As I got into it, I wondered whether there was a market for a slim novella format. I thought people might like a thrilling, quick read, you know, the kind you can read on a plane or train journey? The hardest thing was getting in the right amount of detail and keeping it moving. It had to have a thrilling ending, too. The chase scene was tricky to write, injecting it with the perfect passion and thrill. It has proved popular, and I hope to write a few more Max Becker shorts.

How do you develop your plot and characters?

Lots of practice. As far as the plot goes, I begin with a seed idea. With Angel Avenger it came from reading about an actual event and it gave me the idea. I don’t spend hours writing out detailed plot plans, but I know how the story ends. From there I work it out meticulously in my head. Then, I sit down and begin writing. If the idea and concept is working well, I sense it and it writes itself with the story unfolding naturally. Building characters is also an intuitive process. I often begin with an image and then write a character profile. There is a post on my blog about a trick I use for writing characters. Again, if the character idea is working, they become real to me and take on their own life. As I write, Max, Otti, Bastian and Tobi—the main characters in The Becker Kripo team—are ever developing. They walk with me.

Do you believe that social media play a major role in advertising books?

I do. I think some years back it was simpler to get your message out and grow your readership, but now social media has evolved, and it is much harder to get noticed. I must get ten emails a week from individuals who, for a small fee, offer to promote my books on Twitter, or other media. I found these services to be a waste of time and money. Marketing is a highly competitive and complex process. The theory is straightforward but the practice not. I’m about to launch a new marketing campaign for my books, try out some new techniques, but there are no guarantees. If your books are accomplished and you keep at it, once you get the stone rolling your readership will grow. Currently, I am still pushing the stone, but it has begun to move.

What’s your favourite and least favourite part of the publishing process?

The best part is seeing your book released to the world: scary and thrilling both. I think it takes courage to write a major work and then make it public. The worst bit is finding good people to work with, like agents, publishers, editors, etc. I have a wonderful editor now and I’m looking for publishers. It is a horribly competitive market and finding a publisher is long and hard, and paved with rejection. If you are a serious writer, you must be prepared to invest in your work.

How do you feel when you finish a book?

Excited, proud, and a little sad. Novels are such fun to write and so absorbing that when you reach the end, you feel a sense of loss. Of course, that’s what makes you create the next work, and I look forward with relish to the ensuing project.

What drew you to write crime/thriller books?

People love reading crime thrillers, and they are fun to write. On a more commercial note, there is the attraction of creating a series that will hook in a readership, and there’s always the potential for a TV or Film contract, wouldn’t that be great? It is a difficult genre to tackle, though. You walk in the shadow of some talented writers, so finding your own ground and style is important. It took me two years to invent Max Becker and then another year to write the first two books.

I write in other genres, too. I’ve just completed a coming of age, historical, adventure novel set in 1925/6 America titled That Girl in The Boxcar. It delves into the great American hobo culture. It has a German connection and deals with loss, acceptance, love and destiny. It took loads of research and one of my beta readers, an American author, described it as the most uplifting book he has ever read. Most of my work has a positive spin to it, and given what is happening in the world, I think readers look to books to allow them an escape. It’s what books did for me when I was in those horrible boarding schools, and you can’t underestimate their power.

What would your advice be to writers who wish to enter the crime/thriller genre?

Join a creative writing group so you can try out your ideas with a safe audience. Max Becker’s first outing on paper was in a short story that I’ve not published. When I read it out to the group, universally, they liked Max and the concept, so I knew I was on to something. Don’t follow the herd. Find your own detective or thriller character and create the world they live in. Be patient and work at it, you’ll know when you have something good.

You can opt, like me, to be particular about historical, geographical and sociological realism, or be freer to let your stories roam in time and space. Either way, do your research and plan carefully. I wanted my detectives to be everyday people just doing a job, but be facing cases that are extraordinary. There are loads of fantastic maverick cops and thriller characters out there, like Jack Reacher, Rebus, and Harry Hole, to name a few. Don’t feel you have to make your characters weird, dysfunctional or confrontational. My readers like Max and his team and that’s the trick, make your readers like and believe in them, but above all, it is your world, so make it as you want it. After all, it is creative writing, isn’t it? If you don’t like it, no one else will.

Could you describe a typical writing day?

It’s a job, but one I love. I get up and go to my study and write. Usually, I begin by reading what I wrote the day before and I might give it a light edit. Then I set off on that wonderful creative path. I’ve worked out in my head where the story is going but find as I write, things change, almost like the characters are dictating. I may write for eight hours or more or stop when a chapter or scene is done. Sometimes, I write the story out of sequence. If I need to write a scene but not sure where it fits, I’ll just get it down and place it later. The software I use for writing helps with this. If I’m struggling to make it flow, or something doesn’t feel right, I have a walk, or go to the gym and work it out in my head and come back to it later, just like any job much of it is problem solving, but ultra creatively.

Would you like to tell us more about “Angel Avenger: A Max Becker Thriller”?

Angel Avenger is a story about a young woman and her brother taking revenge on Russian war criminals. We know right from the start who is committing the crimes but not why. The thrill is in the chase and watching Max and his team figure it out. The first part of the book deals with the murders, which are quite brutal, while the latter part looks closely at the young woman as she tries to get away and deals with the realisation of what she has done, and its cost.

Reviewers have said how refreshing it is to have a woman killer, and one you can root for. While all the action rattles along in a page-turning frenzy, we get glimpses into the life of Max and his team, and, naturally, there is romance, too. Angel Avenger ends with an opening to the next Becker adventure and always I have my eye on knitting the books together. Of course, I want my readers to yearn for the next adventure as much as I yearn to write it.

What’s the next step for Max Becker and Tim Wickenden?

Currently, I’m writing the next Becker novel—Sun Stone—that will be ready for publication next Summer and have at least two more in planning. I also have plans for the young female detective in Max’s team, Otti Jäger, but that’s still in development and down the road a bit. I am planning a sequel to That Girl in The Boxcar, too, but that depends on finding a publisher and seeing how it sells. I’m confident, given the chance, it will find a wide readership. I have books cueing up in my head, but I want to write quality not quantity, so I guess one book a year is the best I can do. It’s never a chore but I take it seriously.

Where can people buy your books, and how can they contact you to learn more about future sequels?

Currently, my books are available on Amazon. I have just re-edited both books, giving them a refresh and I plan to make them more widely available. I am seeking a publisher and want to get them translated into other languages. You can find out more on my website and blog: www.timwickenden.com, or follow me on Twitter @TimWickenden1, I’m also on Goodreads and always happy to chat to readers. Review eBook copies are available to bloggers and reviewers on request.

Thank you, Tim, for this wonderful interview.