Author Spotlight: RJ Dark, author of Incy Wincy

Hello RJ Dark… Firstly, I had an absolute blast reading this book. It was engrossing, mad, inspiring fun and I loved every page of it. Could you tell the people reading this some of the things they can expect from Incy Wincy?

Hiya, Incy Wincy (and A Numbers Game before it) they’re an odd thing cos it is a mash up of lots of things people often wouldn’t put together, in that it’s quite dark but also really funny. In some ways it’s almost cartoonish but it’s also really serious and it’s deeply embedded in my love of Northern England where I’m from and working class characters which we don’t see a lot in British detective/crime fiction.

But mostly, it’s an adventure that'll drag you along through it with two really engaging main characters who I’m pretty sure you’ll like, even if you wouldn’t want to be out with them because they are trouble magnets.

One of the book’s most appealing factors are the two main characters. What originally inspired you to create the characters of Mal and Jackie?

I am constantly surprised that I wasn’t beaten up a lot when I was younger because I have never been a particularly physical person but I’ve always had a bit of a smart mouth. And mostly I wasn’t beaten up because I was with friends who knew how to look after themselves so there’s a lot of that in it. I’m also a big fan of American crime writers like Robert B Parker, Robert Crais, Harlan Coben and Joe Lansdale, who often write about duos where one is the brains and one is the (often psychotic) muscle and I wanted to do an English version of it.

There’s probably quite a bit of me in Mal, (minus his questionable past) and there’s a lot of various people I’ve known in Jackie.

For all of its wonderful sense of anarchy and irreverence, this book has an extremely neatly woven mystery. At its heart, it’s a detective novel in the purest sense. What is your technical process of crafting a hidden backstory that the main characters are then challenged to uncover?

I tend to start with “what has happened” and I’ll know what has gone on, who did it and why and then I just muddle along really. With Incy Wincy I knew the central conceit that drives the plot and links everything but I didn;t know why until I started. It was never meant to get quite as wildly out of control as the book does but that kind of reflects Mal and Jackie. It starts small and then goes places they really did not expect. .

It’s actually alarming how believable your characters are. What would you say the key things to keep in mind are when creating Incy Wincy's wild cast of characters?

I think it’s mostly about people acting consistently. If you take the characters out of the book and just present them on their own then they sound ridiculous. Trolley Mick, a greasy overweight old man on a 1980’s mobility scooter? He should not be sinister, but he fits neatly into the book and there’s no questioning he is sinister, because everyone around him acts like they know he is which helps sell it. And of course, when you meet him and learn more about him you see under the surface. Which is another thing that sells a character, hidden depths. Even the most simple seeming characters, like the twins, you realise there’s more going on with them then it first appears. 

I think the best way of putting it is that the characters may sometimes seem cartoonish but they are not caricatures, they act and react to their world in believable ways. 

How important would you say the small details are when creating the bleak and entertaining land of Blade's Edge, Cross Edge and all the in-between?

Really important. Getting small things right lets you be freer to get big things wrong or change them from how they really are.

What were some of your inspirations, be they literature, TV, film, or just real life, when writing this book?

Oops, covered this one earlier. But as well as the American books I mentioned there’s stuff like No Offense and Mick Herron’s Slough House books in the mix. I also heard it described as ‘If Irvine Welsh wrote Agatha Christie’ which made me laugh.

Without giving too much away about the novel's ending, what would you say some of the themes, morals, and takeaways of Incy Wincy are?

I think people are complicated and judging others as bad is the simple take on it. But as quite a few people have pointed out there is an underlying anger running through these books about our society and the way we treat people because of who they are and where they are from. We often don’t realise that we create our own problems because we have tabloids and a government that wants to point fingers but not fix things. You can almost always guarantee that the people in your community that complain about kids hanging around on street corners are the same people who don’t want to put money into youth clubs and give these kids somewhere to go.

We are always shouting about the symptom but never doing anything about a cure. I could really rant about this so I’ll stop.

What advice would you give to someone looking to write a detective novel?

Outside of reading lots there’s not much helpful advice you can give because we all work differently. Finishing things is definitely useful, no one will buy half a book. But mostly it’s about finding the things that give you the confidence to sit and write. Maybe you need to plan it out, or maybe you need a few key elements and go from there. We’re all different. The best thing I was ever told was, ‘What works for you is what works’. It was really liberating.  

Please feel free to tell me about other future writing projects you are involved in.Likewise, any further thoughts you would like to add about Incy Wincy, please go ahead!

Well, Mal and Jackie #3 is finished. We move away from Blades Edge for that and have a jolly seaside adventure. There’s also a novella that may see the light of day and I’ve just started book four. As well as that I’m working on a Mal and Jackie script for television with quite a well respected TV writer as there’s been quite a bit of interest shown in it, so we’re just perfecting our pitch before getting it out there.  

If you’d like to pick up a copy of Incy Wincy, you may do so here.