From her Q & A with Elizabeth Rowe at Bookish:Bookish: You went to law school, practiced, and now you’re a law professor. How has your experience with the legal system informed writing crime thrillers?Learn more about the book and author at Alafair Burke's website and blog.
AB: It lets me be really lazy, and not do a lot of research! In all seriousness, though, it does help to know the rhythm of a criminal case organically, to know the procedure, and to know who does what. But I think what helps the most is, when you’re a trial lawyer, you learn how to tell a story. People don’t think of cases as stories, but they really should. In a weird way, it mimics the organization of a book, and so I feel like I’m drawing on that as well.
Bookish: Do you find that your career as a legal professional is at odds with your identity as an author, or do they dovetail?
AB: They can be at odds, because sometimes I’m probably more interested in legal procedure than a lot of other people are. I’ve learned that, just because I know something, I don’t have to say it on paper. I really have to cut through what might seem like technical jargon to other people, and focus on character, setting, plot, and not the procedural parts.
But for this book, there really...[read on]
Writers Read: Alafair Burke (July 2011).
--Marshal Zeringue