His goal is to write one novel per year, a task that has become more complicated with the passage of time. “I have children,” she says to Infobae Spain with a knowing laugh. On the screen, she speaks to this medium through a Zoom call, accompanied by two mammoth shelves full of books that, she alleges, she has not yet been able to read. The day is short and the reading is infinite. Claire Douglas is the star of thriller in the United Kingdom. All of his novels carry the seal best-seller in his country, where he has already sold more than a million copies. His books have been translated into a total of 15 languages.
After the publication of The number 9 couple (Planeta) in Spain, a novel that had the approval of the public and critics (and that is close to having a long-awaited television adaptation), the author returns to the national literary market with The last crime of the writer Emilia Ward (also with Planeta), a work in which a renowned writer realizes that the murders she writes about in the draft of her next novel are taking place in real life. A game of mirrors, chance and reality that turns the reader into the most important detective in the plot.
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One of the keys to its success is “describe and create characters you can identify with”, that the literary audience comes to think: “This could happen to me.” The cliffhangers, an Anglo-Saxon term that refers to the doubts that remain hanging in the last paragraphs of the chapters, are a trademark in each of Douglas’s novels. So that its pages become addictive, the writer does not hesitate to “talk about family dynamics, relationships” and other elements that make the story “accessible” to everyone.
Douglas started out as a journalist for various women’s magazines and newspapers, but “I had always wanted to be a novel writer.” Between her articles and events, the British woman scraped the little free time she had left to create her own universes, rooted in the mystery machinery. After winning a Marie Claire competition that gave her the opportunity to have a contract with the renowned publishing house HarperCollinshis career began to take off.
Before immersing himself in the detective narrative that makes up his literary universe, Douglas even considered trying his luck in the world of romantic comedy. I don’t know how to write romance novels, it comes out black. I try, but every page comes out blackersaid Leo Macías, played by Marisa Paredes, in The flower of my secret. The same thing happened to the British. “Have a good agent, a great editor and read a lot”, those are the keys that explain the furor that his works generate. “In my case, I read a lot of thriller novels and try to solve them. What is successful in that thriller? Why does it work? What makes us not able to stop reading it? ”She states about the detailed “study” she carries out of a genre of which she is already a deity.
“I read a lot of thrillers and try to solve them. What is successful in that ‘thriller’? Why does it work?”
Ten of her novels have entered the best-seller category, a pressure that Claire Douglas has to navigate every time she begins a new draft in the peaceful solitude of her office in Bath, United Kingdom. “I love it when my readers send me messages saying they can’t wait to read the next book, but I do feel it,” she says of the oppressive feeling of thinking what the audience will say after numerous hits literary. “When I write a book, sometimes I think, ‘what would they think if I did this?‘. “You don’t want to disappoint them, you just want to make sure they like each novel, but obviously you can’t please everyone all the time,” says the author.
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Despite having sold more than a million copies, Douglas had to deal with a time of uncertainty that led her to question her future in the universe of thriller. “My sixth book came out during the pandemic and it didn’t sell very well, no one read it”indicates about the faux pas of resounding success. At that point, she thought about trying her luck in a different genre or even with a pseudonym. “Having that kind of slight failure led me to be more determined in writing the next book, I had nothing to lose,” she explains.
“My goal has always been to write a work that entertains and makes someone forget about their life and worries for a while”
The author believes that There is still a certain “snobbery” with the thrillers and crime novels that stand out on bookstore shelves. “Even when I was younger, my goal has always been to write a work that entertains and makes someone forget about their life and worries for a while,” says Douglas. “I’ve had lovely messages from people telling me that my books have helped them deal with their mother’s death or distracted them while they were in hospital waiting for an operation. That is my goal, and not to win the Booker Prize. I wanted to write novels that people would want to read and enjoy,” he explains.
With a spiral of narrative novelties that does not stop, Douglas considers that it is increasingly difficult for a novel to reach an audience seduced by countless new weekly titles. “It’s difficult because obviously shelf space in supermarkets has been reduced, so It is not easy for your book to be seen and reach the right places”, he expresses. A situation that saddens her, as it means that some titles “have more pull than others”, a factor in which luck plays a determining role.
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“Many good books go unnoticed and are never read because they have not been promoted by the publisher”
“Sometimes I think it’s a matter of good management”, says about the works that rise above others in the literary catalog. “I think that many good books go unnoticed and are never read because they have not been promoted by the publisher or have not reached the shelves, therefore, just because a book sells a lot does not mean that it is good and vice versa,” he concludes. pulling, again, from the family of synonyms of chance and fortune.
