Bateman's Bestselling Book Basics

Bateman's breakthrough

Mr Colin Bateman writes humorous crime fiction. If you have a funny bone in your body then he will tickle it within pages, leaving you to clean up a mess of dead villains and destroyed relationships with a smile on your face. That style of writing is what led me to attend Mr Bateman's weekend workshop on writing a bestseller.

First things first and let's establish the credentials of the mononymous Bateman: author of 23 novels, two of which are bestsellers by the 100,000+ paper copies sales definition (Divorcing Jack and Mystery Man); screen-writer of several films and TV series; most importantly, a very funny and modest man who is generous with his knowledge and experience. He describes himself as a mid-list author with an occasional bestseller. I describe him as a pain in the self-publishing arse because any attempt to put Barnes books on a shop shelf is swamped by a raft of Bateman titles.

Now to put the workshop in context. Sixteen people in a hotel conference room next to the marina in Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland. We were a mixture of beginners, burgeoning crime writers and Bateman groupies (me, obviously). Tea, coffee, scones, draught beer and weather to take the paint off a supertanker. Our hopes and fears ranged from how to expertly develop a plot for a crime thriller to touching the Bateman coat tails in hope of skills transfer by osmosis (me again). The learning was spread over two 9 'til 5 days of full-on discourse, discussion and group exercises.

We covered all the writing basics - research, planning, genre, plot, settings, characters, narrative voice, dialogue, self-editing and taboos (I can't mention those).

Bateman's writing energy is very much about story title, idea and character interaction, so most of the exercises were focused in those directions. He's not a great fan of creative writing courses unless the tutor is particularly relevant, as there's a risk students may spend a couple of years writing assignments in the tutor's style instead of finding their own voice and producing an individual novel. He has, of course, the benefit of a strong journalistic background which has provided him with his stock in trade (of writing skills, black humour and cynicism). 

On a more macro level the workshop looked at writing style, work ethic, formulated bestsellers, inspiration and the changing shape of the publishing industry. With so many titles to his name across a career now spanning twenty years, Bateman has rubbed shoulders with most of the contemporary household crime writing names and he has an encyclopaedic knowledge of their different approaches. He's able to share insights without any sycophantic name-dropping and maintains that authors write what they know as best they can. He knows his mix of humour and crime is a hindrance to his sales (although it's the reason I like his work), but that's what he does and his attempts to deviate haven't been commercially successful.

A Bateman bestseller

The elephant thundering around the meeting room was this: what's the secret of the bestseller and how do we find it? Everyone craves that secret map to the Holy Grail of bestseller writing. Men don't like to ask directions, much to the amusement of women. They prefer to rely upon their inner Indiana Jones. The method I use, especially in an unfamiliar city, is to drive in ever-decreasing concentric circles. Our search for the magic bestseller spell felt a bit like that. As the circle tightened we could see the approaches taken by the different successful authors. One might work from an embryonic idea and then develop chapter by chapter, having no more clue about the killer than the detective does. Another fully fleshes out their characters in separate notes, describes the end point and works towards it. Some wallpaper their rooms with plot threads and key points, just needing to fill in the prose.

A similar variety can be seen in approaches to research, from acquiring a thin veneer of knowledge via desk research to complete immersion by living for months in the real life settings.
What the core of bestselling authors seems to have in common is they have their own method which works for them, their publishers and their readers.

Consider what you write and how you write it. Is the product destined to be a bestseller? Or any sort of seller? Will adjusting your writing methods to some kind of formula produce success or stymie your creativity? Genre rules, the expectations of readers and the demands of publishers do place a straightjacket on commercial fiction. That's not going to change. Bateman maintains that 90% of books on supermarket shelves are indistinguishable from each other in style and format, written to a template. Are these successful authors the lucky ones who have a coincidence between writing what they know as best they can and what the book market wants? Or is it possible to consistently fabricate a method and style that will achieve a bestseller? The more I find out, it feels, the less I know.

From the evidence I've concluded that an identifiable bestseller writing method doesn't exist as a discrete, prescriptive approach. What I did take away from the Bateman Bestseller workshop was this: if you want to plan like a military general or wing your plotting with all synapses firing then that's okay; you can compile an inch thick dossier on each character or hold their virtual credentials in your cerebellum, or in your sporran or anywhere in between, as long as it works; charge headlong and complete the first draft then rewrite, edit and polish, or move steadily, perfecting as you go and when you type 'The End' it really is the end. It doesn't matter. Take whatever route best suits your muse and you will write what you know to the best of your ability. If the end product matches those bestseller expectations of literary agents, publishers and readers then happy days. If not then you can at least claim the moral high ground (well, you can share it with me).

Now, enough searching for the Holy Grail of commercial success. Go forth and multiply your writing output.

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This blog post originally guested on Multi-Story.co.uk

Bateman's latest release

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