Maurice Perkins
What made you decide to become a writer?
I was brought up in a family who know how to tell a story, how to set a scene and capture the imagination of the audience. Not just my Mum and Dad but many of my Aunts and Uncles could tell a proper tale. Writing those stories down just seemed to be an extension of telling them. It was the Covid Lockdown during 2020 that I stepped up from writing a daily diary of jokes and my own funny stories on Facebook to my family and friends, that sparked of my desire to publish them. I have always been a writer in one form or other since I was a child. I used to write poetry at school and as an adult. I used to run the ships newspaper on HMS Antrim and HMS Ambuscade during my time on there. In a different capacity i wrote articles and responded to client questions submitting tenders for work in the infrastructure maintenance and construction sector.
How do you decide your plots? Are they taken from events that have happened to you? Do you base your characters on real people – or do you prefer to be fully creative and make them up?
I have a rich and varied imagination, which helps me when I am telling a story or sharing humour. Being able to capture the moment in the right words is important in retaining the attention of my audience. Ideas can come to me in an instant when I see or experience something. I will try and shape that into a rough outline of a story in my head and challenge it from different perspectives until I think it is robust enough to commit to paper. I use some old project management techniques of capturing it chronologically in a spreadsheet, adding characters and the plot lines I have thought about. That then give me a framework from which I can be creative and bring the story to life.
What comes first for you – the plot or the characters? And why?
Often they arrive together. I witness something that sparks off the creativity and I allow my imagination to run wild. Sometimes the characters are completely made up but often they are built around the characteristics of someone I know or have met. The plot ferments in my mind constantly, as do the characters…
How many books have you written and/or published and which is your favourite? Why?
I have published six books and have two that are work in progress. My favourite has to be “Revenge” a dark comedy thriller that I really enjoyed writing. I wanted a mixture of raw and gritting dialogue, brutal action and very dark humour running through the storyline.
Tell me more about your favourite book – the plot, characters, setting, POV, tense…
Revenge is a story about old military veterans, with hidden skills, who inadvertently get tangled up in a gang turf war. Their action begets revenge that increases rapidly across several groups. I based some of the anti-hero’s on real people and used their characteristics, with their permission of course but added skills that most of them don’t have. I also wanted to write a fast-paced storyline, along the lines of a Guy Ritchie movie, and take readers on a breathtaking journey full of punchy action.
What is your favourite genre to write in?
I like to write and read, dark comedy stories. The genre is less important to me to be honest. My last two published books and one of my works in progress, are all dark comedy efforts. Revenge is quite brutal and The Accidental Assassin is a complete romp, my work in progress is likely to be a mixture of the two as I do like my humour.
Did you need to do research for your book? If so, how much did you do, how did you do it?
Research is essential for any book and I did some that took me into some unusual areas, such as the rate of fire and effectiveness of a particular weapon. I set the story in a familiar place to me but I still needed to check place names, roads and general history some I read, mostly I drove to and walked around the area. One character comes from a particular country and an area of clothing production and I had to confirm all of that before I could write some short chapters on the subject. That was desktop research, cross referenced to news articles and some geographical articles. I wouldn’t write willy nilly about a subject where I was guessing or assuming things that are fact.
Would you travel to the area where your book is set? Do you already know the area? Have you written about that area because it’s a place you know? Have you used the original name of the area or manipulated place names?
I have knowledge of the geography that Revenge is set in but still needed to go and familiarise myself with certain things. In order to protect current businesses, I changed some of the names of pubs and shops but left others in that used to exist but are now closed down. I did that in my second dark comedy The Accidental Assassin and in my work in progress, a prequel to Revenge, I have subtly changed the names of two pubs, with the landlords permission.
How do you feel about killing off popular characters? Is it something you enjoy doing in your own books? Have you done it?
Other than my memoirs, I don’t think that any of my novels have what people may call a happy ending… but popular characters often have to die and I like to think that I capture that well. I leave it to readers to decide if I have done so successfully…
Do you write under a pseudonym or your own name?
I write under my own name, Maurice Perkins, and do so because the first three books I published were my memoirs told as a series of funny stories. Once I had established myself it only seemed natural to continue writing in my own name.
Have you ever interviewed someone in relation to your book, in order to make your story more realistic?
I didn’t want to write a detective story but The Accidental Assassin has an obvious need for police intervention. In order to capture those elements correctly, I interviewed a police inspector who leads a murder squad and a former policeman who worked on international disaster recoveries and investigations. Their insight was invaluable to me as I had intended to write a plot line that both said would never happen, so I had to amend it using their recommendations.
Does your family read your work? If not, would you like them to? Are you books their thing? Would it bother you if they weren’t interested in reading any of them?
Some of my family read my work but not all of them. One of the drivers for writing my memoirs was to leave my stories told in my words to my toddler grandchildren, as they are too young now to hear some of my hair-raising tales. When they are old enough to understand, I may not be able to recollect them and tell them as well I wanted to do when I wrote them. If that makes sense?
My brother acts as one of my beta readers. He constantly devours books and I trust him to be candid with me. He is the only one who really supports me. Everyone else is mildly amused at what I am doing…
Is writing therapeutic for you, or does it cause you to stress out?
Writing my memoirs was without doubt, one of the most therapeutic things I have ever done. We all have demons locked away and mine surfaced when I lease expected them to. Writing helped me to focus and I took the opportunity for some professional support that now I have better understanding of those demons, I have them securely locked away. I know what caused them and I have a much better control of them than I had before I started writing. I sometimes laugh out loud when I am writing comedy scenes into my books, in particular with Revenge, The Accidental Assassin and my latest work in progress.
How do you market your books?
Having tried a little paid marketing through Amazon and Facebook, I base all my effort on social media. I have an author Facebook page, my personal Facebook page, Twitter ( X ) and LinkedIn. I did try TikTok and Instagram but got fed up of the spamming and so have given up on them.
Tell me why you market them this way – how it helps. Would you be open to help when it comes to marketing and promoting your work?
Writing is fun for me and I have never set out to make lots of money from it. The surplus I have made has been ploughed back into editing costs. I have paid for regular marketing of a survival thriller called Quest but I know that it doesn’t create any addition sales and feel that is a cost sunk, if you know what I mean. I don’t feel like I want to pay anyone else to help me market my books. Whether that makes me “short-sighted” I don’t know but I am happy using social media.
How do you react to reviews? Would you prefer just good ones or are you okay to receive a bad one occasionally? How does this make you feel?
After I published my first book in 2020 I was super sensitive to how people reviewed my work and didn’t take kindly to some rather negative reviews where the reader clearly didn’t understand me or probably failed to read the disclaimer properly. I am thicker skinned these days and take the brick bats with the bouquet’s and all reviews both positive and negative have definitely improved the way I write.
