1.2 Craig Robertson

Are character is going to change readers? That seems less likely. I do not have the fear. I’ve never had the fear that writing about a killer is going to encourage a reader to go out and act in some kind of nefarious way. I don’t think that’s likely.

Anyone who was minded to do that was minded to do that anyway. I’m not writing a how to manual. I don’t have worries on that front. We do encourage readers to think about situations for good or for bad.

If they find themselves empathising with a villain, I would think they can see the consequences of this villainous action. And they’re much less likely to act that out. I don’t think that we are in any danger of turning people to a life of crime or to commit murderous acts. I’m hoping that that’s the case.

I think I’m lucky enough not to have had too many angry letters of complaint of people being offended by what my characters do. I think most crime fiction readers understand that a) it’s fiction. And b) that by the nature of it, we are going to have characters who do terrible things. So they expect that.

So it’s happened that people have been outraged, maybe sometimes in a couple of my earlier books, at the level of violence that’s there, people can be outraged at that. And they are because not everyone wants the same level of that. Some are just not ready for it at all.

And yet I have taken feedback on board, particularly early on. And I think you’d be foolish not to listen to your readers. If enough people tell you something, then maybe you should be buying into that. So, yeah, there is a relationship there.

It’s an education process both ways. But at the end of the day, you have to make your own decisions. Learn from feedback, but you have to write your own books.