Why crime writer Sam Wiebe has learned to love editing
CBC Books | CBC | Posted: February 27, 2018 4:28 PM | Last Updated: February 27, 2018
Sam Wiebe writes gritty crime novels set in his hometown of Vancouver. His debut, Last of the Independents, won the Arthur Ellis Award for best unpublished first novel and the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize. His latest is Cut You Down, which follows a Vancouver-based private investigator trying to find a college student that went missing — and possibly took $500,000 with them — kickstarting a journey deep into the world of dirty money and murder.
Below, Wiebe takes the CBC Books Magic 8 Q&A and answers eight questions from eight fellow authors.
1. Camilla Gibb asks, "What's the best advice you've been given in your writing life?"
"Anything you think about writing, when you're not writing, is BS."
2. Ahmad Danny Ramadan asks, "How do you build your characters? Do they come to you before you write your first draft or are they formed as you write them?"
There's always a process of discovery. Cut You Down is the second novel about Vancouver PI Dave Wakeland. The character existed in Invisible Dead, but now he's at a different point in his life, with different problems. This book delves deeper into his life, and his relationship to the city.
3. Paul Yee asks, "Do you find that readers read more into your work than you had intended?"
It's always interesting to hear someone's interpretation. I'd never be offended if someone read Cut You Down as a straight-up detective novel, because above all it should be that. But I do hope people will think about some of the issues in the book, namely how tough it's getting to be a young person living in a city like Vancouver.
4. Saleema Nawaz asks, "What is your favourite part of the writing and publishing process?"
Editing has really grown on me. I didn't take a lot of creative writing classes, so working with an editor took some adjustment. But [my editor] Craig Pyette at Random House has such a great mind for story, and is so invested in making a book as good as it can be, that I look forward to getting his notes. Editing makes you realize how much of a team effort the solitary practice of writing is built on.
5. Kate Cayley asks, "Who are the writers who made you want to write?"
Too many to name. The late Sue Grafton was definitely an influence. John McFetridge's Everybody Knows This is Nowhere was the first Canadian crime novel where I thought, 'this is as good as anything published in the UK or the States.' And Richard Wagamese's Keeper N Me made a real impression in college.
6. Kim Thùy asks, "Doctors are often the worst patients. Are writers better readers, or worse?"
I think it varies depending on mood. I can be tremendously petty with my reading, or more generous than the average reader if I can see what the writer was going for. I do sometimes wish I could sit down with the author and a red pen and make some emphatic suggestions.
7. Vivek Shraya asks, "What is the worst criticism you have received about your writing and how has it impacted you and your writing?"
Criticism is only as good as the person giving it. There's a disdain for genre fiction among certain Canadian literary institutions — but I believe that's an advantage. That kind of institutional indifference can help you learn to write for yourself and your audience, rather than for approval.
8. Nick Cutter asks, "Which Canadian writer do you think would make the best drinking buddy, and why?"
Sheena Kamal for sense of humour, and because we've gone through a lot of the same issues, being crime writers under 40 living in Vancouver. We're an endangered species.