Interview with author Jamie Penn

By Megan Morrow and Elizabeth Milo

WritersNewsWeekly recently spoke with up-and-coming British author Jamie Penn about his new novel, The Altruist’s Prey. The Altruist’s Prey is meant to be the first book in a three part series.

WNW: What inspired you to write about a serial killer
Penn: I didn’t start out planning to write about a serial killer. The original idea I had was a story about a man who spoke his mind about everything and didn’t care about what people thought about him. The idea to have this man with no inner-monologue start to receive gifts from a killer just came to me one day, literally as a day dream. I thought about the characters for a little while, got into character in my head, and then began writing as them. I hadn’t been thinking about writing a book; I just started writing and did not stop until it was finished.

WNW: What was it like narrating certain portions from the perspective of the killer and trying to get inside his head?
Penn:Worryingly, I found it relatively easy to get inside the killer’s head-- a lot easier than any other character in the book. Once I began writing as the killer I became addicted and I found it easy to do. It seemed that new ways of him approaching and killing his victims would just appear in my head exactly when I needed them.

WNW: What method did you use to plan out the storylines and narrative voices you switched between?
Penn: I originally had an outline to plan the storyline, but then I began to just write whatever came into my head. At times, I needed to put more thought into the structure and the feel of how the interlinking stories were all going to come together, but mostly I just typed it as it appeared in my head. I wrote everything chronologically so I knew exactly where I was in all four of the interlinking stories.
Writing in the different narrative voices also came naturally. On a few occasions I wrote in the third person instead of the first person in the wrong chapters. However, it was soon filtered out when I completed my first edit. I did get into character before writing each part of the story, though, so at times I must have been quite a bastard.

WNW: The staff at WritersNewsWeekly had fun guessing what we thought the ending would be-- did you intend to leave hints along the way so that readers could make predictions of their own?
Penn: There are hints and twists all through the book as to who the killer might be-- right up until the final three chapters. I did throw the odd curve-ball in there to make people think that a certain someone could be the killer. When it came to writing the final third of the book, I had four different endings in my head. I thought about all of the endings for two weeks until I finally chose one and ran with it.
Someone close to me told me that I should write all four endings and publish all four books, thus making more money.

WNW: What writers have inspired you?
Penn: I love Jeff Lindsay and his Dexter books. I act like a child when the next one is coming out, nervously waiting for the postman to arrive. Stuart MacBride’s writing style slapped me across the face and I love it. His writing is so real and gritty and a pleasure to read. It is cliché to say Stephen King, but his Dark Tower books kept me so gripped that I took them everywhere with me just in case I had a spare minute to read what happened next.

WNW: You and Tim share very similar jobs-- how much of Tim is meant to be autobiographical?
Penn: A lot of how Tim feels about the treatment of elderly people with dementia comes straight from my heart. I too sometimes have no inner-monologue, and I just say things that I think are the truth. I was always brought up not to lie, so I don’t-- ‘blatantly honest’ is what my wife calls it. Apart from that, I am nothing like Tim. However, there are parts of the killer’s (nearly said the name then) personality that are similar to mine also. Like I said previously, it’s worrying.

WNW: Do any of the objects that the killer leaves Tim have special significance for you?
Penn: Eight of the objects were trinkets that I recollected from childhood times spent with my parents, brother, and grandparents. The other two were literally just plucked out of thin air.

WNW: Have you noticed a difference between the UK publishing system versus the American counterpart while trying to navigate both systems?
Penn: To be honest, I have not yet. I have yet to be successful at getting a literary agent, though I do have a London-based publisher and an American independent publisher interested in looking at my full manuscript. But when I first started writing, Rob Grant tweeted me that I need an agent first and foremost; they are just hard to come by.

WNW: Do you anticipate a challenge in garnering an American audience because you make frequent use of slang British terms?
Penn: I honestly feel that an American audience would have the intellect to read the novel without many tweaks to it. I think a lot of books have regional slang in them, and that contributes to part of their uniqueness. Obviously if a publisher felt that things needed to be edited for the American audience, then I would endeavor to make those changes. To go back to Stephen King again, he uses a lot of colloquial terms in his novels, more so the earlier ones, and although I sometimes had to puzzle out the phrases, it didn’t spoil my enjoyment. A good story will out, if you will.

WNW: What plans do you have for future works?
Penn: I have three more ideas for future books: a prequel to The Altruist’s Prey, a sequel, and another story in a completely different genre to this one-- more of a fantasy novel.
Although the books in this as-of-yet-untitled series will be released out of order, I feel that The Altruist’s Prey needed to be written first; if it wasn’t for this book, there would be no prequel or sequel. I will write the prequel so that it can be read as a stand alone book or as answering some questions from The Altruist’s Prey.
After I complete the series, I have another definite story idea, which I had actually been planning to write after The Altruist’s Prey was completed. However, due to my interest in a particular character from The Altruist’s Prey, the prequel has now taken over. I do intend to write the other story eventually as I feel it will be just as hard-hitting, but in another genre. I also have a few other ideas floating around for various genres.

For more information about Jamie Penn and The Altruist’s Prey, please visit his Twitter page or website.