When people ask me what inspired my police procedural thriller debut, Black Water Rising and its two sequels, my answer is, ‘Well, Peter Pan’. It sounds incredulous, I know, to go from the boy who never grew up to the gritty realism of a crazed killer on the streets of Liverpool, but it does follow a kind of creative logic. I promise.
Like most kids, I watched Disney’s Peter Pan and found it fun and magical; only later, in adult life, discovering the story behind JM Barrie’s creation: the death of his brother. In my mind, the film became this macabre thing, and there were images of death and dying woven into the animation. One difference between the book and the film is that the parents in the novel know the kids have disappeared. I found that notion haunting – what do they do? What do they say? How and what do they tell the school, the police, their neighbours, their family and friends? I become obsessed with it… how do you even begin a conversation like that?
As I began to write what was originally imagined as a horror novel, I finally came to the realisation that there was too much going on. The more I developed the story, the characters, my initial idea, the more everything in it demanded more space.
I think this is something many writers face, isn’t it? The unexpected sprawl of a story that seems completely unfinished even as you write those comforting and frightening words – “The End”. For me, there was more left to say.
With a shift in focus from horror to thriller, and the knowledge that this story demanded three books to do my plans justice, I found that I’d stopped writing about lost boys, and more about lost people – those who my characters once had in their lives. That sense of loss is a torment to some characters, their worst fear, and a strange kind of comfort to others. That led me to creating complex characters, and I knew the setting should be just as elaborate. Just as real.
It was important to capture the heart of Liverpool and its people. It’s a home to many, but for some it can be a dark place – like all cities – there are shadows in corners where people don’t want to look. I knew that Liverpool had to be my setting not only because I love it, because it’s a city of contradictions: it’s warm and tough at once, it’s proud yet self-deprecating, a place pickled in its own history but always reaching out of the pickle jar, ever-evolving. It has this reputation across the UK, something that comes from lies told by certain newspapers and television news broadcasts; but there’s also grit. Determination. A sense of community that people who don’t live here never get to see.
I wanted to reflect the complexities of this city in my characters. Some cities can be both a safe haven and a battleground at once, somewhere that embraces you and welcomes you home one moment but can turn its back on you the next. Cities can be cold places, unforgiving sometimes. But there’s a warmth to Liverpool that comes from its people – and that’s something I needed to capture in Black Water Rising.
I’m often asked what my process is. Sometimes I feel like it’s just one of those buzz questions people ask when they don’t know what to talk to a writer about; but other times I feel the answer has genuine merit. The truth is that each novel is different. What worked for Black Water Rising did not work for book two. With my debut, I took my time. I was writing it for four years before I had the balls to submit to agents. With book two, now in-contract, I finished it in just eight months.
There are sacrifices to working that hard. Every weekend, each lunch break, before work, after work… my fingers click-clacked at my keyboard. I was burnt-out by the time I got to the end of it. I’m taking a much more relaxed approach to book three.
The writing process for both books one and two was challenging in different ways, but unified in the fact that I have been, for some years, obsessed with the idea of loss. That made writing so intense and personal. I was always thinking about how people process their grief, how they explain to others those feelings they can’t find words for. That kind of emotional deep dive is draining, it’s bound to be.
In terms of the actual writing, I’m somewhere between a plotter and a panster. I know my main narrative points, what to hit and when, but how I get there is entirely up to my imagination. I’ve written a sub-plot or a character that was never planned for. I’ve fallen in love with it/them and it’s stayed in the novel. For example, in Black Water Rising, I wrote a chapter from the POV of my antagonist, just to get into his mindset. I found it so freeing that I knew I needed to keep it.
There are some techniques I employ whilst writing, but I am a huge fan of workshopping. Sitting together with other writers to talk about your writing, their works in progress, sharing hints and tips, is invaluable. I couldn’t do it without that part of the process and those trusted people.
In the end, Black Water Rising became a trilogy deep-diving into the criminal underbelly of Liverpool and beyond, all based on a single, haunting idea that spawned from Peter Pan. And I get it, Peter Pan may seem an odd inspiration for a crime novel, but it does make perfect sense.
Both Peter Pan and Black Water Rising explore themes of loss, the fear of the unknown, and the even worse fear of the things we do know: the dark things that lurk in our minds and tell us we’re terrible, awful people.
(c) Sean Watkin
About Black Water Rising by Sean Watkin:
Time is running out to catch a killer…
Teenage girls are going missing across Liverpool. When the body of the third victim is discovered on the banks of the Mersey, the search for the culprit intensifies, and DCI de Silva is called back to work.
Still reeling from the recent suicide of her husband and dragged down by the undertow of PTSD, de Silva has been struggling in self-imposed exile. In her fragile state, is she ready to win in a race against the clock?
This case should have been DS Barclay’s opportunity to finally show himself to be more than what everybody assumes – an exercise in diversity, a gay man employed to tick boxes.
De Silva and Barclay must exorcise their own demons to stop more victims suffering, all while dealing with a traumatised and escalating killer, who is hellbent on finding somebody from their past.
A tense and gripping crime thriller set in Liverpool. Perfect for fans of M. W. Craven and Russ Thomas.
Order your copy online here.
And see here for Sean Watkin’s Writing.ie article on Writing a Novel: A Battle Worth Fighting.
