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Alfred Draper

ALFRED DRAPER was born in 1924 and is the author of 17 books. He had experience of working for local newspapers before joining the Daily Herald, then the Daily Express, then the Daily Mail and finally the BBC. As a sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Navy he took part in the D-Day landings, and served in the Far East, but as a result of the gunfire he became totally deaf in later years and was awarded a special pension from the R.N. His titles include: The Amritsar Massacre; Dawns like Thunder; Operation Fish; Operation Midas; Death Penalty; and his autobiography of Fleet Street days, Scoops and Swindles. He lives with his wife, Barbara, in Radlett, Herts, and has two sons.

If you are thinking of taking up writing as a glamourous way to earn a living, forget it. It is lonelier than lighthouse keeping, and the chances of hitting the jackpot are very remote. The majority of writers earn very modest incomes. But if you aren't deterred, you'll need resilience, discipline, tenacity and a skin like a rhinoceros.. The latter because publishers and their readers can be very brutal and wounding. But you should always bear in mind that they are far from infallible. Many publishers rejected some best sellers, like "The Day of the Jackal" and "This Sporting Life" before being accepted.

Rigid discipline is essential, and you must set yourself a regular routine. Don't sit around waiting for inspiration. The old axiom about ten percent inspiration, ninety percent perspiration, certainly applies to writing.

Keep a notebook in your pocket and jot down incidents and bits of conversation that you think may be useful. Read Somerset Maugham's "A Writer's Notebook" to discover the worth of keeping one. Read also "Performing Flea" by P.G. Wodehouse.

Personally, I mapped out a book chapter by chapter, irrespective of whether it was fiction or non-fiction. Its shape was pretty clear before I put a word on paper. As one famous writer remarked: "The book is finished. All I have to do now is write it."

Only write about what you know. That, of course, does not mean you must confine yourself to personal experiences. It means you must thoroughly research the subject you are intending to write about.

For my Grey Seal novels -- a series about the wartime exploits of an armed trawler and its ship's company -- I spent more time researching than I did writing. I interviewed sailors from Admirals to ordinary seamen, to obtain their wartime experiences. In the reference library of the Imperial War Museum I read many unpublished accounts by men who had served in trawlers. And I learned all there was to know about the layout of the ship I was writing about by visiting Grimsby and being shown over laid-up trawlers by men who had sailed in them. Fortunately, I was also able to draw on my own wartime service with the Royal Navy.

I adopted the same attitude when writing my novels with an army background, and again I made full use of the many military institutions such as The Army Museum, the Liddle Hart Archives, regimental histories, and the reminiscences of officers and men who had served in the various theatres of war I was writing about. The Newspaper Library at Colindale is an invaluable source of material containing British and foreign newspapers that go back many years.

For my non-fiction book about the Amritsar Massacre of 1919, I spent many hours in the India Office Library studying contemporary documents. The Public Records Office provided valuable previously unpublished material. In India I spent days in the Indian Archives building, and in the Nehru Museum in Delhi I was able to study previously unpublished material, which shed fresh light on the massacre. In Amritsar I visited the Jallianwala Bagh site of the massacre, now a national shrine -- and was able to interview several people who survived the massacre. The Golden Temple was also a source of invaluable material. In a small village near Bristol where General Dyer, the perpetrator of the massacre, died, I managed to find an elderly lady who actually knew Dyer, and she was able to pass on to me his thoughts on the massacre so many years later. Persistence always pays off -- you never know what it is going to unearth.

I employed the same meticulous methods when researching for my book "Operation Fish", the story of how Britain's gold reserves and blue chip securities were secretly taken to Canada by warships when Britain was threatened with invasion. They were sold off to pay back the Americans for aid.

For "Dawns like Thunder" -- an account of the retreat in Burma -- through sheer tenacity I was able to unearth a lot of fresh material, which more or less ensured its publication, even though many books had been written on the subject. The golden rule is: dig deep and you will strike gold.

Although I was very fortunate in getting reviews in the national press, the majority of writers are not so fortunate. But there are many other avenues open to them. I made sure my local newspapers received a copy of any new book and the write-ups were very generous and of considerable length. The same applied to local radio stations, and public libraries. Remember too that public libraries can provide a regular source of funds through the Public Lending Rights. Over the years I have received many thousands of pounds.

Finally, remember there are various bodies only too keen to help and advise writers. I was for many years a member of two: The Society of Authors, and the Crime Writers Association.