Interview with Crime Writer Chris Roy – S. 4, Ep. 13

Debbi Mack interviews crime writer Chris Roy on the Crime Cafe podcast. Check out the show notes below. Or, if you're in a rush, click here to download the transcript! Debbi: [00:00:13] Hi everyone. This is the Crime Cafe. Your podcasting source of great crime, suspense, and thriller writing. I'm your host Debbi Mack. Before I bring on my guest, I'll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two e-books for sale: the nine-book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy links for both on my website debbimack[dot]com. Just click on the "Crime Cafe" link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You'll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so. [00:01:04] It's my pleasure to have my guest today crime fiction author Chris Roy. He's from South Mississippi and currently resides in the Mississippi Department of Corrections. So the audio might not be perfect. You'll probably hear a lot of background noise, but let's hope for the best. I would also like to mention that Chris has edited along with Andy Rausch A Time For Violence. This is his latest project. It is a love letter to the great anthologies of yesteryear. And the theme is violence. And I'll let Chris do the describing from here. Thanks for being here today, Chris. It's great to have you on. Chris: [00:01:55] It's nice to be here today. Debbi: [00:01:59] I'm glad you're able to be here and I think it goes without saying that your experiences have informed your fiction. Can you tell us a little bit about exactly how your experiences have inspired you to write? Chris: [00:02:18] Oh, sure. Some of my earlier works of crime fiction were short stories that had two characters I created named Razor and Blondie. This was about 10 years ago. They were based on personal experiences selling drugs, stealing cars, identity theft, that sort of thing. And also a lot tough crimes preferred from criminals while incarcerated. And so I had just had all this knowledge about crimes and also I found that when I was started writing these stories I like to create crimes, create new crimes. So I had all of this this knowledge to draw on and experience to draw on and that is where my original stories came from. Debbi: [00:03:16] Would you say to your genre is more geared toward noir or thriller? Chris: [00:03:26] It's noir definitely. My earlier works were thriller. There were anti-heroes and they had all these difficulties and there was usually a happy ending. The stuff I write now, terrible things happen to really good people and the endings are usually not very good. So it's definitely noir right now. "My earlier works were thriller. There were anti-heroes and they had all these difficulties and there was usually a happy ending. The stuff I write now, terrible things happen to really good people and the endings are usually not very good." Debbi: [00:03:52] I was going to say, yeah, I read your story Her Name is Mercie. I think I'm saying that right. and I liked it very much and your other book Shocking Circumstances. I've just started. And I'm interested that you focused on female protagonists. Can you talk about what prompted that? Chris: [00:04:19] Okay. When I was studying books on writing, when I started getting serious, the first story that I wrote after that was Shocking Circumstances and I was thinking you know I have a limited knowledge of skills that I can put into my characters you know. I was a mechanic on the street. And I'm a tattoo artist now. I studied engineering, metal fabrication. Boxing. I actually teach boxing and have for many years in here. You can hear in the background, there's a guy beating on his bag now. You hear that? That's one of my guys. I train. He's getting a warmed up for a workout. We're going to work out afterwards. After the podcast. So I had these skills, knowledge that I can put on my characters and s...