Inspirations and Creation
A brief history of writing the series
In The Beginning…
In the beginning there was an unremarkable short story originally written for a long forgotten GCSE English Literature project. That story ran to about four or six pages and has long since been lost in time.
However it began something. I have always been regarded as a better communicator with written language than conversational and am fortunate to possess a complex, creative and varied imagination.
As a result the then still untitled story that would eventually become Hainault began to emerge. At the time I had just completed secondary education and had moved on to college.
During this time, I began to develop initially the story of the original Hainault Enquiry incident that would eventually form the basis for my first proper novel and appear in flashback form.
Writing on a procession of varied and awful computers from the Amstrad PCW8256 with its 3 inch disks and green screen through NC100 Notepads and eventually Windows based PC’s, Hainault eventually developed into a completed draft form in about 1996 although it existed in a complete form as early as 1992.
It was at this time that I allowed a few trusted people to see it for the first time. Whilst feedback was encouraging, there were a lot of areas that needed attention, in particular the style of the writing and most importantly of all, the opening sequence which was even by my admission, terrible at that stage.
As College and University life continued, I returned periodically to Hainault and re-read it, doing a fair bit of re-writing and additions in the process and it was not until late 2000 that I finally felt that a presentable product was now ready.
In 2001, I published the then current version of Hainault and invited more global feedback through the first version of this web site.. Again many felt the story line was great but some areas of the writing style still required attention.
Enter Holborn….
With work commitments getting in the way, I temporarily took the web site offline in 2002. During this time I took the opportunity to develop and write the first sequel Holborn. This second novel had existed in my head for a year or so prior to commencement of writing and so when it came to putting it into real live type, I was surprised and delighted how quickly I was able to write it.
Holborn also saw further experimentation and improvements to my writing style, as such I then returned to Hainault and refreshed the whole novel.
Inspirations and Creativity…
Having a wild and varied imagination is not always enough when writing as a hobby for pure enjoyment like I do. For the Department of National Security & Civil Defence I had to work out various things such as Divisional Jurisdictions, command structures and operational procedures.
Then there were the locations, many of which have been adapted from real places I have known. The location for the original Hainault Inquiry massacre is in fact my old now long since demolished secondary school, whilst the City of Chichester where I was born, became Haychester, inheriting many of that city’s peculiarities in the process.
The characters themselves took many traits from the wide and varied mix of people I have encountered throughout my life to date. The Commander however can firmly blame me for his diet, as that is mine!
Meeting my Waterloo….
By early 2003, both Hainault and Holborn were as good as complete and I continued to develop and write a second sequel, at the time called Green Park but later renamed Waterloo.
This third novel returned to some of the elements that appeared in Hainault and developed them further with startling and highly entertaining results.
From Holborn onwards, a change of location and situation had been developed, taking the main characters away from rural Haychester and into the busy metropolis that is the City of London and its unique public transport system.
An extensive knowledge of the London Underground system, including closed and abandoned stations which is a particular interest of mine, provided a rich background against which to set further adventures, almost to the point where the City itself has become a character in the novels in its own right.
With Waterloo being finished in rough draft form in mid 2004, I returned to Hainault and Holborn. These were again over the course of a lot of lunch breaks, re-read and some sections re-written or added to. The opportunity was also taken to remove some continuity errors that had occurred throughout the series, thus producing polished versions of the first two novels.
Going Public…
Thoughts turned once again to making the novels available for the viewing public and so in early 2005, the web site was stripped down, rebuilt and re-launched with the newest versions of the first two novels made available in a variety of popular formats free of charge.
This re-launch was followed by the appearance of Waterloo in April of 2005 after a long period of polishing of the final version, a version that was nearly lost when my office at work caught fire in December of 2004!
In addition to the novels, I set out to provide plenty of background information for the novels, mainly in the form of location photographs and notes about the places that appear in the series. Many of these photographs were taken by myself for personal reference whilst writing key scenes set there whilst others were specifically taken for the web site.
Feedback has been positive thus far, although some fairly rapid adjustments were required to Waterloo in July of 2005 when it was discovered that a number of errors had still managed to creep through!
Enter Moor Park….
Whilst Waterloo, one of the longest entries in the series thus far was making its appearance, the shortest episode, the fourth novel Moor Park was being readied for its debut. The first third or so of this story had existed in various forms for some time, some of it even from long before the completion of Waterloo, thus the comparatively short time between the publishing of episodes three and four in the series is somewhat deceptive.
On 1st August 2005, Moor Park premiered on the site for the first time and thus far everyone seems to like it!
Moor Park is really more of a standalone story than the others, which can be regarded as part of an overall story arc throughout the series. If I was to be self critical, I would also say its also the least complex entry so far as well and thus I was glad in a way to complete it so I could move on to the next entry in the series.
Hatton Cross Gets Grounded….
Originally I had planned the fifth novel in the series to be a little bit more global, taking the Commander overseas even though he has a fear of flying. Indeed to this end, some twelve thousand words exist of the aborted project that was provisionally entitled Hatton Cross.
However after a while, I really felt that this story line was not working and so abandoned it. It does however appear in the Deleted Scenes section of this site.
Number Five Is Alive….
Needless to say, my imagination and skill for storytelling could not remain restrained for long (Indeed it was about seven minutes!) Therefore it was not long before I commenced development work on the fifth novel Westminster.
Written from scratch in double quick time, it has developed into an absolute barn stormer of an episode that I am really proud of. Publication online of Westminster duly occurred at around midnight (UK time) on Monday 24th of October 2005.
And then there were six.....
The sixth novel in the series 'Victoria' published online in February 2006, cranks up the action another gear and also gives us a little more insight into The Commander's earliest years when he was a small lad growing up in the organised crime fraternity of the old east end of London, an area I return to in much more depth in the ninth novel 'Lewisham' which was published in April of 2006.
Lucky Number Seven?
The seventh novel in the series 'Embankment' duly appeared at the end of August 2006. A slightly different direction is taken with this episode in the series as an old case from many years earlier suddenly comes back to haunt the Commander and those who he worked with on it. When the man jailed for the original crimes is released having served his sentence, the realisation that something may have gone badly wrong soon follows when he turns up dead in exactly the same way as his alleged victims.
Its a tricky and complicated story with a lot of shadowy goings on and more than a little fowl play, not to mention a lot of snow.....
And then there was eight!
The eighth novel in the series was announced as 'Earl's Court' in mid 2006 and duly appeared slightly earlier than anticipated on the 6th of January 2007. Whilst it picks up on a couple of occurrences that happen in the previous novel 'Embankment', it also takes a slightly different direction with the way the characters develop.
The core of the story works around the Commander running all over London by way of the Underground system trying to solve a number of puzzles set by a then unknown person in order to save Tracy's life.
There is however as always a lot more to it than that, a fact clear from the opening few scenes which features amongst other things, a major incident at Bank Station and the return of a familiar face from some time ago, and he is not the only old acquaintance to make a reappearance here.
Heading back in time and down south....
A lot of plot points especially in the last few novels have been leading up to the long planned ninth novel 'Lewisham'.
Published in April of 2007, 'Lewisham' is based around the retelling both from present day and flashback points of view of what happened to the Commander in his youngest years in and around the mysterious circumstances surrounding the Lewisham Diamond Heist in the late 1960's in which both he as a fairly wise twelve year old and his real father was heavily involved.
This presented something of a challenge to write as not only did I have to research London in 1969 with everything from the bus routes to the programme of events surrounding the opening of the central part of the Victoria Line on that same day, March 7th 1969. It has also meant a lot of tying up and reconciling of other mentions of these incidents throughout the series so far.
Originally anticipated to take six to eight months to write, I managed to put the whole novel together, at the time the longest in the series so far at just over 87,000 words in just eight weeks.
Lewisham also marked a significant point in the history of my writing for me personally as I semi retired my old faithful HP Jornada 720 from front line service and replaced it with a specially imported HP iPaq 4250 on which Earl's Court was proof read and Lewisham was written.
Double Figures....
Not far behind Lewisham, the series reached double figures with the tenth novel 'Epping' which made its appearance on the 21st of July 2007.
Originally anticipated to be one of the shorter episodes in the series, in the nine weeks it took to write, it developed into the longest, at 91,000 words it snatched Lewisham's rather short lived record.
Regular readers of the series were in for a bit of a shock at some of the primary events in the earlier part of the novel when it was published but it all probably works out right in the end.
The publication of Epping also chalked up a couple of milestones apart from being the longest entry thus far in the series. We were introduced to two new characters who I intended to become regulars in future instalments (indeed one subsequently became the core of 'Marylebone') and at last after fifteen years, the series finally visited Hainault, the station on the Central Line that gave its name to the first novel in the series but never actually went anywhere near the place.
Down the Central Line a Bit.....
For the eleventh episode in the series released in September of 2007, it was back down the Central Line into London again for 'Liverpool Street'. This time we are up against a vicious and sinister lone individual with a penchant for sending letter bombs as part of an elaborate and bold extortion attempt.
Although not obvious at first, the events of 'Liverpool Street lead cleverly into the dramatic events that would form the basis for episode twelve...
Take a Trip to Marylebone Station....
After a long succession of District Line station names (Westminster to Earl's Court) it began to look as if I was concentrating on the eastern half of the Central Line however as the closing scene of Liverpool Street leads straight into the opening of the twelfth novel, it was instead time to head up the Bakerloo Line, taking a trip to Marylebone Station - but not passing Go and collecting two hundred pounds sadly...
Written in double quick time (start to finish in a shade under three weeks!!) this marked another of the milestone episodes like Waterloo and Westminster where everything was at stake and grave risks are required by the leading characters in order to defeat the enemy that has risen.
Unlucky Thirteen?
Episode thirteen, published in mid 2008 was very different to its immediate predecessor. Titled 'Haychester' it returns to the Commander's early years as a officer of the Service told partially in flashback and recollection. It also brought a new character into the background in the form of one Franklin Rogers of whom much more would be heard of in later episodes in the series.
It was a complicated story to write and for a while I had my doubts about whether it was going to work but in the end it did!
You Can Bank On It....
The next stage was episode fourteen 'Bank' which revolved around a plot to de-stabilise the UK economy by flooding it with large amounts of forged currency of almost undetectable quality. Needless to say there was a lot more to it than this but it led very nicely into setting up the start of the very explosive episode fifteen....
A Fatal Encounter...
The most recent addition to the series, episode fifteen was nearly the last at one point as I seriously considered killing off a major character in it. As it was Tracy was to have a near fatal encounter and for much of the novel the reader is left in suspense as to whether she will live or die, something that is not truly resolved beyond all doubt until the very end.
Leytonstone also saw another one of my trademark seed sowing exercises as the reader encounters a brief scene towards the end that at this time seems to have no relevance, well not yet anyway... Also Sir Richard Crowthorne's 'Section Fourteen' (of which more later in the series) is seen just starting to take shape.
The Big Two Parter...
What should have happened next was that there was to be a spin off series 'Section 14' but in the end I decided to not pursue this idea, instead incorporating some of what had been planned for that novel into the thread for the sixteenth and seventeenth novels in the series. This is the first time I have tried a two-part story with a cliff hanger at the end of the first part and with the completion of 'London Bridge' in October 2009 so far it look like it should work.
The far more complex nature of the store is shown by the fact that this episode contains far more characters and locations than ever before and is also the longest at over 125,000 words and 297 pages!
The second instalment of the two-part story, episode seventeen 'Cannon Street' is scheduled to appear sometime in 2010.
Other Publications….
Episodes seventeen 'Charing Cross' is already on the way and episode eighteen (provisionally entitled 'Euston') is already in the planning stages, indeed the opening scenes of 'Euston' has now already been written, meanwhile an nineteenth episode is starting to formulate.
Another story I was considering was a short story that would be a sort of ‘Christmas Special’ provisionally entitled 'Angel' as that was the only Christmas sounding Underground station I could find!.
Much like in days of old when British television series would have a one off seasonal episode for the Christmas season, I have been thinking it would be fun to write a short humorous seasonal one off set in the Security Department universe where some really surreal things happen including a reindeer loose on the Circle Line and a wonderful scene where Tracy complains to the author about some of the plot lines she keeps getting landed with!
Part of it exists but time dedicated to the main novel series itself as well as work commitments has meant I have not had much time to do anything with it.
The Future….
I fully expect I will keep writing, certainly as long as the ideas keep coming anyway. I have even considered an idea for a totally unrelated science fiction series of novels which would be based around a global cataclysm in the future when an experiment involving something similar to the Hadron Collider goes terrible wrong.
There are already plans for the very last two episodes in the Security Novels series (provisionally called 'St James's Park' and 'Morden') which will eventually appear sometime in the distant future when I decide to bring the series to a close. Already in case anything goes wrong in the meantime, I have written the closing scenes of the penultimate part and the opening scene of the final episode, just need to formulate a really unpleasant enemy to take the blame!!
But there is plenty still to come before then. Much to do indeed...
Also to be considered as a rich palette for ideas are the many changes that will arise from London’s successful bid for the 2012 Olympic Games, any story set around which is almost certainly going to be called Stratford.
Be seeing you…..