5 minutes with... FLEUR MCDONALD
In her new novel Shock Waves, Fleur shakes up her rural formula!
Australia’s most revered rural drama writer returns with her most action-packed story to date. Talking to Woman’s Day, Fleur Mcdonald reveals her secrets to developing her page-turners, and why we might see her stories playing out on our TV screens very soon.
Shock Waves
is full throttle compared to some of your previous work! Is this sort of a response to the world at the moment? Where was your head when you wrote this?
I’ve been writing crime for many, many years now, so it’s not really that much of a departure from where these books have been before, although what’s happening in the world really does have an impact on the way everyone is feeling I think!
This is your latest in the Detective Dave series, what made you want to return to this world and character?
Dave has been with me since my very first book, Red Dust (back in 2009!) so he and I have grown together. I know him very well and he’s an easy character to write because I mostly know how he’s going to react in every situation. That familiarity comes from the long relationship we have. In some ways, for me, he’s a real person because I know him so well.
We’d love to see this series be turned into a TV show. Who can you imagine playing Detective Dave?
There have been lots of conversations around this, yet I find it hard to pick one actor! One, because I don’t watch a lot of TV so I’m not really sure who is around and two, because every reader has their own vision of what Detective Dave looks like and I really don’t want to upset their fantasy.
You’ve mastered rural drama, what do you love about this genre?
I love being able to showcase rural Australia and tell people who wouldn’t ever be able to have a sneak peek into the lives of farmers, what we do and why we do it, my love for agriculture and rural Australia, and it should be promoted any time we can!
Would you ever consider pivoting and doing something completely different?
I would very much like to write straight crime. I’ve been a lover of crime fiction since I was very young, starting off with a diet of Enid Blyton and her Famous Five and Secret Seven series. My love for crime grew as I did, moving on to Trixie Belden stories and then to Patricia Cornwell and Michael Connelly.
You’ve sold nearly 1 million copies of your books! How does it feel to have such a dedicated fan base?
I’m so very lucky! And luck does have a huge amount to do with publishing. Red Dust was the first book published after Rachael Treasure’s Jillaroo and there was a hunger for these types of stories in the marketplace. That just put me in the right place at the right time and I was lucky enough to get a readership base before there were heaps of people writing in this genre. Thankfully they’ve stuck with me.
Does that put any pressure on you when you sit down to write the next novel?
I try and write the best books I can and what that involves is blocking out a lot of the noise from social media and
questions from readers about if Dave is going to reconnect with his kids. I’m just so thrilled readers are so invested in Dave’s life and often I take on their suggestions – if you read the next November book, Out In Nowhere, you’ll find a subplot that involves Dave’s adult children, but when I’m writing I can’t listen to any of this. I just have to get immersed in the pages, the story and the setting and live the life that Dave is living.