Famous author Lord Jeffrey Archer is writing the fifth book in his series picturing a character named William Warrick. The author decided to develop an interesting idea rather than writing just another police or crime story. William Warwick said: “This is not a detective story, this is a story about a detective.”
“I decided my young man would go into the police force as a constable on the beat. I would write a different book every year where he went from constable to commissioner of the metropolitan police, I have four years to get him to commissioner so I have to live long enough to do that,” he adds.
Archer, who sold 275 million copies of his books worldwide, is also a frequent visitor to India and often launches his books there first. He has an unusual reason for that.
“A day after the book comes out anywhere in the world, some entrepreneurial Indian buys one copy, flies back to India and has it printed and on the streets three days later and there’s nothing I can do about it,” Archer explains.
The 81-year-old writer recently published with Pan Macmillan India, three children’s books he wrote for his kids 40 years ago,
Archer, however, considers himself to be primarily a storyteller, and then a writer. The difference, as he explained at the Times LitFest while in conversation with author Ravi Subramanian, is that writing can be taught but telling a good story is “a god-given gift, like being a ballet dancer, opera dancer or violinist, none of which I could do”.
Source: Times of India
