By Kenneth Hand
My questions are in boldface, and Ms Cameron's answers are normal.
What inspired you to write Clue Mysteries?
While many books are written because an author came up with an idea, some books are written because a publishing house came up with an idea. Clue Mysteries is the brainchild of someone at Running Press on New Ideas day. With the idea in hand, Running Press approached Hasbro because Hasbro owns the characters and the general layout of the game. Hasbro granted Running Press a contract for the rights for two books of short stories, and Running Press went in search of an author to write the books. By a stroke of serendipity, I happened to be in the right place at the right time when the message slid down the email grapevine. I had my finger on the Send button in seconds.
Scholastic Books put out a Clue mini-series from 1992-7. Were you at all inspired by those books?
I had not read those books. If I had been shown them at the beginning of this project, I would not have read them so that I would not be influenced by them. Each writer has to do her own work.
What made you want to set Clue Mysteries in Great Britain, as opposed to the United States?
Hasbro supplied the characterizations and the rules. They placed the story in 1926 and Tudor Hall in Hampshire, which is somewhat south of London.
Rumour has it that Nigel Tappin dropped out of the Clue Mysteries project at the last minute. What's up with that?
Hasbro wanted squeaky-clean stories. They reasoned that Mom would buy the book and leave it on the coffee table, and because of the familiarity of the cover, her ten-year-old would pick it up and start reading. Nigel had written twelve stories with plotlines you might find on Miami Vice, and he couldn't rework them without totally gutting them. Nigel bowed out with good grace and sent out the email call for a replacement writer. I accepted the squeaky-clean challenge. Everybody says kids these days hear a lot of stuff on the playground, and see dreadful things on the six o'clock news. We can't do much about the language on the playground, but no one at our house ever got to watch the six o'clock news because we were running out the door to some organized sport or other. Hockey was particularly time-consuming. The evening news might be graphic and gory, but the kids aren't there watching it. It's the job of parents to protect their young children from the sordid details of life as long as possible. Hasbro is right, a book based on a board game ought to be family fare. Now that Clue Mysteries is out, women have told me they bought it and started reading, and when they set it down, one of their kids scooped it up and they haven't seen it since. Hasbro knew that would happen.
Another rumour is running around, that Clue Mysteries will continue into a full-blown series, just like the Scholastic books. True?
The contract was for two books, Clue Mysteries and More Clue Mysteries. Beyond that Running Press and Hasbro have to renegotiate. Contract negotiations are slow in any business, but we can hope they inch toward a happy result. More Clue Mysteries will be out in Fall 2003.
Do you have any advice for young mystery writers?
Gee, how much space do you have?
1. Write every day. Make a commitment to yourself to write every day. No one else will care if you do it or don't. Most people would rather that you didn 't, since any time you spend writing is less time you have available to spend with them [cleaning your room, walking the dog, going to the mall, playing road hockey].
2. Learn the rules. Mystery has a lot of rules, and you have to follow them. Some people say once you know the rules you can break them, but that only works if you have written several published books and proven you know the rules.
3. Pay attention to logic. Many stories are lost because the author makes the characters do or say certain things to make the plot work, and these things are illogical.
Who's your favourite Clue character?
My favourite is always the one whose head I'm in while I'm writing a particular story. They're all such nice people on the outside, and such wretched, self-serving shysters on the inside. It's a lot of fun to write characters with as many flaws as they have. I enjoy writing light-hearted stories, but I had the most fun ever writing the Clue stories.
The Complete Clue Guide is © 1999-2010 Kenneth Hand.
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