We’re all focused on improving the income of our businesses, yet sometimes we find fortune outside of our chosen career. Daniel Cole has worked as a paramedic, an RSPCA officer and most recently for the RNLI, but after ten years of rejection writing television screenplays, recently landed the kind of book deal that other writers can only dream about. Ragdoll, has just been published in 35 countries and will also be made into a television series by the production company who made SS-GB and The Durrells.
Adviser spoke to Daniel to ask him how he made the transition from a traditional career to the life of a bestselling author. Did you ever feel that any of your previous jobs would suit you ‘for life’? The paramedic job suited me more than any other. It took two years of training, was a role that I was very proud of and that I only left because I relocated to an area that wasn’t recruiting at the time. Had things turned out differently, I’m sure I would have gone back to it. After all, so few people get to be full-time writers - I would have been over the moon just to have the book published and continued working full-time but I got very, very lucky.
At what point in your life did you aspire to write? Originally I started off writing screenplays. I remember becoming a little frustrated with my favourite television shows and believing that I could do a better job. Some of the US television series’ tended to have a lot of ‘filler’ episodes when there are 22 or more in a season. Ragdoll was one of those rejected screenplays. Years later, I finally decided to take the plunge and turn it into a novel. I wanted to finish the story because I wanted to know how it ended. Where did your inspiration come from, and did you feel nervous about the macabre subject matter? I actually can’t remember because the premise for Ragdoll was all there in that screenplay years ago. So, when it came to writing the novel, I just picked up from where I’d left off and continued/expanded the story. Although the synopsis of the book sounds incredibly gruesome and macabre – the story really isn’t. I wrote Ragdoll with the sole intention of making it as entertaining as possible, injecting dark humour at every conceivable opportunity, focusing on the characters and their relationships rather than dwelling on the procedural elements and darker side of the story.
What was the hard part: writing the book or getting it published? Well, if you ignore the years of rejection that preceeded it – getting the novel published all went relatively smoothly. I was very forunate that the right people read it at the right time. Because of that, the term ‘overnight success’ gets thrown about quite a lot, but it certainly didn’t feel that way to me. As for the writing, I actually find it quite easy when I’m in the mood for it, which probably isn’t quite as often as it should be. Was the book the result of isolating yourself or did you rely on the support of others to bring the project home? Definitely by isolating myself. I won’t tell anybody what I’m trying to do in a story or let them read a work in progress, because you can only read a book for the first time once. I like to get a genuine reaction to the whole finished thing. It’s a lonely way of doing things but it seems to work for me. dismembered parts of six victims stitched together, nicknamed by the press as the ‘Ragdoll’. Assigned to the shocking case are Detective William ‘Wolf’ Fawkes, recently reinstated to the London Met, and his former partner Detective Emily Baxter. The ‘Ragdoll Killer’ taunts the police by releasing a list of names to the media, and the dates on which he intends to murder them. With six people to save, can Fawkes and Baxter catch a killer when the world is watching their every move? Adviser says: RAGDOLL is a tense, dramatic thriller with intelligent twists and turns you won’t see coming. If you like Scandi thrillers by authors like Jo Nesbo, Karin Fossum and Henning Mankell then you’ll love this book. Ragdoll A body is discovered with the
RAG DOLL Daniel Cole
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