Len Deighton On Writers Facing The Hard Questions Before Chapter One

Len Deighton, author of 40 books, wrote an interesting piece for The Wall Street Journal on how writers should prepare to write a book.

You can read the piece via the below link:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703916004576270890356713596.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

I've been reading Deighton since the 1960s. I've enjoyed his spy thrillers, which include The Ipcress File, and Funeral In Berlin, as well as his historical fiction, such as Bomber and Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain. Deighton's spy thrillers were made into a successful film series starring Michael Caine as the working class spy hero.

Deighton has also written cookbooks and a very clever alternative history-thriller called SS-GB. I've reread the novel several times over the years.

SS-GB is set in a Great Britain defeated by Nazi Germany. In this alternative history, America did not become involved in the war.

Deighton's novel was published in 1978, years before Robert Harris wrote a similar novel called Fatherland in 1992.

You can read a good piece about Deighton in the British newspaper The Guardian via the below link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/feb/19/len-deighton-revival