[image error] Hello everyone, and welcome to another fantastic interview with Doug Lamoreux. He is the last, quite possibly the least, Renaissance man, a father of three strong men and a grandfather, a lifelong horror film fan and child of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, recognized his incompatibility with the rest of the world - and gave it all up to act and write. He appeared in Mark Anthony Vadik's The Thirsting (aka Lilith) and Hag. He starred in Peter O'Keefe's Infidel and Boris Wexler's The Arab. All interspersed with forty years in theater (during which he fell off the stage twice). Now he writes swell horror novels. The first-ever Igor Award recipient from The Horror Society, Doug is a former Pushcart Prize nominee, Rondo Award nominee, and his novel, Dracula's Demeter, was a 2012 Lord Ruthven Award nominee for fiction.

Sit back and relax, grab a cup of coffee, and enjoy the story behind Saucy Jacky, the Whitechapel Murders As Told By Jack the Ripper, and what it took to get it on paper.

Synopsis of Saucy Jacky:
 
London, 1888. Walk side by side through the streets of Whitechapel with history's most notorious killer. Listen, or try not to, to his thoughts as he lurks in the shadows. Keep pace, if you have the nerve, as he stalks his victims. Watch, if you have the stomach, as he commits his outrages. Run with him, if you can, as he escapes the swarming police desperate for his hide. In this unabashed novel of terror, award-winning author Doug Lamoreux invites you to imagine the unimaginable. ‘Saucy Jacky’ The Whitechapel murders... as told by Jack the Ripper.
 
How did you come up with the premise for your latest book, Saucy Jacky?
 
I’m a history buff and, like many, have always had a fascination for that hideous moment in history. There are hundreds of ‘Ripper’ books that address the investigation into his crimes, the details of his victims’ lives and, most especially, countless studied guesses as to his identity. But, as an author of horror fiction, I wasn’t interested in who he was. I wanted to address what he was. What kind of monster was this man? That meant experiencing the summer and autumn of 1888 inside the mind of the Whitechapel killer. I played with the idea, without ever writing a word, for years, but knew I needed to learn how to write before I attempted it. Nine published novels later… Saucy Jacky was ready to ‘come out and play’.
 
We all know how much research goes into writing a story, but what particular types of research did you do for this amazing read?
 
The need was to take the reader into Victorian England. Obviously I had to live and breathe that setting first. That was no hardship. I have always been a huge reader of 19th century authors (Collins, Dickens, Stevenson, Stoker) and modern writers using that period (Anne Perry, Caleb Carr) I’ve read Doyle’s Holmes canon. I am an addict for everything Hammer Films (particularly their Victorian horrors). I am a history junkie (I’d already done an enormous amount of research for my earlier ‘Dracula’s Demeter’).

I had to research the Ripper murders in and out. I didn’t want the romantic fog-shrouded London of the movies. I wanted the slums of the East End. I’d already read (and re-read) Sugden’s ‘The Complete History of Jack the Ripper’, Rumbelow’s ‘The Complete Jack the Ripper’, and others. I read them again. I chased forensic information on the internet. I read many newspaper excerpts (despite the vast amount of false information published at the time of the murders) as these would have been Jack the Ripper’s primary sources of information on the murder investigations. (I had to carefully consider the information available today that would NOT have been available to the killer.) I lived for five months with a map of 1888 London at my elbow. It was important to know the streets as well as the killer and the coppers to plot Jacky’s movements. Credible witnesses who saw the Whitechapel murderer, once I turned the perspective, became the characters Jacky saw as he moved through the streets. Wandering Whitechapel helped me find Jacky’s point of view.
 
I’m a huge anglophile, so it fascinated me to read the dialogue, as well as the storyline taking place in England in the 19th century. How were you able to so accurately bring that into this story?
 
That’s the trick, isn’t it? To bring something to life on paper; to transport the reader. I’m pleased you feel I pulled it off. The writer never knows until the reader says, “Yeah, I bought it.” The most important point about the dialogue is… that it isn’t real. Real speech is dull and rambling. Dialogue, accents, diction, should be character choices to propel the story. I didn’t want real people, I wanted interesting characters that ‘felt’ real and advanced the narrative. With accents, less is always more. Short phrases, snippets of accent (with comparable actions and emotions) best get the point across. Call someone a ‘fishmonger’ and the reader already draws a picture. You needn’t add much in the way of dialogue. More than a little is too much. And characters’ thoughts are as vital as dialogue. When Jacky makes himself up as an Irishman, he gets ‘lost in the part’ and his thoughts are as Irish as his accent. He looks at his reflection and thinks: ‘…wearing me new look, the eejits would stay dog wide of me.’ He’s Irish without saying a word. Give the reader a crumb, they’ll taste the whole pie.
 
You were able to describe the process of the killings. How did you bring the historical accuracy into those details? (i.e. blade, location of the wounds, victims names, etc.)
 
Murder may be a private affair, but the results are entirely public. In the case of Jack the Ripper, details of some autopsies, transcripts of Coroner’s Inquests, newspaper reports of the day, and various police memoirs, survive (in whole or in part) in many forms. I had the great fortune of following 130 years of ‘Ripperologists’ unearthing those facts.
 
I approached those facts from the opposite direction; with my thoughts, my background and education; ten years hospital work, ten years firefighting, EMT training; attendance at murder scenes, suicides, autopsies. Then, as I assume all writers do, I asked myself questions. The victim had that wound. How would that wound be inflicted? With what weapon? With what force? In what order did injuries occur? The first drafts of the ‘murder’ scenes were dull and clinical; terrible prose. Not prose at all, autopsy notes reversed and told in stilted first person, past tense: ‘I made an incision in her throat running from beneath the left ear to beneath the right ear.’ or ‘I dissected the lower descending aorta and cut through the pericardium.’ Just dreadful clinical nuts and bolts, but necessary to alter the perspective. There are hundreds of ‘Ripper’ books, thousands of serial killer books, but the majority approach the subject with sane historical ‘here’s what was found’. I came at it from the other way, from the killer’s point of view ‘here’s what I did and what I left’. Once the murders were mapped out, I rewrote in repeated passes to remove the antiseptic tone and give the prose harrowing life; to add Jacky’s personality.

As to the names, in a number of cases it took days, even weeks, for the authorities to identify the victims. Jacky could not have known their names and (certainly at first) didn’t care. He was cleaning the streets of drunk perverts. What did their names matter? For his ease and pleasure, Jacky gave them nicknames.
 
Let’s not deny the fact that, obviously, Jack the Ripper was a bit mad. What was it like being inside his head? What was it like to develop Jack the Ripper’s personality?
 
A bit mad? He was bat crap crazy! Whoever or whatever he was. During the murder sequences, it was obviously (and not surprisingly) dark. And terribly messed up. Jacky thought he was doing good work. He did not consider himself a villain. He had a dark and awful past, which he alludes to without going into, and that past has certainly led to his mania. But he does not see himself as a criminal. He sees his victims as criminals. He considers himself a ‘societal necessity’. Between murders, he’s an intelligent and well-read man (with his own prejudices and politics) growing more and more paranoid about events in the city around him. It was difficult to maintain that perspective for long stretches. I had to get up and go for walks in the sun every few hours. Oddly, I found Jacky also had a sense of humor. Twisted, admittedly, but a sense of humor just the same. In the long run, while it was dark, the process was also freeing. I did not have to bother with the rules of writing. No thought was too weird or awful in the first draft. Only in the end, when my role switched from writer to editor, did I have to govern the content.

I know what it takes to carry a scene. You did it seamlessly. What is your process of creating dynamic arcs to the story and carrying the reader into the next scene?
 
I lay out the elements of my plot and then, fearfully and fully aware I’m screwing it up, shuffle those events into what feels like their ‘arc’ positions. The chapter breaks (to a novelist) are like the commercial breaks to a television writer. The reader will likely pause, so build to a climax, build to a climax, build to a climax. You want them to come back to the story. David Gerrold refers to writers as crib babies, banging to a climax every 5-10 pages.

The story need not be offered chronologically. Tell it your way. Historical facts, or stumbled upon coincidences, make great hooks if you can spot and incorporate them. An example: Fact, Jacky’s second victim (Polly Nichols in Buck’s Row) was driven to the cemetery in a hearse provided free by a Hanbury Street mortician. Fact, coincidentally, Jacky’s third victim was killed in Hanbury Street. I used those separate facts as inspiration and result. I let the first enrage Jacky so much he chose Hanbury Street for his next crime to teach the undertakers a lesson. It made a nice chapter climax, moved the story to the next murder, and added to Jacky’s personality. In like fashion, I used a historically accurate dock fire as inspiration for one of his crimes.
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I also created a series of characters, a landlady, a news seller, a nurse, to (unknowingly) provide Jacky (and the reader) with information he would need but would not otherwise have been privy to on his own. Many of their revelations made great chapter climaxes.
 
Where did you find the newspaper articles written about Saucy Jacky?
 
Books. Internet. All are well-researched and archived. Ripperology is its own science.
 
Why do you think Jack the Ripper was so obsessed with prostitutes? Or should I say, his disgust for them?
 
I haven’t the slightest idea. I don’t know who Jack the Ripper was. My fictional ‘Saucy Jacky’ hates the combination of alcohol and promiscuity. He only kills drunk (or just-sobering) prostitutes.

Finally, we asked the how, but why did you choose to write this story?
 
I was six months (and three hundred pages) into writing a tenth novel, when that project was suddenly halted and the draft shelved. It was a great story, and a great waste of my time and energy. I was angry, but the situation was not to be helped. I turned to three other (good) ideas, and played with each, but my black mood kept me from making any headway. I was a-sea as a writer and had some serious aggression needed relief. I put the other stories away and, finally, began scribbling notes on Jack the Ripper. Amazingly, mad as I was, Jacky began to write itself. Soon my anger became excitement, my mood changed, and I was up every morning at 1:00 a.m. writing. I was suddenly confident again. I’d stumbled into the rage necessary to bring Jack the Ripper to life. Saucy Jacky became my tenth novel.
 
What do you hope readers will take away from Saucy Jacky?
 
The same thing I want them to take from any of my works. I’d like them to experience something new about the human – sometimes inhuman – condition. I want them to be spooked, on edge (from the safety of their favorite reading chair), even amused; but moved in one way or another. If they are outraged, that’s okay too. Jack the Ripper was outrageous. Ultimately, I’d just like them to be entertained.

Thank you for doing the interview. I appreciate your time.
 
Thank you for asking. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Purchase Saucy Jacky HERE
​Find all of Doug's books HERE

Please feel free to ask Doug any questions you may have in the comments below. I'm sure he'd love to hear from you.