Crime writers

John Creasey wrote hundreds of books though he had great difficulty in getting his first published. He said he received 743 rejection slips before getting one accepted.
Almost as many as I've had!
I knew a crime writer who had many rejections before succeeding: Roger Ormerod who wrote about fifty novels. He told me he was being constantly rejected until he read somewhere that the best way to get accepted was to write a novel in the first person. He did so; it was published and he never looked back. From then on all his crime novels were written, like Raymond Chandler's, in the voice of the private detective he created - Richard Patton, ex copper.
Later he did a few novels, again in the first person, as if written by a woman detective - Phillippa Marlowe. Get it? Do I have to spell it out? Chandler's hero was Phillip Marlow. OK a bit obvious, but it worked.
One difference between Creasey and Ormerod was that, so I read, Creasey listened to other people's ideas and took some of them on board. Roger never did.
He'd read us a passage from a new novel he was writing and tell us he was having problems with a certain part of the plot. We'd tell him what we thought he should do - but he never did it.
As a successful playwright friend of mine says: "Listen to other people's advice and use if you think it will help, otherwise don't." A bit obvious, but wise just the same.
Incidentally, John Ford made a film out of John Creasey's most famous novel, "Gideon's Way"; set in London with Jack Hawkins as Gideon it was not a great success.
So much for Ford's comment when he was asked about his film making: "I just make Westerns."