Widely acknowledged, as well as one of the games most vocal anti-violence and anti-racism campaigners, Dougie Brimson has acted as an advisor to both the British governments working group into soccer disorder and the European commissions’ soccer group. He has also written extensively for various magazines, newspapers and websites including The Sun, The Times, The New York Times, The Guardian, Loaded, Four-Four-Two magazine, About.com and Soccer 365.
In 2003, Dougie made the move into screenwriting first with the critically acclaimed short movie, “It’s a Casual Life”, and then with his first full length feature, the Hollywood funded, “Green Street Hooligans”, starring Elijah Wood.
Please tell us a little about yourself, Dougie.
Dougie: My name is Dougie Brimson and I’m a former RAF serviceman who was fortunate enough to have my first book published in 1996.
Since then I’ve written a further thirteen books in a variety of genres as well as a couple of movies including the Elijah Wood film, Green Street.
When did the writing bug bite, and in what genre(s)?
Dougie: I actually never set out to be a writer at all, it happened by accident. I had left the RAF in 1994 with no real idea of what I wanted to do other than I was intent on avoiding any more engineering for a while and somehow ended up working as a television and film extra with my younger brother.
Anyone who has ever done any of that kind of work knows how much sitting around you do and inevitably, discussions turned to football and the forthcoming EURO 96. That’s when the idea for a non-fiction book about football fan culture was born. That book became Everywhere We Go, and it was a smash as, to be fair, we knew it would be.
It was very much a case of ‘right book, right time’ and went so well that I wrote a further three non-fiction books with my younger brother before branching out on my own into fiction. Since then I’ve written two best-selling thrillers (The Crew and Top Dog) and a number of comedy books as well as more non-fiction.
I’m very lucky in that I have a very loyal readership who seem to like the varied nature of my list. Someone recently called me the Forrest Gump of literature as they never knew what they were going to get next. I hope that’s what they meant anyway!!
When you started writing, what goals did you want to accomplish? Is there a message you want readers to grasp?
Dougie: Initially I had one clear goal, to make as much money as I could as quickly as I could and then retire. Simple as that.
I know that sounds mercenary, but you have to remember that my first book was the first thing I’d ever really written, so it never occurred to me that it would end up as any kind of career. I was also well into my thirties when I started writing, so I wasn’t exactly looking for a fresh challenge!
These days it’s all about keeping my readers happy because, without them, I don’t have a career of any kind. And if I write something they don’t like, they’ll soon let me know.
How do you develop characters? Setting?
Dougie: That depends on the idea but how it tends to happen is that as the idea unfolds in my head so will a mental image of that character. Once I have that, then the character traits roll out, and then I need two final elements. A name, which has to suit both my character and the subject matter, and finally, I need to hear the character’s voice. Literally. So to do that, I’ll find someone who is as close to my profile as I can possibly get, and from that point on, that becomes my character.