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Mars Hill College Professor is "America's Next Great Crime Writer"
by Alexandra Turner
Hal McDonald
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Mars Hill College English Professor Hal McDonald doesn't watch a lot of television, so he never saw the advertisement on Court T.V. for "America's Next Great Crime Writer." He stumbled across a flyer promoting the contest one day when he was cleaning out his mailbox.
The contest deadline was less than a week away, and McDonald was about to go on Thanksgiving break. He had just five days to write a 5,000-word sample chapter and a 2,000-word synopsis, but he had an idea, so he entered.
One month later McDonald was surprised to learn that he had won. The book, which he went on to complete under a tight six-week deadline, is called The Anatomist and will be appearing in bookstores on April 1.
His story, set in London in 1825, tells the tale of two young medical school students who are studying anatomy and must dig up graves to find cadavers. One day while doing this, they make a chilling discovery. The gravestone reads that the person who died was a woman. But the body turns out to be that of a man. They soon discover that he has been murdered. The story centers on their efforts to solve the crime.
Before entering the contest, McDonald had been reading historical books on anatomy study. His daughter asked him what would happen if the medical students ever found someone who had been murdered. McDonald expanded on that idea when he entered the contest.
About 900 people sent in submissions. On a snowy day in December, while McDonald was home with his three children, he got a call from Court T.V. telling him that he was one of the top five contestants and the winner would be chosen through open online voting. The voting went for one month, and McDonald's story was the winning story.
Coming April 1 to a bookstore near you!
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The grand prize was getting his sample chapter read by Harper Collins Publishing Company. There was no guarantee that his story would get published. But Harper Collins liked what they saw and called to ask for the rest of the book. McDonald told them that he only had about eighteen pages of the story actually completed. Harper Collins gave him a deadline of six weeks to complete the entire novel.
Being a full-time college professor and father of three didn't leave McDonald a lot of spare time to write his book, so he had to carefully plan when he would be able to work on it. Every day he had written out on his calendar how many words he would write that day. On days he was teaching he would write 1,000 words a day, and on days that he did not have to teach he would write 2,000 words a day. Using this method, McDonald was able to complete his novel by his six week deadline.
Now McDonald is working on a sequel. He said his work as an English professor at Mars Hill College definitely gave him a leg up on some of the competition. However, three of the five finalists were also English professors.
McDonald also said that having written three prior novels gave him the confidence to know he could finish the book. He said that his favorite part of the experience was that the contest gave him a reason to write. It was a good feeling while he was writing to know that someone was definitely going to read it.
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