Ima Crook

Ima Crook is an author, screenwriter, music producer and the creator of the Ima Crook Universe (ICU). Best known for her novels, Ima is considered a master of dialogue with many of her readers considering her one of the best literary dialogue writers in the world.

## Bibliography

### Career

#### Early Music and Screenplays

Ima took her first steps into the creative field as a teenager where she worked as a ghostwriter and producer for musical artists. At some point, she ventured into screenwriting, quickly gaining a reputation in the industry as one of the best "dialogue doctors" (a screenwriter hired by studios to edit a script's dialogue). She wrote many of her own original screenplays, but none of them were ever produced, despite her success as a script doctor.

### Personal Life

Very little is known about Ima's personal life but she has claimed to have first-hand experience with the world of organized crime (whether as a victim or a perpetrator is unknown). She couldn't have spent much of her adult life around the world of violent crime, however, as she 'cleaned up' and began pursuing her career as early as her teens.

## Style

Ima's work is known for her unique story subjects (staples of the 'gangster' genre she pioneered), pop culture references, dry humor, gripping dialogue, puns, dark and complex themes, and hidden philosophies, among other factors. Fans of Ima's work praise how unique and realistic her stories are, while critics often state their disapproval at her glamorization of crime, drug use and racial themes as well as her heavy use of dark and violent themes and scenes. She's also known for killing off her characters as well as writing incredibly long stories with very large casts.

### Reality Intrudes on Genre

Crook's main philosophy on writing, at least where her own work is concerned, is that "reality should always intrude on genre". In other words, her stories juxtapose the dangerous, violent world of crime that's so foreign to most of her readers with the normal, everyday issues everybody goes through. To accomplish this, she usually puts an emphasis on the friends and family members of her protagonists, showing how the actions of her characters (who are always villains, or morally grey at least) impact and threaten the lives of the innocent people the protagonist cares about.

She believes that all gangster stories should have a tragic ending and that every character should be at risk of dying (nobody is invincible just because they're an important character). She's especially fond of killing off characters close to the protagonists, presenting both the character(s) and the audience with the realities of the life and the consequences of the charaters' actions.

Because every character is at risk of dying at any moment, Ima wants her reader to really care about all of the characters, especially those close to the protagonist. Because of this, her novels spend a lot of time focusing on those characters (particularly the family members of the protagonists) so the audience knows what is really at stake. This is one of the reasons her novels are so long because there is always 'downtime' in between the action where we just spend time with the characters.

Though she thinks reality intruding on genre is vital for gangster novels, she thinks it's a good trope for any work of fiction, regardless of genre. In her opinion, real life should always get in the way of what the characters want to achieve.

### Genre

Crook pioneered the 'gangster' literary genre; a subgenre of crime fiction. The gangster genre takes inspiration from filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, Guy Richie and Martin Scorsese, bringing the crime thriller movie genre onto the page. Gangster novels differ from crime novels in that the focus of the novels is on the criminals, not those catching the criminals. Gangster novels contain complex plots, a focus on gangland politics and a dark, gritty focus on crime. Tropes of the gangster genre include: graphic violence, sex, drugs, guns, violence, action, gang politics, police procedurals, tragic endings, realism and a focus on accruing power, money or material wealth through criminal acts.

Crook believes gangster novels should always have a tragic ending, stating that, in real life, organized crime always has a tragic ending for everybody involved in it or affected by it; "in the end, there are no winners".

## Controversies

Throughout her career, Ima has made a point of never shying away from controversial subjects and dialogue. Between that and some of her personal actions, controversies began following her before her career even began. Despite this, she insists that the views and actions of her characters in no way represent her own beliefs.

### Violence

Violence has always been a staple of Crook's work. Drawing from her own personal experiences with crime, as well as interviews with police and known criminals, she presents violence in an extremely realistic way, often describing it so vividly graphically that many readers struggle to read through the more violent scenes. Some of her readers have suggested she may have a military background because of her apparent familiarity with violence, with many stating that no human who hasn't experienced the things mentioned in her books could describe it in such a way (though Ima has always denied claims that she has any background in military or law enforcement). Many readers and critics have reported the level of dark, graphic violence in Crook's work have made them feel physically ill, with others claiming there's absolutely no need for any author to describe violence so graphically.

Perhaps worse still is the claim that Crook glorifies violence. In her work, almost all of the characters commit heinous acts of violence, even the characters the reader is supposed to relate to. Critics have claimed her work desensitizes readers to graphic depictions of violence, which would be harmful, particularly for developing readers. In response, Crook has always claimed the opposite, believing that the violence is displayed in a realistic manner that could never inspire a mentally sound person to replicate the acts. She believes that her novels force readers to face the realities of violence, disgusting them rather than mesmerizing them.

In regards to gun violence in particular, Crook has always said that she does believe that violence in fiction inspires people to commit real violence who would not already find inspiration to do so without violent fiction (essentially claiming that violent people will do violent things, regardless of whether or not they consume violent media) and that she believes people who disposed to violence choose to seek out violent media, rather than violent media making people disposed to violence.

### Substance Abuse

Many critics and fans alike have displayed disappointment in Crook for glorifying substance abuse within her work. In response, Crook claims that the level of substance abuse depicted in her work, particularly Vice, is "nowhere near the level it would be in real life", implying that, if her characters were real, they would abuse drugs and alcohol far more than they do in her work. Still, she has never tried to fight off the claims that she glorifies the use of drugs (specifically ecstasy/MDMA, as shown in Vice), actually claiming that to not glorify it would be unrealistic because, in the moment, it does feel glorious. She does, however, claim that she always presents the negatives of substance abuse realistically and that showing the consequences of one's actions is a major theme in her work.

Crook also admitted that she experimented with ecstasy/MDMA and Xanax (in large volumes, which were not prescribed for her) as research for Vice, taking both on their own, together, and with alcohol on separate occasions.

## Bibliography

### Announced

Ima crook has announced a new book series, *Killville*, though nothing else is yet known about it.

## Additional Credits

### Books

 2023
 2023

## Trivia

* Ima and Nadia Cox edit each other's manuscripts, though Nadia doesn't edit Ima's scripts.
	+ Ima actually edits the majority (if not all) of the novels published by Cypher, though it's understood her involvement in the editing process for most of them is far less substantial than it is for Nadia.
* She is a fan of the English football club Chelsea FC.
* Throughout her work, Ima consistently formats em dashes (—) incorrectly, choosing to insert a space before and after the dash. This is common in AP style and frequently used in magazines and newspapers but is considered incorrect in novels, scripts and manuscripts. This is a stylistic choice with Ima prefering the look of the incorrectly formatted em dash.
	+ Interestingly, Nadia Cox uses the same style though this is because Ima edits her stories (just as Nadia edits Ima's). We know this because Nadia's first drafts include correctly formatted em dashes while her final edited stories contain Ima's incorrectly formatted style.
	+ Ima also incorrectly formats her em dashes in her scripts.
	+ In her first drafts, Ima uses hyphens (-) in place of em dashes, then replaces them in later drafts.
	+ Similarly, Ima has been known to incorrectly format her slashes (/), often leaving a space between the slash and the words either side of it. This is another stylistic preference but is technically an error.
* The name 'Ima' is a female given name of Japanese origin.
* Although Ima seems loyal and committed to Cypher, she has chosen not to participate in their shares program (where 'members' can purchase shares of the company), perhaps in case she leaves Cypher in the future to self-publish or release under a major publisher.
* She is the creator of the Ima Crook Universe (ICU).
* She has publicly announced that she would like to create another shared universe, the Ima Crook Second Universe (ICU2), for supernatural and urban fantasy stories. Currently, however, there have been no signs that the ICU2 will be created and she appears committed to the ICU.
* When she first shared her idea for Vice on Reddit, before she'd released any stories and before anybody knew her name, many people assumed she was a man.
* She's a big fan of video games created by Rockstar Games and has spent thousands of hours playing their titles, saying she "grew up playing them".
	+ Despite this, she doesn't consider herself much of a "gamer", saying that she barely plays video games anymore and that, when she does, she only plays games created by Rockstar.
	+ She doesn't give out her GamerTag/PSN ID but some fans have claimed she plays PS5, though the validity is debatable.
* She very rarely shares pictures of herself, though there have been a few exceptions:
	+ She uses a picture of herself across her social media channels and on official Cypher websites.
	+ She once shared a picture of her nails to Twitter which were painted in sunset colors with a palm tree on one of the nails. The image was captioned "Vicestyle".
		- An hour later, video game publisher Rockstar Games retweeted a screenshot from one of their games, *Grand Theft Auto Online*, which was captioned "Vicestyle". Given Ima's history with the company, it's unknown if this was intentional from Rockstar Games or if it was just a coincidence.
	+ She once shared a picture of her hair (which was, at the time, longer than it is on the image she uses on her social media channels) to Twitter. Her hair was dyed in 'sunset' colors.
	+ Questions have been asked about Ima's sexuality given the large number of LGBTQ+ characters in her stories. Many of her important characters are bisexual, leaving many to wonder about Ima's sexuality. Despite the curiosity from the fanbase, Ima has never publicly shared her sexuality.
	+ It's understood that Cypher has been in talks with Ima about starting an OnlyFans.
	+ In a Reddit comment, Ima confirmed that she does indeed use a pen name, sharing that Ima was her real first name but that 'Crook' was a made-up name.
	+ On several occasions, she's appeared frustrated when people have made jokes about her name (such as 'Ima Liar', 'Ima Ho' and 'Ima Author') and doesn't seem to appreciate the puns.
* She dots her 'I's with a heart in her signature.
* She grips her pens between her index finger and middle finger "like a cigarette" and cradles the other end with the edge of her thumb.
* She suffers from chronic insomnia.
	+ It's unknown if there is a cause for this or if she's suffered from it her entire life.
	+ She gets most of her writing done between the hours of 9pm and 7am.
* She describes herself as a "heavy plotter", planning her work in extreme detail.
	+ When planning Vice, she outlined in detail what *every* character was doing on each day the story takes place, even if the character was minor or the events of their day had no impact on Rose McClane or the overall plot.
		- Her aim was to plan Vice in such a way that the story could be told from the perspective of any character, major or minor, and it would still be interesting.
	+ Despite this, she's known to change a character's name often before settling on one, such as:
		- Casey Russo's name was spelt "Kacey" throughout the planning process and the spelling remained until Ima had almost finished writing the first draft of Vice Part One.
		- Cora Bennett was initially called "Clara". Ima only decided to change the name once the first draft of all three Vice novels had been completed and she was working on the second draft of Vice Part One.
			* Ima still occasionally refers to Cora as "Clara'"when talking about the character.
		- Top Shotta was written as "Rajae" in the planning process, though Ima had settled on the name Top Shotta by the time his character was introduced.
	+ Her favorite character she's ever written is Asherah Newman followed by Cora Bennett, Sienna Bloom, Emily Rōnin and Vivian Montgomery (in that order).
		- Interestingly, Ima never lists any of the her main characters (Rose McClane, Ricardo Moreno Vega and Casey Russo) when talking about her favorite characters.
			* She's gone as far as saying she would "hate Rose" if she were real and the two knew each other.
* Ima has said that she will never write Vice for the screen but would be open to working with a studio to have it adapted so long as her dialogue wasn't replaced. She has said she will never give her permission for Vice to be adapted into a movie, fearing that too much of the story and characters would have to be cut.
* Though she uses American spelling, grammar and syntax in her novels, she often uses British variants in her social media posts, usually switching between the two in any given post or comment.
* She pronounces her name as 'eye-ma' despite the traditional Japanese pronunciation being 'ee-ma'.
* It's unknown where she's from originally but she lives in the United Kingdom.
* She has numerous health conditions and believes her lifespan has been severely shortened because of them. This is partly why she spends so much of her time writing because she wants to tell all of her stories before she passes.
* Her exact age isn't known (though some sources have claimed she was born in 1994 or 1996) but she has said she's in her twenties (as of mid-2022).
* Crook is often associated with pink colors, specifically the shades #ce2d88 and #ff94da. She's also sometimes associated with the purple and light blue.

## External Links

* Ima Crook's Twitter
* Ima Crook's Reddit Account
* Ima Crook's Subreddit