Yesterday I was lucky enough to attend an event at Simon and Schusters London offices. We were able to meet with a panel of four authors who all spoke about how they wrote and it all proved very illuminating.
The authors were; Rebecca Chance, writer of Divas, and Bad Sisters, Benjamin Wood, author of The Bellwether Revivials, Penny Hancock writer of Tideline and Lloyd Shepherd author of The English Monster. Questions had been submitted by attendees in advance and so we began with some of these questions.
The writers were asked if they read and wrote in the same genre or why they had chosen the genre they have written it. It transpired that Lloyd ‘found himself writing historical fiction by accident.’ All of them loved the idea of being able to invent people, places and events and draw readers into the world they have created. Rebecca has written in a range of genres but said that she found writing the ‘bonkbusters’ more fun. All of them agreed you have to love it otherwise writing can become stale. All the writers are avid readers and as many students on creative writing courses will have heard they all agreed reading as much as you can from a wide a range as you can will help to develop the writer within.
We talked about the conflict between e-books and print, by the end we seemed to have reached a vague consensus that reading devices do have a place in the modern publishing world providing convenience and access to books in places that would otherwise require us to carry heavy books around, although we agreed that print books wouldn’t die out. One look at my treasured folio books is enough to ensure that, I’m hoping that someday my children will look after them and treasure them as much as I do.
The writers were then asked to talk about the hardest part of their books to write, Benjamin said he found getting the inciting incident correct at the very beginning difficult, Penny talked about the difficulty of getting into a particular character with whom she had nothing in common, Lloyd talked about the importance of portraying the memories of people who had really lived correctly and Rebecca said she found actually moving characters around difficult. There were several nods at this point and the frustration of trying to get characters into the same place for an essential showdown without using too much contrivance seemed to be a common problem.
Perhaps the most revealing question from my own point of view was how the different authors plan their work. Rebecca Chance said when she writes she has an outline, starts at the beginning and goes through to the end then goes back and edits. Penny on the other hand had an ending in mind and then worked out how to get there. Ben outlines first and then works thorough. Lloyd starts at the beginning and works though to the end, he doesn’t outline. One thing he said stuck in my mind ‘it’s a bit like driving in the dark, you can’t see very far froward but you get there in the end.’
As someone who would, at some point, like to be sitting where the authors were sitting I found the afternoon highly informative and found it encouraging for my own work. When asked about their next projects Lloyd revealed he had just delivered his second novel to his editor and it sounded very intriguing. Penny is working on her second novel and Benjamin has a novel due to be delivered next year. Rebecca has two forthcoming novels which both sound like good fun. I would like to add my thanks to Simon and Schuster for the opportunity to meet the panel and talk to them afterwards.
The authors stayed to talk to us and we were all given the opportunity to view many books from the forthcoming catalogue as well as having copies signed of the books we had been hearing about and helping ourselves to as many books as we could carry home on the train. When you are starting out in an industry the opportunity to hear how other people do things and see their success works as a real motivator for others. It was also great to meet people who love books as much as I do, have written or are writing them and even some more Stephen King fans!
My own writing has temporarily stalled as at the moment I am still trying to finish formatting the site so reviews end up in the right place and then I can add some of my own work. Being busy with the children and training for the marathon seem to be squeezing all my time at the moment and although I have spent some time going through my research and projects I haven’t spent as much time as I would like to actually writing them. In just over seven weeks the marathon will have been completed and in just a few months all of the children will be out of the house for a few hours for school and I am hoping that by the end of 2012 I may well have a first draft of a novel I have been working on in fits and starts for a bit as well as finishing the first story for story I have planned. Time will tell.
