Only Connect by Sheena Wilkinson

 Last month I wrote about how much fun it is to visit readers, as Mrs Hart continues her tour of any book group who’ll have her. This month I’m going to talk about collaboration with other writers. Not in the sense of writing together – I have very little experience of that beyond a Chalet School fanfiction collaboration with my friend Susanne. Not in the sense of supportive groups online, though that is a joy and an endless source of help, but in the very specific sense of getting together to do events.

Last week I was at Listowel Writers’ Week, Ireland’s oldest literary festival. The programmer, Stephen Connolly, told me I would be reading with another historical novelist, Tasmanian-born, County Kerry-dwelling Amanda Geard. We had never heard of each other. Our conversation was to be unmoderated so there was tremendous pressure on us to build a rapport. But what if I didn’t like her novel? What if I couldn’t find any points of contact between the books? And there was always the fear that she would hate Mrs Hart’s Marriage Bureau. Maybe she would be a very serious person who would despise a novel set in a marriage bureau? Her first novel, The Midnight House, had been a Richard and Judy pick. Maybe she would be too fancy and successful and I would look like an eejit beside her? 

 Amanda’s second novel, The Moon Gate, arrived in the post. It looked very beautiful and very big. Over 500 pages. Eek. And for a two-person discussion I would have to read every single one. I will never forget my very first literary panel, a reader’s day at a local library. We were talking about favourite books – a sort of Desert Island Books. I took it very seriously, spending weeks reading the other panellists’ choices, to ensure the best discussion for the audience. Three of the other panellists took the same approach. The fourth, who wrote for Mills and Boon, said that she hadn’t read any of the other books, because as a fulltime writer she didn’t have time to read. At the time I had published only a few stories and a lit crit book, but I knew that I was never, ever going to be that person. 

 

Anyway – hooray! I loved The Moon Gate from the start. With three timelines, and moving between Tasmania, London and Kerry, it’s a sweeping, escapist epic story.  Impressively potted, impeccably researched, it’s full of intrigue and heart. I gulped it down in a few days and I knew that I would like the person who wrote it. And even more of a hooray – the as-yet-unknown Amanda started to post on social media, and then to message me, about Mrs Hart. She loved it too! Even better, though the stories, settings and scope of the two novels were very different, we kept finding little things in common: a concern for the ongoing effects of war; the fascist menace in the 1930s; homesickness and loneliness. 

 

Businesslike, we exchanged questions by email. We messaged all the week before the festival – OMG, I can’t believe she… I’m at the bit where… How could you have… I think I might know who… 

 

The event was at two, and we agreed to meet at eleven in the hotel foyer. I sat with my notes, and her questions, nervous again that in three hours’ time an audience (hopefully!) would turn up to be entertained and informed by two authors who had never met. Amanda walked in bearing a box of eggs. ‘From our chooks,’ she said and I knew immediately that I had made a friend. 

 

We talked and talked. We shared the anxieties we had each had about working with a stranger. We laughed at how silly that seemed now. And when two o’clock came round, and we were facing each other on stage, we settled into what already felt like a chat between old pals. Several of the audience told us later that they couldn’t believe we didn’t already know each other. We loved the chat, and the relationship between the two novels so much that, despite living 350 miles apart, we’ve already planned to pitch ourselves as a duo to other festivals. I can’t wait!

 

(And the eggs were delicious!)

 

Amanda and I were thrust together, as it were, by an insightful programmer. Later this week, on Saturday 17th June, I’m appearing at the Belfast Book Festival with Anne Booth. I haven’t met Anne in real life yet. I came across her first on this very blog, and when I read her gorgeous convent-set novel Small Miracles, I recognised in it the same sense of community, friendship and hope that’s central to Mrs Hart. Maybe, I suggested, she’d like to do some events together? I thought she might think I was pushy and crazy, but she was delighted. I pitched the idea of a discussion of ‘feelgood feminist fiction’ to Sophie Hayles, the director of the Belfast Book Festival, and luckily she agreed that it was a great idea. Our chat will be moderated by a fantastic writer and journalist, Sue Leonard, who has interviewed us both and whom I met years ago at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, an artists’ retreat in County Monaghan.

Anne and I have zoomed, and I know already that we’re also going to have a great chat onstage! And we’re hoping to bring our feelgood feminist event to bookshops in the UK soon. 

 

Writing can be lonely; publishing can be frustrating, but connecting with writers you admire is one of the things that makes this whole business worthwhile. 

 

 

 

 

 

Octopuses, mules and problem-solving by Tracy Darnton

I saw Markus Zusak speak recently at a Mr B’s event in Bath as part of his book tour with Bridge of Clay. What have I got in common with a hugely successful, award-winning Australian male novelist, you may ask? I assumed absolutely nothing BUT as he chatted on about the way he wrote and rewrote and crafted his new book, changing narrator, adding and removing characters, I began to feel better about my own methods. 

Markus Zusak said that he did not have a great imagination, just a lot of problems. He wanted a mule in the book, so therefore he needed a race track. 

My ears pricked up. Aha – I too have a lot of problems. What can happen to X on the raft to hospitalise him? Why’s the axe on the terrace? How can Y get out of that locked laboratory?

That week, I had felt like writing my next YA thriller was turning into an impossible task akin to trying to squash an octopus into a string bag. I had lists and lists of questions and problems that far from ticking off I was adding to every time I wrote some more. As soon as I squashed one octopus arm back into the bag, another popped out somewhere else.

But the other little trip I had that week was to an Escape Room. (For the uninitiated, you and your nearest and dearest are locked in a room for an hour and have to solve a number of puzzles and problems to get yourselves out of there). And here’s the thing that dawned on me as I thoroughly enjoyed my fourth Escape Room in as many months - I actually like solving problems.

I like coming up with clever little fixes. I love planting a tiny seed in one chapter to develop and use later on. Hide something insignificant in plain sight in chapter 23 which becomes crucial in chapter 32 and I’m really having fun. I get a buzz from writing a whole new scene to fix the problem in a way I’ve only just thought of.

When I wrote The Truth About Lies, I spent hours fiddling about with the epigraphs at the beginning of chapters, blending clues with memory exercises and apposite quotations. I found it very satisfying that Jess borrowing a scarf can make sense of a confrontation between two other characters in a pub car park chapters later. Sad I know, but I relished adding in little references that possibly (definitely) only I appreciate - the madeleine cake Jess dunks on page 71, for instance. These are the things that kept me at my desk, enjoying the process.

I’m new to this author way of life, and have a major dose of imposter syndrome, but I’d been feeling rather that my approach to putting a novel together couldn’t possibly be the proper way. This jigsaw-solving, tying-things-together method of writing a story must be inferior to the method of other authors whom I imagine sitting calmly at their tidy desks as the whole, perfect narrative pours out, agonising only over the occasional choice of adjective.

But now I feel reassured. We can only write in the way that works for us. Every time we solve a problem with our story, we have the potential to take it in a new direction, add a layer or an exciting setting, or explore a new theme. And yes, the potential to throw up even more problems in a complex web. But all with the hope that, at some stage, those answers and solutions will come together in a satisfying novel. Maybe one day, as I get more experienced, the story will just appear from the beginning to the end, with no problems to solve. But where would be the fun in that?

Maybe there was a clue on my bookshelf to the way my mind works 

In the meantime, I must get back to my work-in-progress. The octopus is escaping again. 

Tracy Darnton’s YA thriller The Truth About Lies was published in July by Stripes.  You can follow Tracy on Twitter @TracyDarnton           

Book events across cultures - Clémentine Beauvais

A while ago I wrote a blog post for ABBA about the differences between school visits in France and in Britain. Today I thought I’d write one about the differences I’ve observed between book events open to the public in Britain, France and Germany. 

My experience isn’t entirely representative, of course, but I’ve now done quite a few book tours/ book events (at fairs, in bookshops, or in other contexts) in those three countries and there are some striking differences that are quite revealing, I think, of the ways in which authors, books, and reading, are positioned and thought of in those three contexts. 

I’m here mostly talking about single-author events, not round tables, which are (as far as I can tell) quite similarly run. And my experience is of children's and YA literature events, not adult.

celebrating Franco-Germanic friendship on my birthday last year...

France: The author as mysterious authority

The vast majority of public book events in France take the form of an interview, with a bookseller, journalist, moderator, chair or other literature expert asking the questions. As I mentioned in my other blog post, the author’s position in such events is one I’d characterise as a subject supposed to know, in an almost oracular position, authoritative and mysterious, full of potential answers that the interviewer’s questions may or may not unlock.

Authors in France, as far as I can tell, generally don’t have firm ideas of the main points they want to convey in an interview. They wait for questions, and they answer them. Their personas on stage tend to be pretty much reflective of their personalities. They might be cheerful and communicative, or shy and fearful, or haughty and snobbish, or dull and boring. They certainly, as far as I can tell, don’t consider the interview to be a performance, but very firmly a literary discussion. There is an expectation that the book event will be informative.

The questions are generally highly complimentary - it’s very rare to hear trick questions, or criticisms (even veiled) of the book. They tend to be very respectful of the author’s private life and very rarely intrusive; any biographical interest is generally motivated by the contents of the book or by general discussion of writing. Most of the questions are quite literature-focused.

The book event may or may not be followed by a signing. While the promotion of the book is evidently an aim of the event, it is rarely clearly foregrounded as such. It would be considered, I think, quite distasteful for an author to self-promote during the event, actively encourage listeners to buy the book, or sing the praises of their own work.

Britain: The author as show/wo/man

It is, of course, very frequent in Britain to have interview-format book events, too. But even in those - and, even more so, in other types of events where authors actually put on a show (with or without Powerpoint), it is clear that the author’s role in British book events is more proactive, more promotional, and more performance-driven than in France.

The author in Britain is here to sell their book, and the narrative they build around the book - which may lead to some quite private information to be given - is part of the publicity for the book. There is an expectation that the book event will be entertaining.

The questions are generally complimentary, as in France, but I have observed that they tend to be less specific than in France - questions are willfully quite broad, in order perhaps to serve as platforms for the author to tell the story of their book and of their writing.

I would say that doing a book event in Britain feels like much more like acting than in France, with the drive to make one’s personality considerably sunnier and funnier than in real life (this, of course, with variations to match the contents of the book).

Authors in Britain, it seems to me, have quite a clear idea before going on stage of the main messages they want to communicate about the book; its pitch; its unique selling points. Those things are, it’s worth saying, much more part of the genesis of the book and the publishing process in the first place: in Britain, you know your pitch, in part because the agents, editors and publicists have been refining it for months. In France, where pitch-driven writing is less a thing (even in children’s literature), there isn’t a huge expectation that you should be able to sum up the book quickly.

The book event is almost always followed by a signing and generally, that aspect of it is considered as perfectly natural. The author’s self-promotion and encouragement to the audience to buy the book is not seen as weird.

Germany: The author as builder and sharer of words

My first book events in Germany puzzled me utterly. I was expecting a French-style interview, the only difference being the presence of an interpreter (I don’t speak German), and the slightly odd labelling of the event as ‘Reading’ didn’t register with me as being an actual thing. This was a book fair with teenagers, there was a fee, it was an hour long - it obviously wasn’t going to be a Reading.

It was. In Germany, very many book events involve remarkably long readings from the book that the author is promoting. Not only that - from a very young age, children get accustomed to sitting in rooms listening to people reading from books. Reading, I mean, sitting down at a desk, with the book. That’s it. The first time, I thought - there is no way in heaven that those teenagers are going to listen to 15 minutes of reading out loud, with no acting, no background, no nothing. But they did.

Normally, events with young people consist of brief-ish readings - 10, 15 minutes, and in between, some questions. Still, that is a much longer amount of time than either France or Britain would normally consider feasible. For adults, I’m told, book events in Germany can consist of literally one hour of reading. There is an expectation that the book event will expand one's imagination.

In such events, the author, I think, is positioned principally as a builder and sharer of words, someone whose creation of an atmosphere, a world, a cast of characters, will fill up the whole space for considerable amounts of time. It is less about talking around the book than about entering the book - letting it speak for itself. 

In-between the reading, there may be questions, and questions in Germany tend to be more thought-provoking and more critical than in France and Britain, I’ve found. There’s less of a sense that the interviewer should always be adoring. You can get quite tough - though always kindly worded - questions on anything from your literary choices to your ideological viewpoint.

As in France, the author doesn’t put on a show for such events; I would say that their ‘usual’ personality, give or take the inevitable alterations induced by being on a stage, is generally what you see. A signing generally follows the book event, though, like France, I have a sense that it wouldn’t be considered very tasteful to advertise that fact too strongly.

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Again, those are generalities, not absolute facts, and they’re drawn from admittedly limited experience, but such experience tells us a lot about the cultural scripts that define in a given country at a given time what an author is, what kind of knowledge they’ve got, and how a book is considered in relation to the audience, the market, and its genre. Let me know in the comments what it’s like in other countries, too…

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Clémentine Beauvais is a writer and literary translator. Her YA novels are Piglettes(Pushkin, 2017) and In Paris with You (trans. Sam Taylor, Faber, 2018).