Sanjida Kay's Blog, page 10

First Lines

Did you know that many publishers won’t read past the first few lines of your manuscript? Harsh but true. Agents may read a page or two. And let’s be honest, if you’re browsing in a bookshop, what makes you pick up a book, and then buy it? For me, and I suspect most other people, what propels me into purchasing a book is if a) I have read and liked the author’s other books; b) someone I respect has recommended it to me; c) the cover looks good (this is 70% of the reason why books get picked up); d) the blurb sounds interesting and intriguing and then e) when I read the first few lines, I know almost instantly whether this book will be for me.

Obviously, there are a whole host of other reasons at play that you may or may not be consciously aware of: for instance, has the publisher been promoting this book (if so, you may have already seen subliminal images and read endorsements by famous authors); has the publisher paid the bookseller to place this particular book on a prominent table or are they paying a supermarket to stock it in prime position; does the author have a name that allows them to be shelved in a good location (and not the bottom shelf at the back of the store)?

 

 

In the past, when there was less competition, authors didn’t have to nail their audience in the first two or three sentences and could ease into the story and begin with things like the weather (apparently some agents will chuck your work straight into the slush pile if you start like that now!). However, many classics are notable for their fantastic, and now famous opening lines:

The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as on Christmas Eve in an old house a strange tale should essentially be.

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like… and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.

Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

All of which is quite daunting when one is writing a novel! It’s actually pretty daunting whatever one is writing, and you’re facing a blank computer screen or piece of paper. My solution is not to start at the beginning (and my suggestion to any students and aspiring writers!). I generally have an idea about what should go in the first chapter or the prologue, but to stop myself having jitters, procrastinating or becoming overly angsty, I don’t start there.

 

 

My third thriller, My Mother’s Secret, will be out in two months, on 3 May. I started writing it in October 2016 and I finished the first draft in March 2017, which is when I wrote the prologue. Here’s my first line, written last:

‘Did you know my name means God?’

A year on, and I’ve just completed the first draft of my fourth thriller and this time, I did start at the beginning. I heard the central character’s voice speaking in my head and I wrote down those first two lines straight away:

As far as I know it happened like this. Obviously, I wasn’t there when it mattered.

Let me know what you think! Do you begin at the beginning?

 

 

My Mother’s Secret Coming Soon!

I’m delighted to share with you the cover of my next thriller, My Mother’s Secret. It’s out on 3 May and is now available to pre-order.

 

 

 

Here’s what it’s about:

 

YOU CAN ONLY HIDE FOR SO LONG…

 

Lizzie Bradshaw. A student from the Lake District, forced to work away from home, who witnesses a terrible crime. But who will ultimately pay the price?

 

Emma Taylor. A mother, a wife, and a woman with a dangerous secret. Can she keep her beloved family safely together?

 

Stella Taylor. A disaffected teenager, determined to discover what her mother is hiding. But how far will she go to uncover the truth?

 

And one man, powerful, manipulative and cunning, who controls all their destinies.

 

I’ll be uploading a Q&A with me about the book, what inspired me, the process of writing it, as well as some short video clips, and some of the behind-the-scenes photos on my Pinterest board, so do check back. We’ll also be running a couple of competitions to win copies, and there will be a launch party on 11 May, invitations to follow!

 

 

 

 

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How to create the perfect villain!

Today is World Book Day! To celebrate I’m going to talk to the children in Year 3 at Sefton Park School, in Bristol, about villains! Seems like a suitable topic for seven year olds! Actually, though, it’s a pretty critical topic for any writer.

So why do you need a villain? Well, without a baddie, basically, your story lacks drama. There will be no uncertainty, excitement or tension. An antagonist can provide conflict, which will help create this drama. The antagonist will also elevate your protagonist, the central character in your story, by stretching him or her because they’ll need to grow, change, and summon deep inner resources to defeat the villain – as long as your baddie is a worthy opponent.

However, an antagonist need not be a person: if you’re writing a supernatural or  horror story then your villain could be a creature or a ghost or a wizard. But in other genres, your villain could be a force, a concept, a trait or a psychological state. For instance, in 1984 the antagonist is ‘the Party’, the human (or inhuman) face of ‘Big Brother’. In spy thrillers, there is often a conspiracy or a government cover up; in LA Confidential, the hero is battling his own alcoholism; in Sense of an Ending, the opponent, seems to be Vanessa, but it’s actually the anti-hero, Tony’s, own character flaws; in Solar it’s global warming.

My two tips on creating a decent villain are first, have empathy. Get inside your baddie’s head. Almost no one thinks they’re doing the wrong thing or that they’re immoral – everyone can justify their actions.

And secondly, the villain isn’t always who you think it is. Check out my thrillers – in all three, Bone by Bone, The Stolen Child and My Mother’s Secret – the bad guy isn’t who you think it is.

For more on villains and for some writing exercises, please sign up to the Arvon Foundation’s newsletter and look for my writing tips on Antagonistic Antagonists.

 

How do I write?

 

Well, I start the day with a large black coffee and some dark chocolate!

Writing a novel feels like being an ultra marathon runner. It’s going to be a gruelling slog to reach 80 – 100,000 words and I will be unable to pause, to breathe properly, to take in the view until then; I know I’ll have to keep going, unsure if I’m going to make it, or make it in time. And then, when I cross the finish line, I’ll be doubled over, sucking in air, celebrating how far I’ve come, before, – quick breath – I’ll start the first full read through, and the edits.

So I begin my writing day by reading through what I wrote the day before, and I end my day by making notes on what I’m going to write, so I don’t waste time trying to get in the zone.

I write a book a year – for the thriller that’s just about to come out, My Mother’s Secret, that meant 2,500 words a day, for three days a week during school hours. If I didn’t hit my word count, the walk to school to pick up my daughter would be filled with figures – I’d calculate that tomorrow, I’d need to write 3,500 words, and if I didn’t hit that word count, the day after would be… tricky!

Before I begin a novel, I spend a couple of months plotting my novel, scene by scene, until I have an outline of between 6 and 10,000 words. Even if some scenes are pretty sketchy – Scene 52: Stella and Adam getting closer.

And I’m going to come back to this and talk more about plot in the future…

The full answer to this question has been recorded by the Royal Literary Fund and will be available shortly. In the meantime, I’ve recorded other podcasts for the RLF, and there are many, many wonderful writers you might like to listen to via iTunes or their website.

 

What’s your writing process like?

 

Why do I write?

 

 

The short answer, is because I have to! I’d write if I was shut in an attic at the top of a dark castle –  but I also want to be read. I don’t just write for myself. I want someone out there to read what I’ve written, to see what I’ve seen in my mind, to experience what I felt, to be immersed in another world and other lives…

F Scott Fitzgerald wrote,

‘You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.’

I believe I have something to say. And I want to share it.

Stephen King said,

‘Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends.’

But actually I do want all those things! More than anything else though, I agree with him when he wrote,

‘[Writing is] about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting happy.’

And in the end, that’s true. I write to make myself happy.

 

The full answer to this question has been recorded by the Royal Literary Fund and will be available shortly. In the meantime, I’ve recorded other podcasts for the RLF, and there are many, many wonderful writers you might like to listen to via iTunes or their website.

 

Why do you write? Or if you don’t, why not?!

How adoption can be a force for good

‘Shall I tell you the story of you?’ I say, hugging my knees to my chest and wishing my daughter would let me cuddle her.

She nods, barely perceptibly.

‘A long time ago, before you were even a twinkle in anybody’s eye, your daddy and I really, really wanted a baby girl. We tried and tried to have a baby but we just couldn’t.’

The more I tell this tale, like a fairy story instead of an offering from the Brothers Grimm, the easier it gets.

‘Then we met a kind young woman who was pregnant with a baby girl and she said we could have her baby because we didn’t have one of our own. And so we waited and waited, and you grew bigger and bigger inside her and, one day, we got a phone call to say that you were ready to come out. So we rushed to the hospital—’

This is Zoe, the mother in my thriller, THE STOLEN CHILD, telling her adopted daughter, Evie, where she came from.

Adoption throws up so many difficult and complex issues: the child may experience a sense of loss, and a confusion about who they are and how they fit into their new family. The may feel a dislocation between their own identity and the adopted family’s culture, class and race. But adoption can be  positive – about giving hope and love to a child.

‘Evie is our beautiful, dark-haired, green-eyed child,’ I say. I can hear the tremor in my voice. ‘Like many seven-year-old girls, she’s obsessed with princesses. We think she looks more like a fairy. She loves Lego and painting…Please find her. Please bring her back to us. We miss her beyond measure. She is the love of our life.’

These Ted talks on adoption have been collated by the charity Adopt Together.

But what really inspired and moved me was this Ted talk by Christopher Ategeka, who was originally from Uganda. His parents died when he was young and he grew up in excruciating poverty, before he was put in an orphanage and eventually adopted by an American family. He says,

‘These strangers showed me true love. These strangers showed me that I mattered, that my dreams mattered.’

He went on to get two degrees in engineering. As he says, ‘Talent is universal, but opportunity isn’t.’

He ends his talk with words that I hope will resonate with all of us:

‘We may not be able to solve the bigotry and the racism of this world today, but certainly we can raise children to create a positive, inclusive, connected world full of empathy, love and compassion.’

 

Adoption Stories

 

I think about the story I always tell her – of the kind lady who gave her to us. I suppose that must be how she imagines her father – as a kind man who gave her away too, as if she were a gift. Only now he wants her back.

Evie, the little girl in my thriller, The Stolen Child, was adopted at birth. At seven years old, she suddenly realises that she looks different from the rest of her family and starts questioning what it means to be adopted. In the UK, around 3,000 children are adopted each year, but the number adopted at birth is low (around 60) and the number in care is much higher.

The Stolen Child is about whether nurture or nature is more important, and what adoption means for a child’s sense of self, their identity, their place in the world and how much they believe they are loved.

The Adoption, a Radio 4 podcast, charts the real life story of two children taken into care. There are no dramatic twists and turns, just everyday heartbreak in what is, sadly, not a unique tale.

 

Do let me know if you have a story you’d like to share about adoption.

 

 

Children in Crime Fiction

I’m heading up to Granite noir, a crime fiction festival in Aberdeen in one month. I’m going to be talking about children caught up in crime fiction with two incredible psychological thriller writers, Mel McGrath, author of Give Me the Child, and Colette McBeth, who’ll be talking about An Act of Silence.

All of our books feature a mother as the central character and their child, who is in peril. There is nothing our characters would not do to protect their child – although in Mel and Colette’s stories, the situation is more complex. Linda, the protagonist in An Act of Silence, has an adult son whom she has never truly trusted: will she believe him now, when he’s been accused of murder?

As for me, my character, Zoe, in The Stolen Child, would go to the ends of the earth for her daughter, Evie – if she knew where to find her. Arguably, Zoe inadvertently put her daughter in danger by falling for another man, an artist called Haris, who is darkly fascinating. This goes to the heart of what it takes to be a good mother: you obviously need to love and care for your child or children, but to do so well, you need to be happy too.

Where do we draw the line between our needs and those of our family?

 

 

Book recommendations to beat the January Blues

 

Struggling with winter blues and dry January? Me too. I’ve got some book recommendations: curl up on the sofa, wrap yourself in a cosy blanket and read one of these with a hot mug of chai. Happy 2018 and here’s to more reading!

And if you like the sound of these, do sign up to my Book Club for more suggestions and advanced news about my forthcoming thriller.

 

 The Dry by Jane Harper

Flies swarmed as the blood pooled black over tiles and carpet. A child’s scooter lay abandoned on the stepping stone path. Just one human heart beat within a kilometre radius of the farm.

Policeman Aaron Falk returns to his hometown of Kiewarra for the funeral of his best friend. Luke Hadler is thought to have committed suicide after murdering his wife and six-year-old son. Australia is in the grip of the worst drought for a century and the town is like a powder keg: it hasn’t rained for two years and tensions are running high. Aaron Falk is unwillingly drawn into the investigation, but Falk may not be as innocent as he looks, for he and Luke share a twenty-year old secret. You can feel the crackle of the heat from the pages in this blisteringly well-told tale.

 

The Girls by Emma Cline

I looked up because of the laughter, and kept looking because of the girls.

It’s 1969, California. Evie Boyd, the daughter of a wealthy woman going through a turgid divorce, is fourteen, sad, lonely and unloved. When Evie sees the girls in the park and, at their centre, Suzanne, black-haired and beautiful, she’s drawn to them, desperate for affection. She follows them back to the decaying ranch and their cult, led by the charismatic and amoral Russell. The consequences will be savage and haunt Evie for the rest of her life. The prose is achingly poetic; The Girls is based on the serial killer, Charles Manson; at its heart it’s about young women’s desire for love and acceptance and how the response can often be casual and cruel abuse from men.

(Thanks to my sister, Sheila Fox, for recommending this one).

Behind her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough

The past is as ephemeral as the future – it’s all perspective and smoke and mirrors. You can’t pin it down, can you?… The truth is different to different people

Louise is a single mother and a secretary at an upmarket clinic for drug addicts. On a night out she meets and falls for David – who turns out to be her new boss. Life becomes even more complicated when she is befriended by his beautiful, but seemingly fragile wife, Adele. This is a story told by two potentially unreliable narrators, Adele and Louise, and at face value, is about the secrets husbands and wives keep from each other… Although it’s relatively slow-paced, I enjoyed the glimpse into a life far more opulent than my own, and one (with too much wine and too little sleep) closer to mine. There is a double plot turn at the end: one is reasonably easy to guess by the time you get there; the other is a humdinger, knock-your-socks-off twist.  If you listen to it, as I did, it’s brilliantly narrated by Anna Bentinck, Josie Dunn, Bea Holland and Huw Parmenter.

Competition to win a copy of My Mother’s Secret

 

I’m giving away a super advanced copy of my next thriller, My Mother’s Secret! To enter the competition, please take a photo of my last thriller, The Stolen Child. The best photo wins the prize!

Please post on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter and tag me so I can see your photo. Any edition of The Stolen Child is good! The competition ends on 4 February.

Good luck!