Special guest Nicola Whyte, debut writer of 10 Marchfield Square, reveals how writing for herself led to a breakthrough…
TRANSCRIPT:
MARK: What’s the best happy accident of your writing career?
NICOLA: Well, it might have been that Times Chicken House one. Subbing that in at the last minute… But actually, it kind of turned me off writing for children for a bit because the subbing after that was brutal. And so I thought, I’m just, you know what: I’m done. I’m done trying to please people and do whatever… So I’m just going to write whatever makes me happy. And of course, that was Marchfield, so…
MARK: You said earlier about writing for yourself and writing super long books or whatever, but I think that’s the key to it, though, isn’t it? You’ve got to write… You can’t chase the market. You’ve got to write what you love, and what you’re passionate about. And when those stars aligned in terms of; the market’s ready for it, then great things will happen. So, I think that’s the lesson to be learned from that. And writing for kids… I’ve tried it. It’s the hardest thing ever. It really is such a such a difficult market.
I was honoured to be asked to be a judge on this wonderful short story competition. There’s no entry fee and there’s a generous and warm spirit behind all this. Discover more here…
I’ve been at a comic con pretty much every weekend this year, and here are some of the weird and wonderful things that people have said to me as they peruse my wares…
Special guest Nicola Whyte, debut writer of 10 Marchfield Square, reveals how to look up murdering people online without drawing the attention of the authorities (and Mark has a book recommendation)…
TRANSCRIPT
MARK: As a crime writer, do you get why people will see your internet search history and incriminate yourself? Well, this I mean, I think any writer will, will worry about this. So what was the strangest thing you’ve had to look up?
NICOLA: I mean, every now and again, I will suffix it with ‘for a crime novel’ on the end, just in case. Like that gets me out of jail free. I don’t know what is the most incriminating…? I think, probably, undetectable poisons these days. I think it’s quite hard now to come up with an undetectable poison.
MARK: I bought a book called Deadly Doses, which is a really good book on poisons, so I don’t have to look it up anymore. You remember books, don’t you?
NICOLA: Yeah, offline; innocence is what you’re saying.
MARK: Yeah. Absolutely.
NICOLA: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I found some interesting stuff….
MARK: (Holds book up) Yes. A Writer’s guide to Poisons.
NICOLA: Yeah. Okay. I’m going to get that.
MARK: Essential reading.
NICOLA: I had to do some very dodgy case study reading on antifreeze poisoning.
MARK: Right?
NICOLA: The Americans, they poison each other countries a lot. You know, I think they have a lot of, like, deserts and things that are very brightly coloured and sweet. And, yeah, there’s a lot of people trying it almost — almost ! — not quite getting away with antifreeze poisoning.
My special guest on the Creative Differences podcast, Nicola Whyte, debut writer of 10 Marchfield Square, reveals that her biggest mistake may have been querying too much…
TRANSCRIPT
MARK: What’s the biggest mistake you’ve ever made in your writing career?
NICOLA: Probably querying too much… like, querying a book too much. When I knew the market wasn’t ready. But I kept querying because I was so sure that somebody would see the potential. And then, of course, what happens is the market shifts and everybody’s already seen it, and you can’t send it out again. So I think that definitely that happened to me with a cosy crime novel I wrote in 2019, and everybody was going ‘Cosy? No, we don’t… nobody publishes this. It’s got to be really dark. That’s what we like dark, dark, dark, dark. And I’d sent it to everybody and got the same (response): I really enjoyed this. I love the pitch. I love the title. But, no, we don’t publish this at all. Ooh, Richard Osman? Hello! And I had literally sent it to everyone, so it’s currently in a drawer awaiting its time.
MARK: Maybe it will have its time at some point. I still think your biggest mistake was not finishing the robot silent witness book, you know?
NICOLA: Oh, you’re gonna love it, Mark.
MARK: I am first in line. First in line for that one.
I’ll be selling and signing m’books in Basildon this Sunday 29th June, so if you’re in the area do please pop by to say hello! The event runs from 10 till 4 and is in the Basildon Sporting Village, which I’ve not been to before, but I’m imagining lots of people in tennis whites jogging about while sipping something healthy and green.
I had a great time at last year’s Steampunk Day and I’m delighted to be returning this year! Although my books aren’t overtly steampunk (though the End of Magic trilogy gets more steampunky in books 2 and 3: airships, steam power, industry etc) I find that the steampunk community is polite, cheerful, immaculately-dressed and wonderfully open to trying new fiction.
There’s plenty to do on the day — lots of stalls, good food and music — and you get to hop on a steam train and blast through the English countryside! Treat yourself…
MARK: What small thing has made a big difference to your creative process?
NICOLA: I think planning the middle, really. Because I used to plan the end and then, you know, your characters do their decisions, and then it would be like, hey, guess what? This 90,000 word novel is 130,000 words. And now I’m like; if I know the middle, it is much easier to stay on track. I think that’s probably the biggest change for me. I think in terms of, yeah, stopping me from going absolutely bananas. But also like a piece of information like… we talk about the German market: I was in a, a workshop with Imogen Cooper, and she said that if you translate a book into German, it adds almost a third onto the length of the book. When you consider translation costs, and paper costs, and ink costs and all the rest of it, it was like, whoa. Because up to that point I was like, it’s not that big a deal to cut some words, but actually, you realise in terms of making it appealing… So those two things together really focus me on not overwriting, not just enjoying myself forever and meandering off down wherever, and just keep me focused.
MARK: So yeah, yeah, I see that’s a very good point. The German editions of my books are quite chunky, but I just thought it was because they were a slightly smaller format. But that makes complete sense now. And when you when you talk about planning the middle… because for many people this is one of the most difficult parts, because the opening is all fun and games, the middle act is where you need to escalate and things have lots of consequences and sooner or later you have to tie these things up. How are you planning that middle?
NICOLA: So it’s that big shift. What’s the big change that is going to happen? That gear change. So when I’ve decided like what’s the big turning point, where everything sort of goes up a gear, once I know what that is, then it keeps me on track. And it means that my characters are never… You know, it’s like keeping the target in sight so they can’t veer off too much. You know, if you do what the characters want you to do, you will end up so far away from where you need to be. And editing for word count is probably one of the most painful versions of editing. When you’re trying to shave off 40,000 words and you’re going, ‘I can’t possibly!’ but you have to. Learning the hard way is also a very big motivator.
I had a wonderful time chatting to Nicola Whyte the debut writer of 10 Marchfield Square about how she was inspired by the nooks of London and Douglas Adams’s whodunnits. We also discuss planning the middle of a novel, “soft boiled crime”, designing author websites, and we get nostalgic about the Ottakars book chain and much, much more!
I’ll be selling and signing m’books at the Portsmouth Comic Con this Sunday 22nd June at the Mountbatten Centre from 10-4. I used to visit Portsmouth every month when I was a sales rep for Headline Book and I’ll be interested to see if they still have two rusty old submarines leaning on each other in the harbour!
Anyway, if you’re in the area and fancy a fun day, then come along. It’ll be great to see you!
Mark Stay Writes 