Tag: Freya Berry

Towards the end of my interview with Freya Berry, author of The Dictator’s Wife and The Birdcage Library, I do my usual thing of asking what’s coming next. Her reply was to say that while developing ideas for her third book it occurred to that it might be the most challenging one of all. An author’s first book is about simply seeing if you can get to the end, which is a huge achievement. The second book is to prove that the first one wasn’t a fluke, and so with the third book she is “trying to be ambitious” as she develops her ideas. And she’s right to think that. It’s hard enough to get one book published, but few authors get beyond three books, particularly in when working in traditional publishing, and those that sustain a career do so by continuing to surprise and delight their readers. Yes, there are authors who have great careers by seemingly writing the same book over and over (naming no names, but there are some very formulaic books out there), but as AI threatens the livelihoods of writers everywhere, I think that style of cookie cutter fiction won’t be enough to appeal to readers. A writers’ voice needs to develop and grow over time and a reader will join them on that journey. In the podcast I give the example of Terry Pratchett, whose Discworld books started as brilliant and funny parodies of the fantasy genre, but as the series continued his themes and characters deepened and became their own thing the parody elements fell by the wayside. His voice is what we kept coming back for and AI might try to parody that, but it will never truly have a voice of its down.