How to write a novel
...and other brilliant advice from Holly Bourne.
It might just be one of best pieces of advice I have read on the subject.
Holly Bourne is one of those writers who are fundamentally Really Great. She writes terrific YA fiction, inspired by her years working with young people. She’s an advocate for women’s rights and de-stigmatising mental health. Her novels for adults are excellent and always on point (I still think about How Do You Like Me Now). Her new book So Thrilled For You skewers - with PTSD-inducing accuracy for those who have been through it - the maelstrom of new motherhood, and the way it stretches and changes the bonds of friendship between women. (Do you have a baby? When is the right time? Do you actually want to be a mother? What if you’re desperate to be a mother and it’s not happening?) There’s also a whodunnit - I love a whodunnit - and the baby shower from hell. What’s not to like? It’s what they call a conversation starter.
I’m going to be chatting to Holly on 22nd January in Winchester, thanks to the kind invitation of my local bookshop P&G Wells (which is the most incredible bookshop. It’s been around for 300-odd year and is as packed with charm and character as it is books. They even have a reading light - as in a lamp which is reading - he reminds me of Wall-E. I promise this is true.) They have given me two tickets and a copy of So Thrilled For You to give away: to enter - head here. Or you can purchase tickets ye olde fashioned way here.
For a taste of the goods, here’s Holly. She is so perceptive and honest about so many things - writing (she’s a killer of darlings!), mental health, women’s relationships, writing YA versus novels for adults, reading and why it matters - it makes me itch to ask her more….
Please sum up So Thrilled For You in one sentence?
It’s an arson whodunnit set at the world’s worst baby shower, exploring how motherhood impacts female friendships.
What was the genesis of the idea - and what came first: the female friendship/motherhood or the mystery?
I saw a news story about a gender reveal party where a firework started a giant forest fire, and I remember thinking it was just such a great metaphor for so many elements of modern motherhood. Then, when I became a mother myself, in the long, dark, nights feeding my baby, the idea of the baby shower arson came to me and I knew immediately who started the fire and why. I’ve built my career writing about female friendship, and, whilst writing, it struck me that it’s such a vulnerable time for women and their relationships with other women – and thus the other suspects started arriving in my head, with all their motives to burn down a baby shower.
What - if anything differentiates writing for the YA market versus adult fiction? Obviously, some things hold true (plot, characters - all the minor things: ha!) but what are the differences?
Adult readers are a bit more forgiving of unlikeable female characters (although not as forgiving as you think) so you have more creativity in exploring moral ambiguity. I also take the safeguarding of my young readers extremely seriously, so I’m super aware of what’s on page and off page in my YA, whereas I trust adult readers to put down a book that might be upsetting them. And, from a publishing point of view, adult fiction is definitely more slick – you can drink wine at events and have nice dinners afterwards, and get reviewed in the press, whereas teen fiction is joyously wholesome. You spend a lot of time in school libraries, balancing a jacket potato from the canteen on your knees, chatting to teenagers who have imprinted on your book and made fan art about it.
To read the rest - including Holly’s own rules for writing and advice for would-be writers (you, too?) - and for access to the full archive, every single post (free subs get two a month - you get them ALL), upgrade to a paid subscription. It’s still a bargain at £5 a month - which is less than one of the boba teas with which my teen is obsessed. (I find this fascination curious: they are overly sweet and filled with gelatinous bubbles which pop in your mouth. Bizarre.)