Property as Protagonists with Louise Candlish

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All right, Doug, what's the first book that made you cry?
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Oh, shoot.
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Um, I do not know.
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Mine was the dictionary.
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My dad hit me with it.
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Oh my gosh.
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Welcome to the Two Orphers podcast, an entertaining chat show
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hosted by bestselling mystery and thriller authors Douglas Pratt
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and Nicholas Harvey in lively, humorous and informative conversation with distinguished
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guests who share their thoughts and experience about forging a successful author career.
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Hello.
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Hello.
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To the two authors podcast with myself, Nicholas Charles Harvey and Douglas Peterson Franklin
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Bobby Joe Pratt.
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I'm Joe.
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I don't know.
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I feel like I'm Taliban nights now.
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Yeah.
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What are your middle names?
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I don't know this.
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My middle name is Douglas.
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Oh, that's right.
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It is.
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My first name is Jeffrey.
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So that's right.
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Jeffrey Douglas.
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I always forget that.
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Yeah.
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He's coming about a bank account one time.
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Your middle name is Charles?
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It is.
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Chuck.
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I didn't know that either.
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Look at that.
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Yeah.
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40 years of doing this.
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Then we just learned something.
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We are so great about interviewing other people, but we don't even know each other
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- Yeah, no.
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- Big thank you to our supporters of Vellum.
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Thank you so much for supporting the show.
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- You know what Vellum's middle name is?
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(laughing)
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- It's Vellum Vellum.
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- Fantabulous.
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- That's true.
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- Fantabulous.
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- Vellum, fabulous Vellum.
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Many people now are writing in Vellum.
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- Absolutely, yeah.
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- Absolutely, right in Vellum.
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And when you think about it,
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why not?
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- Right, something.
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- Got the spell checker in there, right?
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It exports to Word, so you just export it into Word
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and send it off to the editor and then import it back in again.
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So it's actually a really good writing tool for building a manuscript in.
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And then it's one less place you're housing them along the way.
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I do one, two, three.
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I have three places my manuscripts actually, location, software they go through.
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So scrivna, word, and then vellum.
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So it cuts out one of them.
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And then EPUB, if you, once you transfer it over, then you've got it in EPUB too.
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So you've got that in a PDF, you're going to have it all over the place.
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Lots of things to do, but no, that's pretty awesome.
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Yeah, I would like to I wouldn't mind writing in William.
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I just I don't have a Mac laptop.
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So I don't have it on my laptop.
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I have it on my desktop.
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So yeah, I could it's it's yeah, it just doesn't have some of the stuff that Scrivener has.
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Although Scrivener is clunky as hell to use to be honest.
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I can be honest with you.
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I can't room.
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I don't even know half the time I'm like, I don't know how to fix this in Scrivener.
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And I have to do a massive search or ask somebody who's a Scrivener genius.
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And I don't know that many square root pieces.
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It's a cool tool, but it's a wee bit clunky.
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And there goes their sponsorship of the show.
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[LAUGHTER]
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We both use them.
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I'm not knocking them.
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I love square root.
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I think it's great.
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Sometimes I'm like, I don't understand
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why I have to do it this way.
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It's got so many features.
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There we go.
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Big thank you to our Patreon supporters.
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Thank you so much, guys.
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We're accumulating a huge bank of cool extra stuff in there.
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Every year, I guess we have on the show,
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So it does an extra question that we drop in the Patreon there.
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So if you want to get on the building and be part of that, it's a very small subscription.
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It's $3 a month.
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That's it.
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$3 a month.
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Not a show a month.
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That's it, people, and you get plenty of extra stuff.
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So it's good fun.
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Go over there.
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Check it out at Patreon.com.
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Our guest today is the marvelous Louise Gantlisch, who's a huge bass seller over in the UK.
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She's a major force here in the US as well.
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She has several books up and made into TV shows back in the UK.
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And we're looking forward to chatting with her.
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But first, we have a listening question from our recent guest, JT Ellison.
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Welcome again, JT Ellison.
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Thanks for coming back and just asking us our listener question this week.
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It's been great.
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Well, I'm not going to ask you where you get your ideas.
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Okay.
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I'm going to ask you.
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Most of the time, they come off of bathroom walls.
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So, sister.
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1-900, call Doug.
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(laughing)
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- I get mine from a sub-stack called the creative edge.
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- No, excellent, well done.
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So my question is, if you could only read one book
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for the rest of your life, what would it be?
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- Oh, shit.
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Oh, that's a really good question.
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- Oh, wow.
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- That's a good question right there.
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Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
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- Oh, now that's an excellent book.
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That made me cry.
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That's like the first book I think that ever made me cry.
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- Ah, I'm gonna go with the Mark Twain
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and probably pick Huckleberry Finn,
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but 'cause it's got a little bit of good moments
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and not all down, not all up,
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but that's a good question 'cause I'm not sure.
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There's a lot.
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I was like, I ran through a whole list.
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I'm like, yeah, I don't know if I'm gonna read
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that more than four times, so.
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- Yeah, yeah.
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Okay, JT, what do you got?
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What's yours?
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- Fourth wing.
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I'm gonna just wanna escape.
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I want to, if I'm stuck reading something over and over again, I want, I want a big set piece,
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which that has, it has a good romance, it has a good lesson, it's got a bunch of reversals
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in it and love and death and all kinds of stuff.
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I'm a huge Romantic fan right now.
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It's really fun.
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Oh, cool, cool, cool, cool.
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All right, Doug, what's the first book that made you cry?
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Oh, shoot.
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I do not know.
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Mine was the dictionary.
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My dad hit me with it.
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(laughing)
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- Oh my gosh.
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- Wow, we teed that one up.
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- You did, you did.
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That was nice.
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- I ain't scared to swing if you're gonna tear that.
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All right, JT, thank you very much.
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I'm sure you're regretting it at this point,
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but thank you very much for coming back
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with a list of the question, we appreciate it.
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- Oh, no, this has been great.
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Louise, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us. How are you?
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I'm really well. Thank you. It's a bit sticky in South London where I am right
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now, but otherwise good.
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Define sticky.
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Yeah.
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We should get you over here in 10c.
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I live in the tropics, so give us your sticky ocean.
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Okay. Sticky is when you don't have aircon.
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Yeah.
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That's all I need to say. There's no aircon in London or very little and
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Definitely not in houses. So, you know, you're just walking around all sweaty. So it's really horrible
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But actually the temperature, you know, the outside temperatures probably, you know, you guys would would snare it
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It's near it such a low a low number, but for us, it's terrible
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That's what people don't kind of get about the UK and we were over at a conference in London a couple of months ago
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And then we were there between the two big heat waves
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I was there in the heat
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Yeah, I stayed and everybody was like miserable for that little bit or like I mean they were like oh, it's so hot
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Yeah
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Definitely about the air con. I think that you know
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It's absolutely fine if you know you can escape it
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But it's when there's no escape at night and you can't sleep but you know, it's it's you know, it's not too bad
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It's that we're coming out of it now. I think do they not have window units in the UK
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I'll say, "Man, we need to, oh, we should be starting shipping those over there, Nick.
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We can make a fortune."
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Yeah, yeah, definitely.
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No, there's none of that.
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Bizarrely, some of the train lines and buses, you will get some nice cool air, but not so
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much in buildings.
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Yeah, those portable AC units are brilliant, where you just run the duct to the window.
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They work really well.
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So if you find any of those over there, that would be the thing to start importing that
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dog.
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Oh, that's a good tip.
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Yeah, thank you, because I think this is going to happen again.
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I don't think this is going to be the last hot summer.
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Yeah.
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It's going to keep getting hotter, unfortunately, the way we're going.
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So yeah, it's just great.
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Candlesh Industries will go like holistic, make millions,
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importing portable aircon into.
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Hey, that is not that hard.
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I mean, don't joke.
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This time next year, there'll be no book to discuss.
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There'll be a billion dollar business.
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And in fact, at this point, we'll just thank you for coming on the show
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and talking about English weather, which is what we'll do.
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And that was it, folks.
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All right, everybody tune out right there.
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It's perfect.
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We wouldn't be English if we didn't talk about the weather.
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All right, let's talk about some books, Louise.
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So give us a little bit of background
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on how you got started in writing
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and when you were first published.
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- Well, I was first published.
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I was in my early 30s and I had just gone traveling.
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I'd taken a sabbatical.
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I was a copywriter and advertising copywriter
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and needed a break.
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So I took a couple of months off and went to Sicily.
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And no sooner had I been on my own for, you know,
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day or two than, you know, I was bored because I was just so used to working. So I started
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writing a novel and I wrote a kind of, you know, very slim first draft in the couple
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of months that I was away, set in Sicily. So it was very inspired by the traveling
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odyssey that I was on. And when I came back, I typed it up, I made it a bit longer and
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then I sent it to Agents and that was published, that book, that was my first book. So it was,
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It couldn't have been easier.
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I was going to say, that's like it.
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It's not the usual.
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That's what you'll find.
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I know.
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Just look around, feel inspired.
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But I will say though that when it came out, it was, you know,
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a baptism of fire because the editor who had acquired the book
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and, you know, had this fairy tale start,
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she was fired a couple of weeks after she made the acquisition.
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And, you know, I wouldn't say that the team were quite so enthused about it and it bombed
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and it was quite upsetting.
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And then when that book deal ended, they didn't want to renew it.
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So it kind of, it's, it's felt like it started like a dream.
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But quite quickly, you know, I was back down to earth with a bump.
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And, you know, since then I've had such a roller coaster of a career that, you know,
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I'm actually quite grateful for that start because it made me realize that you just cannot
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believe the dream.
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You are only as good as your last book and your last sales figures and your last reviews
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and you just cannot be believing your own publicity.
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There is no sitting back on your laurels after you.
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No.
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You've got to keep working.
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Yeah, I mean it's disappointing because I would have loved to be resting on my laurels
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by now.
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That would be nice.
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It would be fabulous.
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I think I'd be really good at resting on my laurels as well.
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I think resting on my laurels is what I was called to do.
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I think that was like, you know, God put me in this sort of feeling.
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I think I'm just gonna let him rest on his laurels.
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- Absolutely. - He just didn't give me enough
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laurels to really rest on, so that was part of my problem.
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- I can't find my laurels. - We need it on our gravestones.
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- You can't find your laurels?
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- Yeah, who stole my laurels?
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I have no laurels.
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- That's the problem for all of us.
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Where are the laurels?
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- Where are the laurels?
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- That's a t-shirt.
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Every show we come up with a new t-shirt.
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- No, we gotta... - All right, all right.
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So, a neighbor's guide to murder is your new release,
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which is not a new release in the UK.
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about a year ago to great success. But it is a new release in the US, just came out in July,
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I believe. So first of all, why the long gap? They have to translate it. They have to translate it.
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Oh, they have to translate it. Yeah, that long Americanization process.
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Take all the views out. It's not uncommon for me, actually, and I think a lot of writers,
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if you don't have an established relationship with an American publisher, then you're likely
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to have a staggered publication. So I think we were still submitting the book to US publishers
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when, I'm trying to remember the timeline actually because you know there've been so many books and
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so many publishers but I think we were still submitting it when the book was already edited
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and finished and about to come out in the UK. So inevitably there was going to be at least a year's
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lag and you know I was really pleased to get a new publisher in Grand Central and we did a new
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edit actually. And what I'm learning with my books is because they have quite a lot of social
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commentary, a little bit of politics in there. There's different sensibilities in the US. So,
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you know, a few, a few bits had to be cut. Actually, it was a really fantastic edit. My US
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edited a fantastic editor. I was really pleased with it. So yeah, by the time it comes out,
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it's a year later, it's quite weird to be talking about a book for so long. I think that's the main
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thing because in that time I have done all sorts of other different projects.
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And so it's about kind of sustaining the enthusiasm really and just kind of keeping up to date
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with that original book.
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Because it's so, I mean I will forget characters names and I'll forget things.
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I would say does that mean forgetting things because I forget everything from my previous
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books.
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Yeah, no absolutely.
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I mean before doing something like this I will remind myself I'll do a little refresher
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update on what are the themes of this book.
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have people responded to? Because otherwise, my head is just filled with more recent projects.
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So that's the tricky thing. I think keeping it current in your own creative space.
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Right. Interesting. So is there anything you do different for or you think about differently
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when it's launched to the UK audience versus the US audience? Do you feel like you have
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to present things in a slightly different way to the two audiences?
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Well, I think as I'm so much better known in the UK, there's a lot of shorthand.
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Readers already know me, I'll do events and people will already have read my books and
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be familiar with my work.
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But in the US, I'm not well known, so I need to go back to basics and say, "This is the
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type of book I'm writing.
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These are the ingredients you'll find in my books."
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There's lots of them to dip into, should you like this one.
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I didn't have a book published in the US until our house, which was, I think, my 12th book,
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if I'm right.
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And so, you know, it was celebrated as a debut, a very accomplished debut, funnily enough,
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having, you know, 11 books worth of experience behind me.
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I kind of knew what I was doing, finally.
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It's much more about not presuming any knowledge of my work, whereas I can make that sort of
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assumption here in the UK.
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So then for our listeners who are meeting your neighbor's guide to murder fresh, why don't
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you give us a little setup like what pulls wind into her neighbor's lies and where does
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it start to go wrong?
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Absolutely.
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So it's domestic suspense and I'm known as a sort of queen of suburban noir here in the
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UK and generally there will be a beautiful property involved or you know an extremely
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powerful sort of domestic setting.
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So in this book there is a lovely building called Columbia Mansions, a mansion block
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of apartments.
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And our narrator Gwen lives in one of them and she lives alone or she has been living
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alone.
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She's 70 years old so she's an unusually older narrator for me.
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I'm normally dealing with middle-aged, middle-class people.
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And she develops this very unlikely age gap friendship with the lodger to her neighbour.
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And so this young lady's called Pixie.
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in her 20s and they just hit it off as friends do and all should be well.
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That should be the end of the story but of course this is a thriller and we discovered
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that Gwen has all kinds of things in her past, regrets, secrets, traumas that lead her to behave
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with Pixie in an unusual way and pretty soon she gets involved in Pixie's relationship with her
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Landlord Alec. Let's just say she sort of overreaches and before you know it a scandal has erupted in the building and then as the
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title suggests a murder takes place.
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It's well titled and themed on a
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You know the only what it's the only murders in the building. Yes. Yes. I've never actually seen that show
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But I was brilliant. Yeah, is it?
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Yeah, it seems like there are parallels. I mean, my books are quite dark, I would say.
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You know, there is humor, but they're fairly bleak sometimes in theme. So, you know, the theme,
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one of the main themes in this book is the practice of sex for rent, which is, you know,
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a kind of not as well known as it should be. But, you know, in these days of rental crisis in
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capital cities and big cities and the shortage of properties, you know, that sometimes there's more
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more than money, changing hands for young people to get a roof over their head.
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So that was kind of my starting point.
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But, you know, there's all kinds of other stuff in the mix as well.
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And now a quick word from this episode's sponsor.
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00:16:57,790 --> 00:17:02,520
At what turns a good manuscript into a career defining bestseller, Elisa James sits down
354
00:17:02,600 --> 00:17:07,579
with her editor, Carrie Farron, a VP of gallery books, Simon and Schuster, at Author Nation
355
00:17:07,800 --> 00:17:11,780
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00:17:14,540 --> 00:17:15,560
Now we'll get back to the show.
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Okay, we'll come back to some of the crafty stuff that you touched on there in a bit.
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But let's talk about, you had, as you mentioned, Our House was what your 12th book, you had
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a whole run of books before that, but you were writing in a slightly different genre,
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right?
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There was a definite switch.
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So talk about that a little bit.
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They were relationship dramas, is that right to say?
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And I think it's the sudden departure of the phrases was maybe the first one that moved
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to the suspense?
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Yeah, or maybe, yeah, I mean, it's really, it's quite hard to talk about it because it
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wasn't deliberate.
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It wasn't a sort of conscious switching.
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If anything, it was a very gradual creep as darker elements started to find their way
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into my books.
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So I had a book, my fourth, was it my fourth book, possibly, or fifth book was called The
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Second Husband.
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And I would say that was pretty dark.
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And you know, I'm even talking about it now with TV people because it's very much in the
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sort of the mode of my more recent books that are being adapted. It's about a woman whose
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teenage daughter has a relationship with her new husband, so it's kind of got a
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lillita vibe, I suppose. And so I think those quite unsavory, dark elements have been there for
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much longer than people realise. But I think it was with a change of publisher, and I think,
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you know, listeners who are authors will recognise this, that sometimes it's when you change publisher
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that you are repositioned more formally in the market. And I think that's what happened
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with the sudden departure of the phrases. I had had books before that that were a bit
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darker. The Disappearance of Emily Ma, I would say, was one of them. But it wasn't
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till phrases that I think I was being positioned with reviewers and readers as someone who
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moved into the domestic noir sort of space. But from my point of view, I've never written
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consciously including any ingredients.
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I will always just write the story I want to write.
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And I've been really lucky that publishers have been
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quite flexible about that.
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It causes issues with branding and sort of getting
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a consistent brand look when one might be very hitch cocky
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and then the next one might be more like white lotus.
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But I do switch around a little bit and do what feels right
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for the story I want to tell.
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And interestingly, the US Publication of Neighbors Guide
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it's positioned it very much as something that could be a funny book. You know, it's
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got that kind of cartoony brand cover very much. I love. Yeah. And when you look at the
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00:19:48,580 --> 00:19:54,440
British cover and I've just received in the post today, the Dutch edition, it's very dark.
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00:19:54,850 --> 00:19:59,820
You know, the Dutch one's super dark, you know, it could be vertigo or psycho or something.
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00:19:59,940 --> 00:20:05,760
And then the British ones more generic property led. And then the American cover is, you know,
401
00:20:06,520 --> 00:20:11,240
going to have some giggles with this. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, so it's interesting.
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00:20:11,320 --> 00:20:17,560
The Dutch are kind of dark anyway. So, we're just over here just la la la.
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00:20:20,200 --> 00:20:24,800
Well, this is it. I mean, you know, the editors and the marketers, they know their market. So,
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00:20:24,850 --> 00:20:29,460
well, I would never, ever interfere with an overseas market, the British market,
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I obviously know quite well. But yeah, so it wasn't a conscious switch. But, you know,
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I found myself suddenly invited to crime events and festivals and I'm really pleased because
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before that I hadn't done any events.
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There wasn't really a community that I was a part of.
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And so for all kinds of reasons, it's not least sales.
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It's been really good for me to go over to the dark side.
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00:20:54,640 --> 00:20:58,820
I mean, obviously this repositioning, often people will talk about this genre change.
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00:20:58,890 --> 00:21:04,159
You might leave your existing readers behind, but did you lose any of your previous audience
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any of this repositioning that you went through in genres or do you think that now that you've added
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the crime events that might have actually brought in more? I think that I think I've brought quite a
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00:21:13,900 --> 00:21:19,660
few with me and interestingly you know on my social media I'll do a lot of you know on this day in
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00:21:20,220 --> 00:21:26,380
you know 2008 or 2013 and you know this was the book that came out to to introduce new readers
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to my backlist because you know one of the things I've found with having had quite a long career
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is that you're always being propelled forwards. You're always talking about your current book
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or your next book. It's always about the next deal, how we're going to improve and
420
00:21:43,620 --> 00:21:49,240
smash new targets next time. And you never, ever look back. And so this year, I've actually taken
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a year off writing a book. And I'm focusing on TV projects, but I'm also focusing on my backlist
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and just always trying to reflect on everything I've achieved and bring some of those older books
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to audiences. And you know, my big thing is that I just would never want anyone to be misled.
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So if I say to someone, there's a reissue or there's a ebook deal on my first book, I'll always
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give a little bit of background, but of context, don't expect a twist. Don't expect a murder. This
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is just a fun romp. You know, you could read it on your son, Lange by the pool. And so it's really
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just about repositioning some of those older books. I've enjoyed that process of kind of almost
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taking control of my own backlist. I think a lot of times people forget about those backlists.
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We have those books out there and you probably want to keep selling them to keep making money off
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of what you've already done. So I think that's an important thing to consider is how to handle
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and manage your backlist. I think so and you need time because we're also time poor. We're all
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expected to do so much to help promote the current release. And there isn't that much time, but
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done that and it's, you know, I would really recommend it to other authors. It's really
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satisfying to take, stop and think, hang on a minute, those books were really good. You
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know, no one is talking about them now. So why don't I? Because they're good reads.
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00:23:12,060 --> 00:23:17,480
As indie authors and we're series writers, it's the model. I mean, we're always promoting
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00:23:17,840 --> 00:23:22,780
Book One and the new release. And then the idea is you're pulling people into Book One
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and then they read through the series. That's how you, the only way we get to return on
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00:23:26,540 --> 00:23:29,340
investment is marketing book one and getting the read through.
440
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So it's the same for you.
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You're just, instead of selling a series, you're selling a brand, you're selling you,
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you're selling the type of stories that you write.
443
00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:37,580
Yeah, that's so interesting.
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I mean, I've always wondered about a series because it is such a risk and it's a risk
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for a traditional publisher to take one on because if you don't get that fantastic start
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and that engine going, then it's hard to then persuade people to buy book two, book three,
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book four.
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But yeah, but once you do get people hooked, then that's wonderful.
449
00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:04,540
So a lot of our listeners, fellow authors, were always weighing this idea of a genre
450
00:24:04,660 --> 00:24:04,840
switch.
451
00:24:05,040 --> 00:24:06,280
Maybe I should try this over here.
452
00:24:06,340 --> 00:24:07,480
Maybe I should move over there.
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00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:13,420
And Doug and I have both done it to a smaller extent to widen our audience.
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00:24:13,980 --> 00:24:19,520
Looking back now, it wasn't a conscious decision necessarily to switch to that darker vibe.
455
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But looking back now, what advice would you have for other authors in doing a genre switch?
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What do you think of things they should keep in mind?
457
00:24:27,220 --> 00:24:31,000
Well, I think you need to get advice from your agent and your publisher.
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Because to be pragmatic, you need to figure out whether your publisher is going to support
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that switch and whether you might need to change publisher.
460
00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:44,660
I would imagine that an agent would support a switch because generally agents want you
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to write the story that you're passionate about.
462
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They know that that's the best story to go for, the one that you are so compelled to
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do.
464
00:24:54,420 --> 00:25:00,760
I think you just need to be prepared to make some changes and maybe step back a little
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bit on sales and start again.
466
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But ultimately, I just don't believe in sort of cynical writing.
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I believe in just writing the story that you want to tell at that time.
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And if it happens to be in a different genre, so be it.
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00:25:13,700 --> 00:25:15,380
And you can always have another name.
470
00:25:15,480 --> 00:25:16,700
You can always use a pen name.
471
00:25:17,280 --> 00:25:21,960
There are authors out there with seven or eight different names, different genres.
472
00:25:23,260 --> 00:25:25,660
I think it's anything goes really.
473
00:25:26,180 --> 00:25:27,980
It all depends on what it is you're protecting
474
00:25:28,120 --> 00:25:28,660
in the first place.
475
00:25:28,740 --> 00:25:31,580
If you are a huge seller in one genre,
476
00:25:32,100 --> 00:25:34,700
you do need to weigh up what you might lose
477
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:37,000
if you step away from that and start again
478
00:25:37,120 --> 00:25:39,260
because you're essentially only going to take
479
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:41,720
a portion of those early readers with you.
480
00:25:42,300 --> 00:25:44,940
So I think you just have to hold your nerve,
481
00:25:45,140 --> 00:25:47,580
but I think that about almost everything in this game.
482
00:25:47,630 --> 00:25:51,640
I just think be, have the value your own work,
483
00:25:52,120 --> 00:25:55,480
even if others don't appear to, and then hold your nerve.
484
00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:57,820
But if you've weighed up what you've got to lose
485
00:25:57,940 --> 00:26:00,040
and you're perpetitating that risk, then go for it.
486
00:26:00,660 --> 00:26:02,220
- That's smart, smart decision making.
487
00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:04,780
It's good thinking about what your career is,
488
00:26:04,780 --> 00:26:05,360
that kind of thing.
489
00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:08,100
So let's talk a little bit about TV then,
490
00:26:08,260 --> 00:26:10,460
'cause you've got, our house has aired
491
00:26:10,580 --> 00:26:12,680
and you've got two more projects filming right now,
492
00:26:12,700 --> 00:26:14,320
I believe, and one in a development.
493
00:26:15,100 --> 00:26:18,360
- Yes, they both just wrapped actually by coincidence.
494
00:26:18,660 --> 00:26:21,160
I mean, we know how hard it is to get an adaptation,
495
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:26,880
So it does feel very greedy to have two that happen to, you know, come get green lit at
496
00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:27,820
exactly the same time.
497
00:26:27,820 --> 00:26:28,780
I'm being greedy.
498
00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:29,940
Just be grateful.
499
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:30,940
I am grateful.
500
00:26:31,140 --> 00:26:31,640
I am grateful.
501
00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:37,080
But yeah, so they were filmed at the same time and they wrapped about a week or two apart
502
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:41,620
and now they're both in post-production and I'm hoping they'll both be on air by the end
503
00:26:41,620 --> 00:26:44,640
of the year but the transmission dates aren't confirmed yet.
504
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:49,780
So one is the heights and that was actually one of my favorite of my books.
505
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:54,800
came out in lockdown and did it come out? Yes, it came out in lockdown. Well, I wrote
506
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:58,820
it in lockdown, I think, and it maybe came out just towards the end of that COVID period.
507
00:26:59,480 --> 00:27:04,300
So, you know, it was such a personal private time where we were all incarcerated and I,
508
00:27:04,620 --> 00:27:09,340
you know, the characters in this book were my friends. That's the one about a very unusual
509
00:27:09,540 --> 00:27:17,680
feud where a mum called Ellen takes an intense dislike to her teenage son's new best friend
510
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:21,980
and this feud develops and tragedy strikes and Ellen is out for revenge.
511
00:27:22,330 --> 00:27:26,020
So Ellen is being played by Anna Freel, who I've seen,
512
00:27:26,300 --> 00:27:30,600
I've seen some early cuts of the Heights and Anna is extraordinary.
513
00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:33,420
There's an amazing cast actually in both shows.
514
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:40,180
Both shows have a lot of new talent and I've surprised myself by being most excited about that.
515
00:27:40,260 --> 00:27:45,680
Just seeing these young actors, you know, sort of getting maybe their first big mainstream show
516
00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:49,320
or consolidating, you know, a couple of smaller roles.
517
00:27:50,540 --> 00:27:54,800
The actor who plays Lucas, who's Ellen's son, in the Heights,
518
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:57,420
it's his first job, and he's phenomenal.
519
00:27:57,900 --> 00:28:00,040
So, yeah, it's been lovely, and it's been really busy.
520
00:28:00,180 --> 00:28:03,240
It kept me very busy because I've been very involved with the scripts.
521
00:28:04,120 --> 00:28:07,580
I've been sent all of the footage to watch and the early cuts.
522
00:28:07,910 --> 00:28:11,180
So it's taken up quite a lot of time, and yeah, it's been great.
523
00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:15,940
So for those of us who've not had a chance to have been optioned before or anything,
524
00:28:16,050 --> 00:28:20,680
so can you kind of walk us through what actually happens between the, hey, someone optioned
525
00:28:20,680 --> 00:28:22,160
it to, oh, it's on screen?
526
00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:26,240
Right, okay, well, that's a whole hour in its own right.
527
00:28:26,740 --> 00:28:35,100
But basically, it usually will be at least a year where a writer is being found and a
528
00:28:35,140 --> 00:28:41,660
writer is writing the treatment or the pitch and they're starting to talk with the person
529
00:28:41,660 --> 00:28:46,360
commissioners about the project, that whole process could take years and years and years.
530
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:51,140
So the heights is actually when I think that the company who made it were actually the second
531
00:28:51,260 --> 00:28:55,380
company to option it. So there were a good two or three years where another company tried to get
532
00:28:55,380 --> 00:29:04,480
it made first. So there's constant discussions where Zendaya's reading the script is that's
533
00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:09,160
where it starts and then it ends with we're not going to renew the option, we've run out of ideas.
534
00:29:09,180 --> 00:29:15,020
So that's the norm. So when it works, it's really a question of the patience and the hustling power
535
00:29:15,600 --> 00:29:22,280
of the producers to just not give up and to just get this project over the line. It's not really
536
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:29,000
anything to do with me or the story. It's to do with how good they are at selling this show to the
537
00:29:29,040 --> 00:29:35,740
right person at the right time. So as with everything, timing is a huge factor. And sometimes it can
538
00:29:35,740 --> 00:29:39,620
happened quite quickly. The heights happened extremely quickly, I would say, happened within a year.
539
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:45,420
The only suspect, the other one, which is one that stars Kevin McKidd, that took about four years
540
00:29:45,700 --> 00:29:52,320
to get over the line. Once you've got a commissioner interested, they will usually fund or support
541
00:29:52,680 --> 00:29:57,340
a pilot. And so the writer will then write the pilot and then that will be read and then you'll
542
00:29:57,340 --> 00:30:02,220
get the green light, hopefully, for the full series to be written and then everything cranks into gear.
543
00:30:02,580 --> 00:30:10,960
The thing that's most interesting about TV i think is that everything feels so painfully slow and then when it actually happens you just cannot believe.
544
00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:25,700
The hard work and efficiency and speed of these people who all work together in this sort of high and everyone knows you know everyone knows their role and doesn't overstep and there's such harmony there's no difficult characters or.
545
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:30,920
There's just no time for that. It's such an expensive process. Millions is on the line.
546
00:30:31,380 --> 00:30:35,820
And they just do it so quickly and so efficiently. And they work these incredibly long hours.
547
00:30:36,190 --> 00:30:41,560
And the actors who, you know, I initially expected, you know, kind of actors, you know,
548
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:47,080
having hangovers and being really deep, deeper-ish, then they're not like that at all.
549
00:30:47,580 --> 00:30:49,940
That's more like authors, right? Just more of the authors.
550
00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:56,580
I know, I know, I'm thinking about, you know, the kind of olivary types that's all in the past.
551
00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:02,160
That's all in the past. They are so wholesome. They work so hard. They are well rested. They're
552
00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:08,000
all gym-honed and you just couldn't ask them. That's what they say about me. They call me gym-honed too.
553
00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:15,220
Oh no, I'm sorry. Gin, gin-honed. Oh, there we go. That's good. So you're missing some element there.
554
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:16,760
I misspelled it, sorry.
555
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:18,660
That's my category as well.
556
00:31:18,740 --> 00:31:20,220
I'm more Jim Hone, absolutely.
557
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:21,560
This is why we're writers.
558
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:23,900
Yes, so it becomes very, very exciting.
559
00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:28,040
And I find visiting the set quite surreal initially.
560
00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:31,380
It feels quite frightening to think
561
00:31:31,500 --> 00:31:34,340
that all of this money is being spent on a story
562
00:31:34,540 --> 00:31:38,120
that I wrote on the sofa with a coffee by my side.
563
00:31:38,500 --> 00:31:40,700
It suddenly feels like, oh my God, am I
564
00:31:40,740 --> 00:31:42,080
accountable for all of this?
565
00:31:42,380 --> 00:31:44,920
And then after a while, you relax into it.
566
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:47,120
and you almost stop making that connection
567
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:49,380
and you just enjoy it for what it is
568
00:31:49,460 --> 00:31:52,380
because it's such a different format from the book.
569
00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:54,460
You know, I always think with a book
570
00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:57,480
it's such a collaboration between the writer and the reader
571
00:31:57,620 --> 00:32:00,660
and the reader is doing such a lot of the imaginative work
572
00:32:01,260 --> 00:32:02,760
taking our words on the page
573
00:32:02,920 --> 00:32:05,720
and the pictures arriving in their minds
574
00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:07,220
are their own creation.
575
00:32:07,940 --> 00:32:11,040
But with TV, all of that is done for you.
576
00:32:11,380 --> 00:32:13,220
It's the director's format.
577
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:15,500
It's the actors' work.
578
00:32:15,900 --> 00:32:18,680
And the words are very much a sort of vehicle.
579
00:32:19,460 --> 00:32:20,460
It feels so different.
580
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:23,500
And it actually makes me really value books
581
00:32:23,740 --> 00:32:26,080
because I think that imaginative collaboration
582
00:32:26,300 --> 00:32:28,380
between reader and writer is really special.
583
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:29,760
And you don't get that with TV.
584
00:32:29,940 --> 00:32:32,400
You're pretty much spoon fed everything.
585
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:35,780
All of the gorgeous visuals are created for you.
586
00:32:35,860 --> 00:32:37,260
You don't have to do that yourself.
587
00:32:37,680 --> 00:32:39,600
So very, very different formats
588
00:32:39,780 --> 00:32:42,160
and both so satisfying in different ways.
589
00:32:43,120 --> 00:32:44,860
A quick word from this episode's sponsor.
590
00:32:45,340 --> 00:32:46,980
- Hi gang, it's me, Jamie Davis,
591
00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:49,060
the show manager from Author Nation.
592
00:32:49,380 --> 00:32:51,380
We're locking down the final details
593
00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:52,760
for this year's big event.
594
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:55,700
So I hope we'll get to see you soon in Las Vegas.
595
00:32:56,220 --> 00:32:58,000
In the meantime, my wife asked me
596
00:32:58,060 --> 00:33:00,060
what was for dinner last Tuesday night.
597
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:03,600
Well, I just told her we should talk about it.
598
00:33:04,180 --> 00:33:05,080
- Now back to the show.
599
00:33:06,280 --> 00:33:09,160
So it's interesting, you've got to be on the sets
600
00:33:09,340 --> 00:33:11,240
of now multiple productions,
601
00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:12,340
'cause a lot of writers don't,
602
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:13,680
by the time it gets to that point,
603
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:16,260
they're sort of pretty heavily disconnected from it.
604
00:33:16,740 --> 00:33:18,040
We hear about that in Hollywood a lot,
605
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:19,560
but it's great that you get to be there.
606
00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:20,920
How do you find the people,
607
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:22,260
apart from being polite and nice,
608
00:33:22,860 --> 00:33:25,740
how do you find like the director and the actors treating you?
609
00:33:25,900 --> 00:33:27,300
Do you find them come over and go,
610
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:28,960
"Louise, what were you thinking here?
611
00:33:29,220 --> 00:33:31,040
"What was kind of in your mind?"
612
00:33:31,040 --> 00:33:33,260
Or it's the director like, "No, no, I got this."
613
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:35,840
- The directors are normally extremely busy.
614
00:33:36,500 --> 00:33:38,560
They haven't got time to breathe,
615
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:42,800
let alone indulge in planning my ego.
616
00:33:43,220 --> 00:33:45,260
But I do think that I think they're all quite different.
617
00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:48,400
And so some directors are actually really eager
618
00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:51,240
to talk about the book and to talk about the characters,
619
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:55,500
even well into filming, either to get new ideas
620
00:33:55,540 --> 00:33:58,320
or just to feel they've captured the DNA.
621
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:00,920
Because it's important to them to feel like
622
00:34:01,020 --> 00:34:02,500
they've captured the DNA of the book,
623
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:04,360
because that's the whole point of adapting a book,
624
00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:08,540
is someone did all that heavy lifting for you.
625
00:34:08,919 --> 00:34:13,720
So some will want to go quite in depth and others are much more polite.
626
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:16,399
You might get directors who haven't even read the book.
627
00:34:16,500 --> 00:34:18,240
You will get actors who haven't read the book.
628
00:34:18,399 --> 00:34:21,639
You know, the script is their book, the script is their Bible.
629
00:34:22,240 --> 00:34:25,040
And so then it is much more a polite exchange.
630
00:34:25,220 --> 00:34:29,220
You know, thank you for entrusting us with, you know, your wonderful book, you know,
631
00:34:29,260 --> 00:34:30,100
those sorts of lines.
632
00:34:30,240 --> 00:34:33,139
So it can vary a lot and either way is fine.
633
00:34:33,240 --> 00:34:34,899
I don't mind at all.
634
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:39,980
I'm, you know, by that stage, you're so happy that yours has made it over the line and, you
635
00:34:39,980 --> 00:34:41,500
know, it's going to have this second life.
636
00:34:42,100 --> 00:34:45,300
And I'm always, always thinking from the point of view of the author.
637
00:34:45,679 --> 00:34:49,800
I'm always thinking, you know, I do want to protect the DNA of the book.
638
00:34:49,899 --> 00:34:55,120
I do want the readers to be happy with what they see while, you know, totally understanding
639
00:34:55,300 --> 00:34:56,280
that it's a different form.
640
00:34:56,679 --> 00:35:01,400
And then I also want, you know, to gain new readers when the, when the, when the show
641
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:06,460
I want people to say, "Who created this story and has she written any other books?"
642
00:35:06,620 --> 00:35:10,520
I'm thinking from a book point of view all the time.
643
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:14,940
You see an influx of new readers when our town was aired on ITV.
644
00:35:15,230 --> 00:35:19,760
You saw that in book sales as well, or it was almost like a whole new release to it?
645
00:35:20,160 --> 00:35:20,940
Yeah, definitely.
646
00:35:21,340 --> 00:35:21,520
Definitely.
647
00:35:21,700 --> 00:35:25,400
Or you might meet people at events who don't know your work and then if you say, "Well,
648
00:35:25,430 --> 00:35:29,920
did you see our house starring Martin Compton and Tappant's Middleton on ITV?"
649
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:33,520
TV and they'll say, "Oh yeah, I saw that." And then I can say, "Well, that was mine."
650
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:38,320
And so you can just get that connection in a new way. But absolutely, I mean, I personally
651
00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:43,000
don't watch a TV adaptation and then go and read the books. I feel like, "Well, I already
652
00:35:43,060 --> 00:35:48,960
know what happens." So it's much more just getting your name a bit more high profile
653
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:53,480
and you might get more media. You might get more interest generally. And then when the
654
00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:59,280
next book comes out, you've got these great TV shows to talk about.
655
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:04,120
I would assume maybe you get like a new lease with the cover, the TV, whatever the media
656
00:36:04,300 --> 00:36:05,680
cover that they put out to.
657
00:36:05,890 --> 00:36:09,500
So it's almost like a little more bookshelf space or a re-release.
658
00:36:10,220 --> 00:36:12,860
Yeah, re-release with the new cover and everything.
659
00:36:13,100 --> 00:36:13,160
Yeah.
660
00:36:13,380 --> 00:36:16,740
Yeah, sometimes they'll do a reissue with the TV branded cover.
661
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:18,000
We did that for our house.
662
00:36:18,520 --> 00:36:23,580
We're not doing it with the next two, partly because I'm no longer with the publisher who
663
00:36:23,700 --> 00:36:27,880
published those books, but we have a great relationship and we'll be doing lots of, you
664
00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:37,100
We'll be doing the stamps, the roundels with the TV artwork and marketing the books during
665
00:36:37,240 --> 00:36:37,780
that period.
666
00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:39,460
So, yeah, everyone's on board.
667
00:36:39,740 --> 00:36:42,140
Everyone's really excited about these things.
668
00:36:42,410 --> 00:36:45,740
But a lot of TV dramas are from books.
669
00:36:46,030 --> 00:36:50,980
So most of the big publishers certainly will have, they'll be very practiced about the
670
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:57,200
whole routine and they'll understand how late in the day they're going to have the transmission
671
00:36:57,200 --> 00:37:01,460
date confirmed and how late in the day that they're going to get the artwork that they
672
00:37:01,540 --> 00:37:08,300
need to do any of the branding bits and pieces. So yeah, everyone's very geared up. And again,
673
00:37:08,540 --> 00:37:12,560
you know, it's my job to make sure everyone in the mix gets what they need.
674
00:37:13,240 --> 00:37:16,780
All right, let's look back and talk about a little bit of craft stuff for a minute.
675
00:37:17,540 --> 00:37:24,600
So houses and properties have become a major focus in your books. Did that just happen?
676
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:28,920
Or did you think there's something really exciting about a building and then bring
677
00:37:29,020 --> 00:37:31,660
you all the people into the building and killing of you?
678
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:33,200
It wasn't really conscious.
679
00:37:34,020 --> 00:37:39,900
And in fact, it was only when I got involved in TV that it was pointed out to me that this
680
00:37:40,020 --> 00:37:42,940
was a key ingredient in all of my books for so long.
681
00:37:44,540 --> 00:37:47,380
It was all just very natural and instinctive.
682
00:37:47,600 --> 00:37:50,940
Isn't that nice when somebody tells you what you were thinking and you're like, "Oh, I
683
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:52,600
didn't realize what your past is."
684
00:37:52,700 --> 00:37:53,320
Yeah, yeah.
685
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:57,140
Thank you because actually it was very useful to hear what they thought.
686
00:37:57,170 --> 00:37:57,960
Yeah, that's a good point.
687
00:37:58,460 --> 00:38:04,280
Yeah, but I think it's just for me, it's the age I am in my 50s.
688
00:38:04,280 --> 00:38:10,720
I'm Gen X. It has been the defining issue, social issue of my entire adult life.
689
00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:17,520
People talking about property, people making money out of property, people on right move
690
00:38:17,940 --> 00:38:19,640
looking at property porn.
691
00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:22,600
It's just been such a huge, huge thing.
692
00:38:23,079 --> 00:38:23,440
(laughing)
693
00:38:25,740 --> 00:38:28,600
Really, I mean, I've been called the queen
694
00:38:28,760 --> 00:38:30,120
of property porn noir.
695
00:38:30,420 --> 00:38:31,400
I mean, can you imagine?
696
00:38:31,940 --> 00:38:33,580
50 years, some fat.
697
00:38:34,519 --> 00:38:36,220
- That is a title right there.
698
00:38:36,620 --> 00:38:38,380
That's also a t-shirt you need to have in the back.
699
00:38:38,540 --> 00:38:38,600
- Yeah, yeah.
700
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:39,660
- Another one, no, I'll be sure.
701
00:38:39,900 --> 00:38:40,880
- Along with the laurels.
702
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:41,600
- Yeah.
703
00:38:42,240 --> 00:38:43,200
- And a judge on the laurel.
704
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:44,660
- Property porn queen resting on her laurels.
705
00:38:44,860 --> 00:38:45,840
- Resting on her laurels.
706
00:38:47,240 --> 00:38:48,780
- Yeah, so I think it happened naturally.
707
00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:54,900
And of course, not just me, but a whole genre, a domestic noir is based on this whole fear
708
00:38:55,320 --> 00:39:01,420
of not being safe in the domestic realm, losing the very thing that you should feel confident
709
00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:03,820
about being safe in your home.
710
00:39:04,100 --> 00:39:08,580
And domestic stories, we've had them for centuries, and just look at things like Madame
711
00:39:08,700 --> 00:39:13,180
Bovary and all of the stories that can be rooted in the home.
712
00:39:13,570 --> 00:39:17,740
But yeah, so even before our house, property had been a theme.
713
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:20,280
in my books, I just hadn't really recognized it.
714
00:39:20,350 --> 00:39:23,700
You know, people had either been struggling to have a roof over their head, or they had
715
00:39:23,860 --> 00:39:30,280
been downsizing after a divorce, or they had been, you know, in one book, someone broke
716
00:39:30,460 --> 00:39:33,840
into someone's house in a village in France and squatted there.
717
00:39:34,200 --> 00:39:40,040
It's always been at the center of my stories, I think, but it's only in the last sort of
718
00:39:40,140 --> 00:39:44,300
five to ten years that I've been directly associated with property.
719
00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:50,600
But I never run out of ideas and I never run out of property-based stories because if anything,
720
00:39:51,080 --> 00:39:55,700
it's all just even more intensely relevant to the way we live now.
721
00:39:56,050 --> 00:40:02,240
The property crisis, I've just, a couple of books ago, I wrote about the second home owners
722
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:09,540
in a beauty spot in the UK and the war between holiday home owners and locals who can't get
723
00:40:09,640 --> 00:40:10,440
on the property ladder.
724
00:40:11,120 --> 00:40:18,420
year there's more and more stories on these themes and it's not getting any easier for people.
725
00:40:19,240 --> 00:40:25,340
Another thing I would say is that, you know, the older I get and the more I, you know, I definitely
726
00:40:25,580 --> 00:40:30,920
identify as a workaholic, someone whose identity is really based on their work, but I do have friends
727
00:40:31,140 --> 00:40:35,840
whose identity is based on how beautiful their home is. And I think I've always been really
728
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:42,140
fascinated by that tribe, which I'm not in, where just having the perfect sofa and the
729
00:40:42,220 --> 00:40:47,840
right paint color is kind of all they need to feel really, really satisfied with life.
730
00:40:48,420 --> 00:40:52,480
And so there's often a character in my books who is a bit like that, where they've almost
731
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:58,640
placed more value in their home decoration than they maybe have some of their relationships.
732
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:02,260
So yeah, there's just endless amounts of property related stuff.
733
00:41:02,520 --> 00:41:07,540
You've also got a kind of a map for adding like catching a live social issue besides
734
00:41:07,740 --> 00:41:10,800
just I mean obviously the property values is nothing but right mean kind of before it
735
00:41:10,820 --> 00:41:14,640
almost becomes a headline like you're kind of like prescient in how that is but do you
736
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:20,680
go looking like to add that social comment to your books every time on on top of obviously
737
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:24,540
we talk about the property values but you have some other social issues that you kind
738
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:28,140
of like grab hold of such as the rent for sex.
739
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:29,680
Yeah, yeah, sex for rent.
740
00:41:29,880 --> 00:41:32,960
I do. I mean, I'm really interested in politics. I read.
741
00:41:33,140 --> 00:41:33,280
Yeah.
742
00:41:33,820 --> 00:41:35,680
The other way around. That's quite different.
743
00:41:35,840 --> 00:41:37,140
Yeah, rent for sex. Yeah, that is different.
744
00:41:38,020 --> 00:41:41,500
Yeah. You can stay here if you'll just give me some.
745
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:44,860
Isn't that the same thing as sex for rent?
746
00:41:45,060 --> 00:41:46,360
Yeah. Either way, it's floppy.
747
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:47,120
Rent for sex.
748
00:41:48,300 --> 00:41:49,300
It's all about the order.
749
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:51,420
Like, I've already got the rent there.
750
00:41:51,540 --> 00:41:53,520
If you sleep with me, I'll let you pay rent.
751
00:41:53,780 --> 00:41:54,540
It would be with me.
752
00:41:54,900 --> 00:41:57,780
Yeah. I think the answer you get is very different.
753
00:41:58,240 --> 00:42:00,800
- The pinning on the city, I might be willing to do that.
754
00:42:00,900 --> 00:42:01,540
I'm just saying.
755
00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:04,320
- One version gets a lot of no's and one version
756
00:42:04,500 --> 00:42:05,560
gets a fair number of uses.
757
00:42:05,620 --> 00:42:06,460
- Yeah, absolutely.
758
00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:08,880
- I've been fucked by landlords before,
759
00:42:09,260 --> 00:42:10,740
so it's not that big of a deal.
760
00:42:11,100 --> 00:42:11,300
- No.
761
00:42:11,460 --> 00:42:11,940
- All the way around.
762
00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:13,840
(laughing)
763
00:42:17,780 --> 00:42:18,580
- Metaphorically, obviously.
764
00:42:19,300 --> 00:42:20,300
- Metaphorically, well, yes.
765
00:42:21,060 --> 00:42:23,400
- Okay, so Louise, do you consciously try
766
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:25,420
and put a social element into every book?
767
00:42:27,040 --> 00:42:33,120
Yes, I guess so. I'm writing about what I'm interested in. I'm very interested in the way
768
00:42:33,180 --> 00:42:37,980
we live now. I'm really interested in social and consumer issues. My dream is to listen to
769
00:42:38,120 --> 00:42:45,260
radio for consumer shows, things like Moneybox and You and Yours. That's my idea of a fantastic
770
00:42:45,580 --> 00:42:52,240
hour to hear about the latest scams and frauds. Fraud, of course, is the biggest growth area
771
00:42:52,240 --> 00:42:57,420
in crime, there's a lot of fraud in my stories and scams. I can't get enough of it. I mean,
772
00:42:57,500 --> 00:43:04,380
I don't enjoy other people's misery at all. It's not that kind of vibe, but I just want to know
773
00:43:04,460 --> 00:43:08,840
about it and I'm very attracted to those sorts of stories. And then they find their way into my
774
00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:15,020
novels because the way I construct my books is, you know, I'll have several themes or issues
775
00:43:15,180 --> 00:43:19,640
that I'm really interested in that, you know, aren't enough in their own right to be a whole book.
776
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:29,460
And so I'll wait for enough of them to come along and then I'll tangle them up and then I'll think of a great way to structure it and that's kind of how I do it.
777
00:43:29,860 --> 00:43:35,620
So you know sex parental rent for sex whichever we're gonna call it that's not really enough.
778
00:43:36,140 --> 00:43:46,560
For a whole book I needed lots of other things that I wanted to explore and so you know neighbors guide that is the boomerang child so Gwen 30 something some has come back.
779
00:43:47,040 --> 00:43:52,520
to live with her and you know is a real pain in the ass and you know this is this is a big problem
780
00:43:52,740 --> 00:44:00,460
now with adults not leaving home you know you got done anything there Doug i wouldn't know anything
781
00:44:00,580 --> 00:44:05,820
about that are you a boomerang no no but i've got a boomerang they never left
782
00:44:10,480 --> 00:44:16,920
there's so many there's so many in fact mainly guys but also Gwen's daughter has gone
783
00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:20,720
into this full-on "Trad Wife" influencer sort of thing.
784
00:44:21,020 --> 00:44:22,060
There's a Nepo baby.
785
00:44:22,460 --> 00:44:25,180
In many ways, this, even though the narrator is 70 years old,
786
00:44:25,180 --> 00:44:28,200
in many ways, this book is my Zuma book.
787
00:44:28,300 --> 00:44:31,120
This is my Gen Z book, because all of the young characters
788
00:44:31,260 --> 00:44:35,600
are kind of typifying some kind of odd new way,
789
00:44:35,820 --> 00:44:38,480
odd to me, about living your life.
790
00:44:39,020 --> 00:44:42,160
And so in a way, that was why I had to create an older narrator
791
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:45,220
to navigate it, because I didn't really understand.
792
00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:49,980
you know, it's quite hard to imagine being a Nepo baby, and it's quite hard to imagine
793
00:44:50,300 --> 00:44:55,180
bouncing back after divorce and living in your childhood room if you haven't done it.
794
00:44:55,680 --> 00:45:02,860
So I kind of needed someone to take a rye kind of observational position on all of those
795
00:45:02,980 --> 00:45:06,760
different young people, while also being quite compassionate because it's, you know,
796
00:45:06,780 --> 00:45:08,200
it's not easy to be young right now.
797
00:45:08,600 --> 00:45:14,120
So yeah, I think it's all, it all melds together, you know, my, the reading idea for pleasure,
798
00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:20,760
the fact that I'm very engaged with the newspapers and politics and everything that's going on
799
00:45:20,820 --> 00:45:24,460
in the world, it all finds its way somehow into a book.
800
00:45:24,920 --> 00:45:28,540
Okay, so a couple of things to wrap up. A couple of questions we ask everybody. And the first
801
00:45:28,720 --> 00:45:31,800
one is, what do you think is your author's superpower?
802
00:45:32,500 --> 00:45:38,960
Well, I think my strongest asset is that I can hold my nerve and I'm very confident
803
00:45:38,960 --> 00:45:45,140
about the books and I will, even if no one else feels the same enthusiasm, I will continue
804
00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:50,540
to feel that passion burning for them. So I just feel like I am willing to hold my nerve
805
00:45:50,900 --> 00:45:56,540
in difficult situations and stand by my work. In terms of the actual writing, I think probably
806
00:45:56,680 --> 00:46:02,640
my best thing would be my dialogue. I think my dialogue's quite natural and quite good.
807
00:46:02,780 --> 00:46:07,119
And maybe that's why, you know, one of the reasons the TV producers have fallen for quite
808
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:11,420
lot of my stories. I think that the conversational elements are quite natural.
809
00:46:11,980 --> 00:46:15,940
Great, good answer. Okay, and final question will be a random question.
810
00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:18,900
Final questions, we have a wheel of questions here.
811
00:46:18,960 --> 00:46:20,180
Oh wow, look at that!
812
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:23,500
Yeah, you didn't know you were on a full-on show game show.
813
00:46:23,680 --> 00:46:24,620
A game show!
814
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:28,280
Yeah, I love this. I can't see any of the questions, so you could say anything.
815
00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:33,140
That's true. It's my handwriting. Even if you couldn't see it, you wouldn't be able to read it.
816
00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:34,420
Yeah, you wouldn't be able to decipher it.
817
00:46:34,720 --> 00:46:37,640
Most of them were kind of like, I have them as short hands.
818
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:39,860
So, okay, oh, it's a good one.
819
00:46:40,360 --> 00:46:44,020
Who would be your favorite protagonist as you've written?
820
00:46:44,560 --> 00:46:46,020
- Oh my goodness, okay.
821
00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:50,900
I really like Alex in "The Only Suspect."
822
00:46:51,000 --> 00:46:53,700
I tend to prefer my male protagonists, actually.
823
00:46:53,900 --> 00:46:54,660
I've come to realize.
824
00:46:55,140 --> 00:46:59,500
And so he's this very jaded, cynical, Gen X guy.
825
00:46:59,600 --> 00:47:02,960
He's the one played by Kevin McKidd in the TV adaptation.
826
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:05,800
But he is a very complex character
827
00:47:05,900 --> 00:47:07,640
because he's hiding a huge secret
828
00:47:08,060 --> 00:47:12,520
and it's prevented him from living life as he would like to.
829
00:47:12,940 --> 00:47:13,500
I love Alex.
830
00:47:13,920 --> 00:47:14,460
- That's cool.
831
00:47:14,740 --> 00:47:16,420
So is there gonna be another Alex book?
832
00:47:16,800 --> 00:47:19,400
- No, well, I've never done, I've never done a sequel.
833
00:47:20,320 --> 00:47:22,440
Let's see, let's see if the TV show is a hit.
834
00:47:22,540 --> 00:47:23,840
Maybe they'll, they'll ask.
835
00:47:23,980 --> 00:47:26,880
- If the TV show is a hit, they'll be wanting one.
836
00:47:27,080 --> 00:47:28,400
- Well, they'll be wanting season two.
837
00:47:28,760 --> 00:47:29,580
- Absolutely. - Season two, whatever.
838
00:47:29,840 --> 00:47:30,660
Yes, yes. - Yeah.
839
00:47:30,660 --> 00:47:32,000
- But we need to know whether he lives.
840
00:47:32,140 --> 00:47:33,420
I think, you know, if he lives--
841
00:47:33,420 --> 00:47:36,320
So yeah, he was saying that and I was just thinking, oh, he dies at the end.
842
00:47:36,560 --> 00:47:36,820
Yeah, no.
843
00:47:37,020 --> 00:47:37,860
That's just a rather...
844
00:47:38,660 --> 00:47:38,980
[Laughter]
845
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:41,180
The younger life of Alex.
846
00:47:41,280 --> 00:47:42,880
I don't think she'd have picked one to eat.
847
00:47:42,900 --> 00:47:43,200
No.
848
00:47:43,240 --> 00:47:45,200
To kill all, all throughout the band, you know, yeah.
849
00:47:45,300 --> 00:47:45,400
No.
850
00:47:45,400 --> 00:47:49,380
I'm not going to say explicitly, but you know, we can feel optimistic for Alex.
851
00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:50,300
There we go.
852
00:47:50,560 --> 00:47:51,040
Perfect, perfect.
853
00:47:51,160 --> 00:47:53,420
Louise, thank you so much for spending the time with us.
854
00:47:53,500 --> 00:47:54,140
This has been brilliant.
855
00:47:55,239 --> 00:47:58,740
And Neighbour's Guide to Murder will be a huge hit in the US, same way it has been in the
856
00:47:58,780 --> 00:47:59,100
UK.
857
00:47:59,860 --> 00:48:02,200
And so best of luck with all the TV projects.
858
00:48:02,420 --> 00:48:05,360
Thank you so much and this was so much fun. Thank you.
859
00:48:12,700 --> 00:48:15,300
Thank you so much to Louise. That was brilliant. She was lovely.
860
00:48:15,520 --> 00:48:17,580
She was fun. That was a lot of fun. We were laughing hard.
861
00:48:17,820 --> 00:48:19,860
I always like the shows where we laugh a lot on them.
862
00:48:20,380 --> 00:48:21,880
I know. Yeah. I'm always happy.
863
00:48:22,780 --> 00:48:23,560
That's what we do it for, right?
864
00:48:23,880 --> 00:48:25,780
That's what I do it for. I just want to...
865
00:48:26,180 --> 00:48:28,460
I only want to entertain myself. That's the only reason I write.
866
00:48:28,600 --> 00:48:29,560
That's the only reason I do anything.
867
00:48:31,080 --> 00:48:34,080
And there's only so many times you can do it the other way you do it.
868
00:48:34,220 --> 00:48:36,720
So it's just not on air.
869
00:48:37,320 --> 00:48:37,580
All right.
870
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:40,480
So hello, you might get the rent paid.
871
00:48:40,760 --> 00:48:41,820
Hey, you know, do it again.
872
00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:44,420
So it's interesting.
873
00:48:44,540 --> 00:48:47,960
I like the fact that, I mean, all her books have human protagonist in them, but that,
874
00:48:48,320 --> 00:48:52,540
you know, that a property or that property theme thing is a character in all of her books.
875
00:48:52,740 --> 00:48:59,740
And it's interesting that it just, it fell that way, you know, organically rather than
876
00:48:59,740 --> 00:49:01,120
being deliberate, which is really cool.
877
00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:03,280
I think it's, well, and sometimes I think that's what is.
878
00:49:03,500 --> 00:49:09,780
Something that you know about, that we're passionate about, that we think about on a
879
00:49:09,780 --> 00:49:11,960
regular basis, those are going to come out in our writing.
880
00:49:12,260 --> 00:49:15,880
And she's, you know, I think it's funny that somebody told her, "Hey, you know, you've
881
00:49:15,900 --> 00:49:19,000
been writing about property," and she's like, "Oh, I guess I have."
882
00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:19,160
Yeah.
883
00:49:20,140 --> 00:49:21,060
Oh, yes I do.
884
00:49:21,140 --> 00:49:25,260
You know, sometimes I think that's probably the case for a lot of us, is until you start
885
00:49:25,260 --> 00:49:31,060
realize and what you're doing and not what you're doing so much, but realize that you
886
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:33,580
have a theme that seems to kind of flow.
887
00:49:33,980 --> 00:49:35,600
That's kind of an interesting way that...
888
00:49:35,620 --> 00:49:39,720
The other thing that's interesting, I think, is she's doing well in the States, but she's
889
00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:43,860
huge in the UK and won all kinds of awards and her books are best sellers over there.
890
00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:47,440
And now she's got these TV shows that are going, "You know, one of them is going to
891
00:49:47,440 --> 00:49:50,540
get picked up by Netflix or someone over here and get shown."
892
00:49:50,540 --> 00:49:55,760
So it'll be interesting to see how that goes and probably blows her up in the US, you know,
893
00:49:56,290 --> 00:49:58,380
to a lot bigger status on the author side.
894
00:49:58,670 --> 00:49:59,160
And it's interesting.
895
00:49:59,320 --> 00:50:00,320
And that's what it is.
896
00:50:00,380 --> 00:50:04,760
All these shows on Netflix and they are all like off of these books and stuff.
897
00:50:04,900 --> 00:50:09,120
So I am curious how it really affects book sales in the long run.
898
00:50:09,400 --> 00:50:10,540
So it'd be kind of interesting.
899
00:50:10,740 --> 00:50:15,040
That was a neat comment too because she said, "Do people go and buy the book because they
900
00:50:15,120 --> 00:50:16,460
just watched the TV show?"
901
00:50:16,460 --> 00:50:18,340
No, they kind of know the ending.
902
00:50:18,840 --> 00:50:22,380
But I bet the books around it and her backlist do really well.
903
00:50:22,430 --> 00:50:23,060
Oh, it's going to help.
904
00:50:23,170 --> 00:50:24,000
When that stuff comes out.
905
00:50:24,240 --> 00:50:24,320
Yeah.
906
00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:24,680
Cool.
907
00:50:24,880 --> 00:50:25,160
Very good.
908
00:50:25,530 --> 00:50:25,780
All right.
909
00:50:26,210 --> 00:50:29,060
Big thanks to our friends at Valom for supporting the show.
910
00:50:29,190 --> 00:50:29,840
We love you guys.
911
00:50:30,020 --> 00:50:30,640
We love the product.
912
00:50:30,960 --> 00:50:35,980
If you haven't tried Valom before, head on over to tryvalom.com/tourthers and give it
913
00:50:35,980 --> 00:50:36,320
a whirl.
914
00:50:36,540 --> 00:50:38,120
Thank you to all our Patreon subscribers.
915
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:39,840
We really appreciate support.
916
00:50:40,120 --> 00:50:44,760
Another great nugget of a really cool bonus with Louise.
917
00:50:45,100 --> 00:50:46,040
Almost a full show.
918
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:48,880
It was a pretty long one.
919
00:50:49,820 --> 00:50:50,980
Yeah, it was good.
920
00:50:51,400 --> 00:50:55,780
So yeah, thank you to our Patreon supporters and until next time, be cool to each other.
921
00:50:56,080 --> 00:50:57,400
Fair winds and fallen seas.
922
00:50:58,900 --> 00:51:04,280
You've been listening to the Two Authors podcast with Nicholas Harvey and Douglas Pratt.
923
00:51:04,880 --> 00:51:09,060
Subscribe on your favourite platform for new shows coming every week.
924
00:51:09,060 --> 00:51:10,220
(upbeat music)