Q and A with Laura Palmer, Publishing Director Fiction at Head of Zeus

LAURA: Your novel THE LIE OF YOU is told from the point of view of two women characters. Is there a significant difference in how you create female and male characters? To what extent do you draw on your own experiences to create them? 

JANE: Inevitably you draw on your own experiences. In The Lie of You Kathy's feelings for her baby son Billy were very much drawn from my own experience of having a baby. I enjoyed writing about the clothes Heja and Kathy wear and the homes they have created and I use these kinds of details to make the characters come alive. I was also keen to show both women in their workplace. We spend so much of our lives at work but this is not often reflected in fiction.

As for male characters, well Markus is only ever seen through the eyes of the two women so the reader has to assess whether or not they are reliable narrators. In my second novel AFTER THE STORM there are four main characters, two men and two women and I enjoyed creating Owen and Rob and hope they are three dimensional characters.

LAURA: Do your characters live outside the page and do your characters always do what you tell them?

JANE: Oh yes they live outside the page and I need to know what my characters would eat if they go to a restaurant and what kind of sofa they would buy.

They most certainly do not always do what I want them to do! I have sometimes written a line of dialogue or a scene and woken up in the night and thought that Heja, one of my characters, would never have done that or said that. So I have had to change it.

LAURA: Why thrillers? What is it that makes crime and thrillers so satisfying to write and to read?

JANE: I think it’s because in a thriller you are guaranteed a strong forward momentum. I love character driven narratives rather than plot driven narratives. I think you can have both aspects working together where the plot arises out of how that particular character would react to circumstances given their history and their psychology. That is very satisfying when it works.

LAURA: Which authors influence you, and do you have any book recommendations?

JANE: I am a huge fan of Annie Proulx and George Orwell but feel that I have been influenced by every writer I have read and loved since childhood whether it's Mary Norton's magnificent The Borrowers or Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. This year I loved Louise Doughty's Apple Tree Yard, Elmore Leonard's Swag, Lesley Thomson's Ghost Girl and Kerry Fisher's The School Gate Survival Guide.

LAURA: Do you feel there is a conflict in today's publishing between what publishers think readers want to read, and what readers actually want to read? 

JANE: I think it's important not to keep doing the same thing in your writing just because it worked the first time. I worked as a producer in television for 15 years and saw this happen too often there. Repetition stifles creativity. And have trust in your readers too as why would they want the same thing over and over?

LAURA: What advice would you give to aspiring writers?

JANE: I would tell them that it’s all about the characters. Create characters your readers will believe in. It doesn't matter if they dislike some aspects of a character or adore them. But it does matter if they don't believe in them. 

THE LIE OF YOU and AFTER THE STORM are published by Head of Zeus. 


I am on Twitter @janelythell