Second novel reflections

I’ve heard it said often that we all have one novel in us but writing your second novel can be difficult, so I thought I would share my experience of this. 

When my debut novel THE LIE OF YOU was bought by Head of Zeus they offered me a two book deal. They requested a synopsis for the second book and I produced a brief treatment for an idea that had been growing in my mind for ages. They accepted the idea and gave me a year to produce the first draft of the second novel. 

My idea was that two couples meet one night in Belize City, an English couple, Rob and Anna, and an American couple, Owen and Kim, who have an old sailing boat they have been living on for three years. Owen suggests they charter his boat and he will take them to the island of Roatan. Anna does not want to go at all but Rob is really keen and he persuades her to board. Unknown to them Kim is desperate to go home to Florida. It is Owen who is determined to continue their life on the boat. Straightaway we have conflict of wishes between the four characters and a boat can be a very claustrophobic place when tensions start to build.

Was it difficult to write this book? My honest answer is not really. I’ve been to these places and I always felt they would make a great setting for a novel. What helped me was that I kept a journal and took photos while I was there. (I’m an inveterate keeper of journals!) These were a great source which enabled me to build the atmosphere of the island. The Roatan in my novel is sun-soaked and stunning on the surface but with something dark underneath.

I was thrilled to have the two book deal but as it turned out this meant that I delivered the first draft of AFTER THE STORM at exactly the same time as THE LIE OF YOU was being published. This was a strange experience. I was promoting my debut as well editing the second book so that my mind kept moving between the characters in each book. The two books are very different and I think you are always more involved with the book and the characters you are currently writing. So I had to pull myself away from Rob, Anna, Owen and Kim in order to talk about Heja and Kathy at literary festivals and book clubs. I’m not complaining. It was exciting and demanding and I know how lucky I am to be in this position.

You learn about writing from doing the writing. I think I learned a lot about how to tell a story from my first book. In AFTER THE STORM I moved to third person narration because with four characters you can’t do first person. Well in theory you can but it would be a major challenge. First person narration is intense. You are there in the head of the character and see through her eyes. As soon as you move to third person narration a slight distancing creeps in to the writing but you are also freed to explore scenes from more than one point of view which I needed to do. 

This first appeared in Tracy Fells' the Literary Pig blog.

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