Anna Wilson spoke to StoryWorld AGAIN (see the first interview here)! She told us about her new book Summer's Shadow and her writing life.
Hi Anna! Tell
me about Summer's Shadow...:
Summer’s Shadow
is a ghostly mystery story set in Cornwall, near Land’s End.
When Summer’s mum
dies, everything she thought she knew about her life is thrown into
disarray. Her mother’s will states that Summer’s legal guardian
is her Uncle Tristan: a man she has never met or heard of before.
Summer finds herself leaving London and her friends to live in a
large rambling house in Cornwall with Tristan and his family, where
she feels certain she is not welcome. As she comes to terms with her
new life, she experiences many new things, some of them good (mostly
in the shape of a boy called Zach); some of them most unsettling . .
. After one unnerving occasion too many, Summer comes to believe that
the house may be haunted. But is she haunted by real ghosts, or by
the shadows of her own family’s past?
What
was the inspiration for the story?
The
inspiration came initially from a place where my husband’s family
have lived for years. I first visited it in 1993 and have been going
back every year for summer holidays. It is a special place with a
magical house and beach, very similar to the ones I describe in the
book, and I have always wanted to write a story about it. For years I
scribbled in diaries, trying to capture the essence of the place, but
what I really needed was a strong character, not to mention a plot!
Then my grandmother died in 2008 and I knew I needed to write about
that: the grieving, the loss of a mother figure (as that is what she
was to me), and the making sense of things that follows from such a
loss. Suddenly I was writing from the point of view of a grieving
girl. The scene that really kicked things off for me is a passage
towards the end of the book, where Kenan challenges Summer to a
dangerous swim across the bay. I knew once I had written that scene
that I had two good, strong characters and the makings of a plot.
Why
the dip into the waters of YA fiction?
I
think there is something in the fact that my own children are now
teenagers. I do seem to have “grown up” with them in my writing!
I started writing when I was pregnant with my daughter and had two
picture books published; when both she and her brother went to school
I wrote young series fiction and then progressed to novels for 7+ and
10+. Now my children are 15 and 13, so I suppose I am in tune with
what they are reading and how they speak, act and think. Who knows,
maybe I’ll manage an adult novel by the time they hit their
twenties?
What
are your favourite books, YA or otherwise, that influenced the
writing of Summer's Shadow?
Rebecca
by Daphne Du Maurier would have to be up there as a huge influence: a
young girl, far from everything she knows, falling in love for the
first time, alone, confused, fearful . . . Also I Capture the
Castle by Dodie Smith has had a big effect on me: again, a girl
in an unusual house, trying to make sense of her life. I love a good
family mystery or saga, so Maggie O’Farrell’s novels have helped
me think about the interaction between relatives, siblings and so on.
My favourite at the moment is Instructions for a Heatwave, but
I also loved The Hand that First Held Mine. I also read Colm
Tóibín’s Brooklyn when I was writing Summer’s Shadow,
and found it helped me get into the mind of a young girl, ripped from
her normal surroundings and cast adrift in a foreign place.
What
piece of advice would you give to emerging writers?
First:
read! Read everything and anything: well-written books,
not-so-well-written books, books for children and books for adults,
things you like, things you don’t like. Above all, do not be afraid
to read the sort of books you would like to write yourself. Some
people are worried that they will be unduly influenced if they do
this; that they will end up copying another writer by mistake, or
that they will be so overwhelmed by another writer’s brilliant
ideas that they will be paralyzed in their own writing. I have found
the opposite to be true. I find that other writers help me to see how
a good story should be told; help me to understand a strong plot,
well-drawn characters and tightly conceived dialogue. You cannot be a
writer unless you are a reader first.
Second:
write! Write all the time, every day, in journals, tiny notebooks you
keep in a pocket or bag, on your laptop – it doesn’t matter
where, just do it! A diary is an invaluable way of collecting all
your thoughts and ideas. Summer’s Shadow started out as
jottings in a holiday diary and went on from there.
What's
next?
I have made a start on a new story for the same audience. So far I
know that it is about family conflict again, but with a very
different twist. It will not be set in Cornwall; in fact, it will
probably have a setting closer to my own home environment. I live
near the Kennet and Avon canal and one of my new characters lives on
a houseboat. I am having fun playing with different scenes and points
of view at the moment. I hope I will finish the novel this year. I am
also writing another young fiction title involving animals (again!)
so I am keeping busy. I am crossing all my fingers and toes for
Summer’s Shadow, though. I just hope it does well enough so
that I can feel that I really have broken through into a new market,
as this is an incredibly enjoyable age for which to write.
No comments:
Post a Comment