At every book festival and event, there are certain perennial questions that authors have to answer. The first is obvious 'What's the novel about?' - if authors didn't answer this, no one would join their queue to buy a signed copy of the novel they're promoting.
The other favourite question usually comes from the audience. 'Where do you get your ideas from?'
Let's start with the first one - what is my new novel If I Were You about?
The central characters are two sisters, Tessa and Maddie. The story opens in Tessa's viewpoint:
Picture this – your life is falling apart. Your health is broken, your career’s imploded, your marriage feels shaky. You haven’t seen your sister, Maddie, for three years. She’s moved away leaving no forwarding address.
And then, without warning, Maddie turns up on your doorstep with a baby in her arms. She says she’s fled a dangerous relationship. She needs your help.
Your sister doesn’t know that you have been seriously ill. That you struggle to get out of bed each morning and need a cocktail of meds to keep going. You don’t tell your sister this. She still believes you’re the lucky one, the successful one and that she’s a failure.
You owe your sister nothing. If she’s messed up her life, it’s her own fault. The last time you saw her was at the wake following your Mum’s funeral when she, and her lowlife partner, caused a massive scene. Your husband threw them out of your house. After that you couldn't contact her. You thought she was lost to you forever.
Sympathising with her plight, you agree to let Maddie and baby, Leon, stay for a while to hide from her vengeful partner.
But a day later, Maddie disappears leaving Leon in your care.
With your life in meltdown, you’re in no fit state to care for Leon. Why not hand the baby over to social services while the police search for Maddie and find out what’s happened to her? Or can you find the strength to step into your sister’s shoes and take responsibility for her son?
What would you do?
Let's move on to the second question 'Where do you get your ideas from?'
The inspiration behind If I Were You and the story of sisters Tessa and Maddie is an idea that has always fascinated me. The life swap. I don't mean the kind that you see staged for reality TV where couples from different backgrounds exchange homes and act out each other's lives in a way that’s like a freak show hyped up for a TV audience.
I’m thinking about those quirks of fate where someone’s life changes in an instant. In real life, a family member has to step up following a death or tragedy. They may have to put their own lives and careers on hold to care for a children. My main characters (Tessa and Maddie) aren't close. They have a difficult adult relationship. It's tainted by the roles forced on them in childhood and by their position in the family. Tessa is five years older than Maddie and was always seen as the successful one by their parents. Maddie rebelled, believing her sister was favoured. This had devastating consequences for the choices she makes in later life. Especially when it comes to men ...
For me, the joy of writing psychological suspense fiction is creating flawed characters. Normal people who make a bad choices and wrong decisions, such as covering up a secret or a crime, believing the wrong person or - like Maddie - suddenly disappearing. Ordinary people might be caught up in extraordinary circumstances. Or maybe those people weren't ordinary or normal at all. Perhaps they are sociopaths or narcissists hiding in plain sight. These are the questions the author must wrestle with when writign the novel and provide a breadcrumb trail for readers to follow as they try to work out the twists before all is revealed.
Psychological suspense fiction is prime territory for antagonists who may seem evil but must still have a realistic back story to make them believable. These characters might appear attractive or compelling. In two earlier novels(Girl Out of Sight and The Girl in the Van) I've written about human trafficking and modern slavery. While doing my research, I've discovered that perpetrators will spend months, or even years, grooming their victims. The techniques they use to lure people in can be hard to detect. Their victims have no idea they are walking into a trap - until that trap has been sprung. If you are fascinated by reading about devious or dangerous characters, you’ll find a masterful one in If I Were You.
So let's wrap up with that question of where authors’ ideas come from. I think the best answer I’ve heard came from Kamila Shamsie, author of Home Fire, on a panel at Charleston Festival. ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ asked an audience member. And Kamila replied, ‘If I knew that, I’d go there more often.’
If I Were you is available from Amazon now at https://mybook.to/IfIwereyou