Gutted to have missed this! (Working and dealing with dirty laundry rather than stuck on an exotic remote island with no wifi unfortunately). Francesca’s tips are so brilliant and it’s so good to know you don’t have to go on one of those courses as I sort of dread them - but am also desperate to write a novel! Welcome to Glorious Tuga is next on my pile (right after I’ve finished The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell, also brilliant).
I'm coming to the comments a bit late, but if you're reading this Francesca, I read Mother Ship a few years ago. I whizzed through it and it really stuck with me, how well you wrote about something so personal and life-changing. I was pregnant at the time, and it strangely reassured me that whatever happened, we would manage. I'll seek out your novels now!
What you need to know before you write a novel is that you will only EVER have one first novel, so it had better be as good as you can possibly make it. Irish Murdoch put six in a drawer...
It's nearly half ten so just wanted to say thanks, Francesca, for coming along and giving us writing and rewriting tips and behind-the-scenes gossip about Tuga. It's been great and I am off to follow you on Instagram where I hope to see images of an entirely crease-free cat!
Thanks for everyone's questions and please check out Francesca's books. Her latest is available here: https://shorturl.at/OYuIz (the outstanding reviews speak for themselves) and her others are also terrific, including the award-winning The Innocents xx
@Francesca - your father Erich wrote Love Story - yes THAT Love Story! That became the very famous film starring Ali McGraw and Ryan O'Neal. What kind of impact did that have on you growing up - did it make you kind of assume you would be a writer, too? Or quite the opposite?
@Francesca - are there any novels that you return to when you need inspiration? Your first novel, The Innocents, was a modernisation of The Age of Innocence, is that a period of fiction you like generally?
I would 100% read a modern Count of Monte Cristo. or, as you say, pretty much anything. I both really do and really don't want to read Demon Copperhead - not sure I could cope with all the sad children and the hoplessness
Read it Esther! Its absolutely brilliant and I bet a mega- Hollywood version will be out soon and you don't want to watch the film and not have read the book ..
@Francesca - I think receiving "notes" on work is one of the hardest things as a writer, particularly when you are starting out. And people in publishing don't sugar-coat their feedback. How do you deal with frankly the brutality of it?
Francesca thank you so much for writing Welcome to Glorious Tuga. I'm going through a slightly tricky/uncertain time at the moment and I am SO GLAD I picked it up, it's exactly the balm I needed. I'm about halfway through at the moment. Am intrigued by how much research you did on tortoises for the book and how you approached this? It feels all very believable but I'm so interested to know how much is your imagination and how much is drawn from research?
Thank you so much Francesca! That is so interesting. I know absolutely zilch about tortoises, apart from what I am learning from your book, but I do have a bit of experience of remote islands (lucky me) and so much of what you write in Tuga rings true. Am looking forward to checking out your first book and will definitely find you on Instagram :)
Hahaha. My husband and I took a month off over Christmas for our honeymoon and went to Colombia, ooh ten and a half years ago now. We were hoping to get over to Providencia for New Year (inspired by this now long-ago article: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2009/sep/13/colombia-caribbean) but alas the boats did not run because of bad weather (a bit of a theme in Tuga too!) so we got stuck on neighbouring and slightly less remote San Andres.
It was a very nice place to be marooned - glorious sunshine and white sand beaches of course, everything happens at a very slow pace, everyone was entirely unbothered about the boat being five days late (except for us, we were on a tightly planned by me schedule where we tried to cram in as many adventures as possible!). The locals speak a gorgeous Creole where snippets sound very familiar. Somewhere we have a CD of the local music, must dig it out. On New Year's Eve we danced to a brass band (again echoes of Tuga!) singing "Take me back to the island"... would quite like to be there today instead of in rainy Devon tbh. Memories!
Possibly not your dream hol Esther, there were a few snakes knocking about in various parts of Colombia and I didn't much enjoy that, particularly the big black one that had to be carted out by a man in enormous galoshes
@Francesca, publishing has become a pretty risk-averse industry and authors are increasingly seeking a "sure thing" when they write a novel. Attending a creative writing course or taking a masters seems to be an increasingly popular solution - what's your view on that?
I think so many of them are a bit scammy... sure if you get on the NYU one or the East Anglia one, great, but I think there are a lot of people ready to prey on author's dreams! Sorry that sounds so awful doesn't it. I also do kind of think that creative writing courses turn out quite similar novels and more of the same isn't what we need. I know I'm possibly alone in thinking this
I loved Welcome to Glorious Tuga. Please can you tell us a bit about how you decided to move from your earlier, more 'serious' novels, onto something so charming and delightful. Did you get resistance from editors? publishers? Also, where is Tuga really? Is it like The Simpsons' Springfield?!
I will have to get out my atlas! I'm very much hoping that anyone who didn't get a happy ending this time, gets one in Books 2 and 3. Is there anything you are allowed to tell us about them just yet?
Thank you both so much for this generous offer. I agree that anyone can write - writers rewrite. Do you have any tips as to how to do so incisively? I'm an inveterate tinkerer but find it hard to get the distance I need to radically re-envision anything. Me with a pen knife over here wanting a sword .
I'm keen to know your approach to structure - after a 20 year hiatus I've come back to writing and I've managed to write 12,000 words in the past month but they all seem to be 'scenes' that I can't string together in a compelling way to drive the plot forward.
Laura Francesca doesn't need to read how-to books to write novels, but if you are a How-To kind of person (I am) there IS a very good book on Structure called "Save the Cat Writes a Novel". it's a little silly and you don't have to follow it word for word, but it has some great ideas for structure and plot if you need to re-group
Yeah, and the bit where they take your through the published novels and look at the A Story, B Story, etc, it's like a literary version of Inside the Factory with Greg Wallace (although writing should not, of course, be like a rice krispie factory . . . !)
sorry that was a bit presumptuous of me wasn't it. not sure how much save the cat will tell you that you don't already know, but it will give you a laugh!
Thank you for these words. I’m an artist and your advice is absolutely as valid for painting as for writing. Swap the word ‘adverb’ for ‘mark’ and you have it.
I don’t have a question but just wanted to say how much I adored Welcome to Glorious Tuga, and as such would encourage you to get right back to work on the next in sequence! The whole setting felt incredibly vibrant and tangible, and the characters were cosy but not twee. The entire book felt like a hug!
Gutted to have missed this! (Working and dealing with dirty laundry rather than stuck on an exotic remote island with no wifi unfortunately). Francesca’s tips are so brilliant and it’s so good to know you don’t have to go on one of those courses as I sort of dread them - but am also desperate to write a novel! Welcome to Glorious Tuga is next on my pile (right after I’ve finished The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell, also brilliant).
I'm coming to the comments a bit late, but if you're reading this Francesca, I read Mother Ship a few years ago. I whizzed through it and it really stuck with me, how well you wrote about something so personal and life-changing. I was pregnant at the time, and it strangely reassured me that whatever happened, we would manage. I'll seek out your novels now!
What you need to know before you write a novel is that you will only EVER have one first novel, so it had better be as good as you can possibly make it. Irish Murdoch put six in a drawer...
It's nearly half ten so just wanted to say thanks, Francesca, for coming along and giving us writing and rewriting tips and behind-the-scenes gossip about Tuga. It's been great and I am off to follow you on Instagram where I hope to see images of an entirely crease-free cat!
Thanks for everyone's questions and please check out Francesca's books. Her latest is available here: https://shorturl.at/OYuIz (the outstanding reviews speak for themselves) and her others are also terrific, including the award-winning The Innocents xx
@Francesca - your father Erich wrote Love Story - yes THAT Love Story! That became the very famous film starring Ali McGraw and Ryan O'Neal. What kind of impact did that have on you growing up - did it make you kind of assume you would be a writer, too? Or quite the opposite?
Yes there must definitely have been that element for you that this is a career that's possible.
@Francesca - are there any novels that you return to when you need inspiration? Your first novel, The Innocents, was a modernisation of The Age of Innocence, is that a period of fiction you like generally?
Is there another novel that you occasionally think would work brilliantly in a modern setting?
I would 100% read a modern Count of Monte Cristo. or, as you say, pretty much anything. I both really do and really don't want to read Demon Copperhead - not sure I could cope with all the sad children and the hoplessness
Read it Esther! Its absolutely brilliant and I bet a mega- Hollywood version will be out soon and you don't want to watch the film and not have read the book ..
@Francesca - I think receiving "notes" on work is one of the hardest things as a writer, particularly when you are starting out. And people in publishing don't sugar-coat their feedback. How do you deal with frankly the brutality of it?
Francesca thank you so much for writing Welcome to Glorious Tuga. I'm going through a slightly tricky/uncertain time at the moment and I am SO GLAD I picked it up, it's exactly the balm I needed. I'm about halfway through at the moment. Am intrigued by how much research you did on tortoises for the book and how you approached this? It feels all very believable but I'm so interested to know how much is your imagination and how much is drawn from research?
Thank you so much Francesca! That is so interesting. I know absolutely zilch about tortoises, apart from what I am learning from your book, but I do have a bit of experience of remote islands (lucky me) and so much of what you write in Tuga rings true. Am looking forward to checking out your first book and will definitely find you on Instagram :)
Louise we need to know more about the remote islands immediately
Hahaha. My husband and I took a month off over Christmas for our honeymoon and went to Colombia, ooh ten and a half years ago now. We were hoping to get over to Providencia for New Year (inspired by this now long-ago article: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2009/sep/13/colombia-caribbean) but alas the boats did not run because of bad weather (a bit of a theme in Tuga too!) so we got stuck on neighbouring and slightly less remote San Andres.
It was a very nice place to be marooned - glorious sunshine and white sand beaches of course, everything happens at a very slow pace, everyone was entirely unbothered about the boat being five days late (except for us, we were on a tightly planned by me schedule where we tried to cram in as many adventures as possible!). The locals speak a gorgeous Creole where snippets sound very familiar. Somewhere we have a CD of the local music, must dig it out. On New Year's Eve we danced to a brass band (again echoes of Tuga!) singing "Take me back to the island"... would quite like to be there today instead of in rainy Devon tbh. Memories!
What a honeymoon!
bloody hell
Possibly not your dream hol Esther, there were a few snakes knocking about in various parts of Colombia and I didn't much enjoy that, particularly the big black one that had to be carted out by a man in enormous galoshes
@Francesca, publishing has become a pretty risk-averse industry and authors are increasingly seeking a "sure thing" when they write a novel. Attending a creative writing course or taking a masters seems to be an increasingly popular solution - what's your view on that?
I think so many of them are a bit scammy... sure if you get on the NYU one or the East Anglia one, great, but I think there are a lot of people ready to prey on author's dreams! Sorry that sounds so awful doesn't it. I also do kind of think that creative writing courses turn out quite similar novels and more of the same isn't what we need. I know I'm possibly alone in thinking this
Hi Francesca!
I loved Welcome to Glorious Tuga. Please can you tell us a bit about how you decided to move from your earlier, more 'serious' novels, onto something so charming and delightful. Did you get resistance from editors? publishers? Also, where is Tuga really? Is it like The Simpsons' Springfield?!
I will have to get out my atlas! I'm very much hoping that anyone who didn't get a happy ending this time, gets one in Books 2 and 3. Is there anything you are allowed to tell us about them just yet?
So pleased to hear this! I so want to hear about Annie and Alex as grown ups.
Sorry, Spikers, if you haven't read WTGT yet. You should though!
Tom Lake was so good!!!
Thank you both so much for this generous offer. I agree that anyone can write - writers rewrite. Do you have any tips as to how to do so incisively? I'm an inveterate tinkerer but find it hard to get the distance I need to radically re-envision anything. Me with a pen knife over here wanting a sword .
I'm keen to know your approach to structure - after a 20 year hiatus I've come back to writing and I've managed to write 12,000 words in the past month but they all seem to be 'scenes' that I can't string together in a compelling way to drive the plot forward.
Laura Francesca doesn't need to read how-to books to write novels, but if you are a How-To kind of person (I am) there IS a very good book on Structure called "Save the Cat Writes a Novel". it's a little silly and you don't have to follow it word for word, but it has some great ideas for structure and plot if you need to re-group
Probably one of the best on structure, I agree!
I mean... doesn't mean that your novel will sell, but at least it helps you finish the damned thing right xx
Yeah, and the bit where they take your through the published novels and look at the A Story, B Story, etc, it's like a literary version of Inside the Factory with Greg Wallace (although writing should not, of course, be like a rice krispie factory . . . !)
sorry that was a bit presumptuous of me wasn't it. not sure how much save the cat will tell you that you don't already know, but it will give you a laugh!
@Francesca, tell us more about what inspired you to write Glorious Tuga?
Thank you for these words. I’m an artist and your advice is absolutely as valid for painting as for writing. Swap the word ‘adverb’ for ‘mark’ and you have it.
I don’t have a question but just wanted to say how much I adored Welcome to Glorious Tuga, and as such would encourage you to get right back to work on the next in sequence! The whole setting felt incredibly vibrant and tangible, and the characters were cosy but not twee. The entire book felt like a hug!