The only thing that works is to actually stop thinking about the book. And I’ve learned that it’s pointless for write-it-up Teresa to sit at the desk in despair asking – where’s the story. Now as an author, my brain seems stuck in this split mode, seeing plotting as entirely separate from writing.
Back then my working life was divided into two separate processes – newsgathering….and writing it up. I started in newspapers and ended up fronting a BBC TV news programme for fifteen years. I think it may stem from my decades as a journalist. (Believe me, I’ve tried!) The best way I can describe it is that this plot-making part of my brain is like an app which works brilliantly in the background but if I open it and confront it demanding action, it simply freezes. They feel like entirely different people and I simply can’t force make-it-up Teresa to the desk. Make-it-up Teresa and write-it-up Teresa. You see my brain seems to be split entirely in two when I write fiction. (I had enough rejection in my early years to know it’s pointless writing a novel unless it’s a book with a hook!) So this is when my process becomes infuriating and I just have to wait. I liked the idea of putting the two together – troubled Hannah and an idyllic cottage that suddenly turns very dark.īut I knew I needed a strong premise next. This gorgeous cottage for a time (until I pulled myself together!) felt alien. Suddenly I was listening out for every creak of the floorboard at night. But then one night, I noticed a reference in the visitor book to a ghost and I’m embarrassed to say it completely threw me.
This particular cottage had owls hooting in the nearby woods and I adored it. We used to have a lot of bucket-and-spade holidays on The Lizard in Cornwall when the children were small. I started to think a lot about an idyllic cottage in Cornwall that I’d stayed in with my family twice. The problem? For quite a long time, I had no idea what current story to put her in. For Tell Me Lies it was troubled Hannah – still so haunted by a childhood trauma – who first stepped into my writing room. So this is how it goes when I’m starting a new book…Ĭharacters always come first for me.
It’s not ideal and I often wish I could work a different way but I can’t and so I’ve finally made peace with it. Sadly, I’m not one of those authors who can give my editor a list of five ideas and say – pick one.īetween us, my process is a bit strange and in my writing life, it has to feel as if the story has picked me. Ideas for books always take time in my world. | Reply More Inspiration behind Tell Me Lies, the sixth psychological thriller by two million copy bestselling author Teresa Driscoll
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