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9 S. V. Leonard | Crime Thriller Author
275 Plays4 years ago
Crime writer, Sarah Leonard is in this week telling us all about her journey to publication with debut thriller, The Islanders, which is Agatha Christie meets reality television. A murder/mystery whodunit set on the backdrop of a Love Island/Survivor style show.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Right and Wrong' Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
So our podcast is called Right and Wrong.
00:00:02
Speaker
Are these your notes?
00:00:03
Speaker
These are your notes about what we're going to say.
00:00:06
Speaker
What does it say?
00:00:06
Speaker
I thought it would be a good... I didn't even get the idea.
00:00:12
Speaker
Maybe I can just ask you the question.
00:00:16
Speaker
It's going well.
00:00:16
Speaker
It's going really well.
Meet the Hosts and Guest Author Sarah Leonard
00:00:22
Speaker
Welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast.
00:00:24
Speaker
I'm Jamie.
00:00:25
Speaker
And I'm Emma.
00:00:26
Speaker
And today we are speaking to author of crime thriller novel, The Islanders, Sarah Leonard.
00:00:31
Speaker
Hello, Sarah.
00:00:32
Speaker
Thank you for joining us.
00:00:34
Speaker
Hi, thank you for having me.
00:00:36
Speaker
Oh, it's our pleasure.
00:00:37
Speaker
Thanks so much for joining us.
00:00:38
Speaker
And it's such an exciting time, fresh off the release of your debut novel.
Launching a Debut Novel During a Pandemic
00:00:43
Speaker
How has it been and how is it going?
00:00:46
Speaker
Oh, it was so much fun.
00:00:48
Speaker
So I guess it's quite different to what it would usually be like if we were allowed sort of out and about.
00:00:56
Speaker
But it was just a really, I don't know, it was just a really nice day.
00:01:00
Speaker
The sun was shining.
00:01:03
Speaker
Family bought me lots of nice gifts and friends sent flowers and things.
00:01:08
Speaker
It was sort of like my birthday and Christmas all rolled into one.
00:01:14
Speaker
That's great.
Viral Book Signing with Teddy Bears
00:01:16
Speaker
The funniest thing was I filmed a little video, like a pandemic book signing, and I lined all my teddy bears up because I'm at my family home at the moment.
00:01:28
Speaker
And I lined them all up and asked Winnie the Pooh who I was making the book out to.
00:01:33
Speaker
And people on Twitter were obsessed with it.
00:01:37
Speaker
It had like 17,000 views and it was just shared and shared and shared.
00:01:42
Speaker
And lots of teddy bear fans have bought the book, even though there are no teddy bears in the book.
00:01:50
Speaker
That is one way to market your book, isn't it?
00:01:52
Speaker
Literally.
00:01:53
Speaker
Well, exactly.
00:01:54
Speaker
It's quite off brand though, for what the book is itself, a crime thriller book.
00:02:00
Speaker
It is, it is.
00:02:01
Speaker
And then I thought, oh my goodness, what if people think that it's a children's book and then they buy it for their child?
00:02:08
Speaker
Start buying it for six-year-olds.
00:02:10
Speaker
Yeah,
Synopsis and Genre of 'The Islanders'
00:02:15
Speaker
definitely.
00:02:15
Speaker
And just for the listeners now, do you want to give us a quick summary of the blurb yourself?
00:02:22
Speaker
Yes.
00:02:23
Speaker
So The Islanders is sort of Agatha Christie meets reality TV.
00:02:30
Speaker
So I'll just read a little section.
00:02:32
Speaker
I'll just read the back out because I've got it and it's probably more sensible than I can come up with.
00:02:40
Speaker
So Kimberly King has spent five years running from the reason she left the police force.
00:02:46
Speaker
She is desperate for a fresh start, so she can't say no when she's selected for the hit dating television show Love Wreck.
00:02:53
Speaker
If she wins the cash prize, she can finally move on.
00:02:57
Speaker
But Love Wrecked isn't the paradise she was promised.
00:03:00
Speaker
Within hours, one of the contestants is dead.
00:03:03
Speaker
Then the announcement comes.
00:03:05
Speaker
One of the Islanders is a murderer, and Kimberly must find out who.
00:03:09
Speaker
For every hour it takes her, one more person will die.
00:03:13
Speaker
The game is rigged, everyone is hiding secrets, and time is running out.
00:03:18
Speaker
Ooh, the drama.
00:03:21
Speaker
There's so much drama condensed into that kind of very powerful concept right there.
00:03:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:29
Speaker
It's a sort of murder mystery, Love Island with a bit of Hunger Games thrown in.
00:03:34
Speaker
Is that right?
00:03:35
Speaker
Yeah, basically sort of Survivor, Love Island, Agatha Christie.
00:03:40
Speaker
It's great.
00:03:41
Speaker
Well, it sounds absolutely brilliant.
00:03:44
Speaker
And so zeitgeist as well.
00:03:46
Speaker
There's so much in there which is so relevant to consumerism and the way that we see entertainment nowadays and very much the dangers of said entertainment.
Inspiration and Narrative Devices
00:03:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:58
Speaker
Could you let us in maybe on the sort of inspirations behind that kind of wild idea?
00:04:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:05
Speaker
I mean, it's funny that you say it being very relevant and zeitgeisty.
00:04:11
Speaker
I don't consider myself to be particularly relevant or zeitgeisty.
00:04:15
Speaker
And everyone keeps saying that.
00:04:17
Speaker
And I'm like, gosh.
00:04:17
Speaker
So it's...
00:04:20
Speaker
It actually came to me very quickly.
00:04:25
Speaker
I mean, I had been writing before.
00:04:27
Speaker
I hadn't been, I wasn't writing crime.
00:04:31
Speaker
I had actually started by writing young adult fantasy.
00:04:35
Speaker
That was the first sort of novel I ever wrote.
00:04:39
Speaker
And I'd already decided to sort of let that go.
00:04:42
Speaker
And I was thinking, you know, what else can I, what's my next idea, basically?
00:04:49
Speaker
And I was it was as simple as I was I was watching Love Island and reading another sort of crime novel at the time and the worlds of it just collided.
00:04:59
Speaker
And I thought, wouldn't it be great if this was where somebody decided to.
00:05:06
Speaker
sort of have you know be the kind of location for for their crimes and have it all you know played out on on screen so it came to me very quickly the kind of this meets this um and I wrote it very quickly I wrote it in a couple of months um obviously it's fast yeah I got I got feedback on it and then it and then I edited it and made changes um
00:05:31
Speaker
So that process took a bit longer.
00:05:34
Speaker
But yeah, it just came to me and then I had to figure out why and how everybody else on the show was brought in.
00:05:44
Speaker
And so it needed a bit of planning, but it did actually come to me like a sort of
00:05:50
Speaker
in a flash sort of like a lightning bolt and I definitely overused that phrase in in my writing I'm like it came like a flash and I think it's because that's how this came to me amazing and something I really like about it is a little a little thing you do where the chapters are kind of broken up by these um online magazine reports yeah yeah it's so good it's spyland is it spyland.co.uk yeah spy
00:06:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:19
Speaker
And then, and then you even throw in the like tweets, the, from like trash queen 2000 and these, these various different people online that I love things like that, where you break up the, the divides and the chaps and things like that, especially with, and this isn't a spoiler.
00:06:35
Speaker
I don't think because I'm literally going to talk about the prologue.
00:06:38
Speaker
The very first thing you read in the book is, is basically saying what has happened.
00:06:44
Speaker
And then you go into how that got there and that's how the story unfolds.
00:06:49
Speaker
I think that's brilliant.
00:06:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:06:51
Speaker
They were really, they were really fun to write and not wildly different from the types of headlines you'll see on certain news outlets.
00:07:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:03
Speaker
So, you know, like daily mail headlines, um,
00:07:07
Speaker
are a source of inspiration.
00:07:11
Speaker
That's a rare thing to hear from an author.
00:07:13
Speaker
Yeah, literally.
00:07:14
Speaker
It doesn't sound very highbrow.
00:07:16
Speaker
No, like Jamie said, it's a really interesting way to switch between writing techniques.
00:07:22
Speaker
And was it something that you always wanted to do when you were writing the book or was it something that you came to whilst you were writing the book?
00:07:30
Speaker
Well, I liked, I wanted to use...
00:07:34
Speaker
those because what was important to me was that it was it's all streaming live um and obviously because of that that people would have an opinion um and you know the the first thing is well if it is streaming live and somebody's been murdered why has the channel not cut it well the channel does cut it but then obviously when there's a will there's a way to find something on the internet um yeah so i wanted to make
00:08:04
Speaker
what was going on in the outside world available to the reader without having to have another character.
00:08:11
Speaker
And so the articles were a really good way of doing that.
00:08:16
Speaker
And then emails, I used some emails for backstory, which is another good way of giving backstory without giving too much away because you're just seeing the purpose of the email.
00:08:29
Speaker
But no, I really enjoyed doing that.
00:08:32
Speaker
the articles um and they came very naturally in terms of writing style felt like I knew how to write those articles so they were really they were really fun um and the prologue allowed me more time to get to the to the island without the prologue I felt that it was a bit um
00:08:55
Speaker
you almost didn't know whether the show was going to be.
00:08:58
Speaker
Obviously, it says on the back, but whether it was going to be a murder show or whether it was going to be a romance novel, whereas the prologue makes it clear that
00:09:07
Speaker
oh, right, no, this is what has happened, and then you wait to find out how we got to that point.
00:09:14
Speaker
So, no, that was really, really useful.
00:09:17
Speaker
And I enjoyed, yeah, I enjoyed playing around with the different types, and wanted, it's pushing the boundaries of what might actually happen on a reality television show, but I wanted to add those news articles that,
00:09:32
Speaker
to add that level of believability that, well, this is happening and this is how the outside world is responding.
00:09:39
Speaker
And actually some people aren't that bothered that it's happening.
00:09:42
Speaker
They're quite enjoying the drama and lots of people don't necessarily believe that it's happening and they think it's all, you know, it's all just part of the show for ratings.
00:09:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:09:52
Speaker
And I remember when I was writing it, there was, I got a notification on my phone from, I can't remember what, it was either the Daily Mail or the Mirror or something like that.
00:10:02
Speaker
And it said apparently a killer loose nearby the celebrity camp.
00:10:08
Speaker
It made me think, well, this is happening.
00:10:10
Speaker
And then obviously with COVID, people in my brother in Germany being told about COVID.
00:10:16
Speaker
All these articles do exist when things are happening on the outside world.
00:10:21
Speaker
And I liked that.
00:10:23
Speaker
I liked having the difference between what's going on inside and what's going on outside without needing a whole nother character and a story and a,
00:10:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:32
Speaker
So that's why I decided to do it.
00:10:34
Speaker
It's very effective.
00:10:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:36
Speaker
And current concept as well, isn't it?
00:10:38
Speaker
It's just so current towards like what you said, the news articles as well, because obviously there's so many stories coming out in the press at the moment where people are affected by these certain news articles and things like that as well.
00:10:50
Speaker
And it just, it just goes to show, it really shines a light on that as well.
Genre Transition and Career Journey
00:10:55
Speaker
Um, yeah,
00:10:56
Speaker
And to bringing it back to just like the beginning in your writing journey, I know that you just said that you did write a fantasy novel, was it?
00:11:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:05
Speaker
That was your first piece of writing.
00:11:08
Speaker
So what happened with that and what was your process with entering into the writing sphere, really?
00:11:14
Speaker
Is it something that you always wanted to do?
00:11:15
Speaker
Did you train or how did that go for you?
00:11:19
Speaker
So it didn't...
00:11:22
Speaker
I didn't really start.
00:11:23
Speaker
The YA fantasy novel was actually the first thing I ever wrote.
00:11:29
Speaker
I mean, as a child, I remember I wrote a story once in primary school about sort of three little white dogs, and I was absolutely...
00:11:38
Speaker
obsessed with it and you know there was going to be an audio book and you know that was it I really really wanted to do that and then I I don't really know I mean I've always known that I can write whether it was you know school essays or you know university essays I've always been able to do that and it's always come very naturally to me but I never thought that
00:12:02
Speaker
I would write a novel.
00:12:03
Speaker
I mean, when I was at university, I did a lot of play production and I was always in awe of the people who wrote the play.
00:12:10
Speaker
I mean, I'm still in awe of people who write plays.
00:12:12
Speaker
I think they're all, it's a very different medium to writing a novel.
00:12:15
Speaker
But I never thought that it was something that I wanted to do or could do.
00:12:19
Speaker
And then I had the idea for this YA fantasy.
00:12:23
Speaker
It's sort of been tumbling about in my head for ages.
00:12:27
Speaker
And then when I was...
00:12:30
Speaker
when I was living abroad and I, you know, I just moved there and I didn't have that many friends.
00:12:35
Speaker
So I had more, more time on my hands.
00:12:38
Speaker
I just started writing one day.
00:12:41
Speaker
Um, and, um,
00:12:43
Speaker
I just sat down and started writing.
00:12:46
Speaker
I actually started it on the notes on my phone.
00:12:49
Speaker
I used to have to travel a lot when I was abroad, sort of around the region that I was living in.
00:12:55
Speaker
And I would just write on airplanes when I was in taxis on my mobile phone.
00:13:02
Speaker
And then I remember thinking, this is actually quite a lot of words.
00:13:05
Speaker
I should probably move it across somewhere.
00:13:08
Speaker
And then I got to about 20,000 words.
00:13:11
Speaker
I don't know how I got there.
00:13:13
Speaker
I went back to the beginning and looked at it and thought, oh my God, that's terrible.
00:13:17
Speaker
And so they made changes and then started doing lots of research how to write a book.
00:13:23
Speaker
And YouTube became my go-to place for information.
00:13:28
Speaker
There's one particular author on there who has
00:13:32
Speaker
loads of videos about, you know, how to write a book, the different types of genres, the different age categories, word counts you need, everything about writing and industry as well.
00:13:43
Speaker
You know, getting an agent, how publishing works.
00:13:47
Speaker
And I just inhaled all of the videos that she had available at the time.
00:13:52
Speaker
And it really helped me finish the book, rewrite the book.
00:13:57
Speaker
And I rewrote it a couple of times.
00:14:00
Speaker
And I did...
00:14:01
Speaker
I did query it.
00:14:03
Speaker
I got a couple of requests from agents, but ultimately it didn't go anywhere.
00:14:07
Speaker
And I do think that it's because it wasn't really the right genre for me.
00:14:15
Speaker
I don't read very much YA fantasy.
00:14:17
Speaker
I don't read very much fantasy.
00:14:19
Speaker
And actually, when you start engaging in the fantasy reader world or writing world, you know, there's such huge fans.
00:14:28
Speaker
And a fantasy reader will read
00:14:29
Speaker
Absolutely every, you know, maybe not every fantasy, but they're really well versed in it.
00:14:35
Speaker
Whereas I was a bit more shallow in my knowledge of it.
00:14:39
Speaker
And I realized that everything I listen to, everything I read, everything I watch on television is usually crime related.
00:14:49
Speaker
So when I made the switch, it felt much more natural.
00:14:55
Speaker
But in terms of my journey, and this is always something I say to people who want to write, is to just sit down and write.
00:15:03
Speaker
I always had an eye when I started writing and it just felt so natural and so fun.
00:15:09
Speaker
I really, really enjoyed it.
00:15:11
Speaker
I then thought, OK, well, I would like to pursue publication.
00:15:14
Speaker
Admittedly, at the moment, I only have a 30...
00:15:17
Speaker
30,000 words, you know, rubbish, rubbish of words.
00:15:21
Speaker
But keeping my eye on, well, what word count do I need for it to fit into this genre?
00:15:28
Speaker
How would I get an agent?
00:15:31
Speaker
Thinking about the journey really, really helped me because it forced me to be more professional, I guess, thinking about what those next steps were.
00:15:39
Speaker
And yeah, just doing all that research and actually just sitting down and writing.
00:15:45
Speaker
And I think what helped me,
00:15:47
Speaker
was that I wasn't stressed about the fact that it was rubbish in the beginning.
00:15:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:52
Speaker
Because I know when I chat to people who want to write but maybe haven't finished something, they get very hung up on what each sentence might mean or their ideas, whereas I just started writing and carried on writing.
00:16:08
Speaker
And it flowed very naturally.
00:16:09
Speaker
That's really good.
00:16:10
Speaker
I think, well, for me, I know that I needed to write a book and that was kind of how I learned to write a book.
00:16:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:19
Speaker
In a weird kind of chicken and egg situation.
00:16:21
Speaker
That's what I would say that how I learned.
00:16:24
Speaker
I mean, some people get published off their first book and, you know, it's brilliant and they just, they just nail it.
00:16:29
Speaker
But yeah, for me, and I think a lot of other people, you learn to write a book by writing a book.
00:16:34
Speaker
And, and if we go going back to you, you mentioned that you did submit your YA fantasy to agents.
Publishing Journey and Second Book
00:16:42
Speaker
I'm wondering, um, I mean, I don't know what the pitch was for that, but the Islanders is such, it's such a strong concept.
00:16:50
Speaker
Like it's such a pitchable concept.
00:16:53
Speaker
Did you notice like in the way that the agents responded to you when submitting that, did you notice the difference in terms of how quickly they jumped on that concept?
00:17:06
Speaker
Not necessarily in the beginning, I don't think, because my sort of journey was quite different.
00:17:14
Speaker
Okay.
00:17:15
Speaker
Because I...
00:17:17
Speaker
I sent it to, this time last year, I participated in PitMad, the sort of Twitter competition.
00:17:24
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:17:26
Speaker
And didn't really get anything from it.
00:17:28
Speaker
But at the same time, had also applied for a mentorship program, which I didn't get.
00:17:34
Speaker
Two authors who were mentors gave me feedback.
00:17:38
Speaker
They didn't select me, but they gave me loads of feedback.
00:17:41
Speaker
And then I spent lots of time...
00:17:45
Speaker
you know, making those changes.
00:17:47
Speaker
And then six months later, when it was the next pitch competition, I'd polished my pitch and really like practice, you know, practice what it would look like.
00:17:56
Speaker
And then that did really well.
00:17:59
Speaker
And I got, you know, that's how I got my publisher in the end.
00:18:02
Speaker
But I got agent, I got agent likes from that.
00:18:06
Speaker
And that very quickly turned into, you know, full requests.
00:18:10
Speaker
So yeah.
00:18:11
Speaker
And also not just with,
00:18:14
Speaker
agents and publishers, but also with readers, being able to pitch it.
00:18:20
Speaker
Not every book you'll be able to do this with, but it's much easier with a book that has a very clear
00:18:29
Speaker
It is sexy.
00:18:32
Speaker
It's a sexy pitch.
00:18:34
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:18:35
Speaker
It's a good one because I've talked a lot with writing friends and other authors and even some agents about like the importance of the pitch.
00:18:45
Speaker
And, you know, you'll never find out 100%, but there's some books that you see and you think that was picked up on purely on just a brilliant concept.
00:18:56
Speaker
And we've heard from agents, like when they look at submissions, they say, they think to themselves, okay, how can I market this?
00:19:05
Speaker
How do I get a publisher to take this on?
00:19:07
Speaker
And when it's something as strong as, you know, Love Island meets Hunger Games, you know, it kind of sells itself.
00:19:14
Speaker
which is absolutely brilliant.
00:19:16
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:19:17
Speaker
And even around the time of the pitch contest, another publisher that you can send direct to, they'd reached out and said, this sounds really good, send it to me when it's finished.
00:19:34
Speaker
So that helped.
00:19:36
Speaker
I knew, I think, which is why I was so excited about it because
00:19:41
Speaker
my YA fantasy, although I'd also sort of pitched that as, it was sort of like, it was inspired by Plato's Republic.
00:19:50
Speaker
So there were kind of three classes of people and it worked really hard to refine that pitch.
00:19:58
Speaker
But obviously it is hard to stand out in a fantasy.
00:20:03
Speaker
Well, I think it is.
00:20:04
Speaker
There's a good thing about crime or the good thing about, say, psychological thriller is you can just pose the question.
00:20:11
Speaker
of what would happen if or you know somebody's looking at a body and they don't call the police and then you know something that can hook people um I found I did find it harder in that genre to have that really obvious hook um and I think it's because I'm not a big reader in that in that genre either so I don't know what would attract me whereas I'm
00:20:36
Speaker
I just had a really good gut feeling about this particular book.
00:20:41
Speaker
Actually, that reminds me.
00:20:43
Speaker
I pitched, so DHH Literary Agency, who I'm now with, do a pitch contest every year.
00:20:56
Speaker
I was going to say last year, this happened when I did my interview on my publishing day that I can never remember the years we're in because last year just kind of went away.
00:21:06
Speaker
I know exactly what you mean.
00:21:10
Speaker
It was 2018.
00:21:12
Speaker
I had a yearly pitch session where you get 10 minutes in front of an agent and they do it every year for free to support authors, which I think is really great.
00:21:21
Speaker
I was in my home city.
00:21:26
Speaker
So I had applied and was accepted.
00:21:29
Speaker
And even by the time that I was pitching then, I already had started and had the idea for this particular book.
00:21:39
Speaker
So when I went, I sort of said to the
00:21:42
Speaker
agent that I was pitching to, well, yes, you know, this book's this YA fantasy, yeah, yeah, great.
00:21:48
Speaker
But also I have this other idea.
00:21:49
Speaker
What do you think about it?
00:21:52
Speaker
And she sort of said, I could just see that she had a, she thought it was quite exciting and she said, oh, send it to me when you're done.
00:22:02
Speaker
And it ended up being, it wasn't her, it was another agent at that literary agency who offered me representation.
00:22:13
Speaker
And so that was just quite a... And at the time, she was organizing the pitch contest, and I didn't even know that, you know, at the time I was talking with my... the person who would become my agent.
00:22:24
Speaker
I could see then that there was... it had legs, and that got me excited.
00:22:31
Speaker
No, that's great.
00:22:32
Speaker
And you've, off the back of that, you've already signed a two-book deal, is that right?
00:22:36
Speaker
Yes, yeah, two-book deal.
00:22:38
Speaker
Yeah, so I imagine you're pretty, like, into the next...
00:22:42
Speaker
writing of the next one is is that right yes yes so um i i've taken a sort of took a break from it last week because of my
00:22:52
Speaker
my debut week but yes I'm about 60 understand yeah yeah of course got to celebrate at some point haven't you so yeah I know I can be so guilty of thinking well I've done that now just focus on the next thing so I I forced myself to not um to not work on it over the weekend over the those couple of days in the weekend even though I was twiddling my thumbs a little bit feeling like oh my god I should be working on it um but
00:23:20
Speaker
Yeah, I'm about 60,000 words in to the second one.
00:23:24
Speaker
And my, yeah, again, once I know what I'm writing, I have the idea, I can fly through things pretty quickly.
00:23:32
Speaker
But I have actually now sent the overview to my editor because I said, oh,
00:23:39
Speaker
there's a couple of things I'm not sure about here.
00:23:42
Speaker
You know, I sent her the overview and then sent a long bullet pointed list of all the things that I didn't like.
00:23:48
Speaker
And I wondered what her feedback was.
00:23:51
Speaker
So when she sends me that, I'll be back into it.
00:23:55
Speaker
Yeah, that's great.
00:23:55
Speaker
How do you find the editing process?
00:23:57
Speaker
I know that you said previously that you can kind of, you find it quite easy to edit your own words and you can go back and
00:24:05
Speaker
sort of um rip that apart and then rewrite but when somebody else is ripping your words apart how do you find that I know it can be quite daunting for some and and it quite easy to let go for others yeah I think I mean it it really does depend on the person giving you that feedback and how much you um how well firstly how harsh they are when they give it and
00:24:31
Speaker
You know, obviously if they messaged me and said, well, this is a load of crap, that would be hard.
00:24:37
Speaker
That would be hard to take.
00:24:41
Speaker
But I always knew that it would be part of it and I was quite prepared for it.
00:24:47
Speaker
And I think I'm quite a collegiate person, so I do like getting feedback and I like having somebody, you know, I love having somebody that I can bounce these ideas off.
00:24:59
Speaker
And even before I submitted, I sent the manuscript to a friend who, I know they say you shouldn't send it to your friends, your family, but I knew that she would give me the feedback that I needed.
00:25:13
Speaker
And she's just excellently blunt.
00:25:15
Speaker
She'd sort of say, no, it's terrible.
00:25:18
Speaker
Always good.
00:25:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:19
Speaker
We've all got that for one friend.
00:25:20
Speaker
Ending is absolutely rubbish.
00:25:25
Speaker
Must change.
00:25:29
Speaker
That helped me.
00:25:30
Speaker
And also with the mentorship, you know, the two authors that sent me feedback, it meant that I had to delete the first sort of 10 chapters of The Islanders when I first read.
00:25:41
Speaker
started and I you know copied and pasted it and I moved it across to a document that I wasn't totally deleting and actually some parts I did pull back in um but with Sian so Sian
Editing Process and Feedback
00:25:54
Speaker
Heap my editor I mean her her cover letter was just you know I absolutely love the book this is amazing here are the things that I want you to
00:26:04
Speaker
to change.
00:26:05
Speaker
She was so, so gentle.
00:26:07
Speaker
It was like, please don't be offended.
00:26:08
Speaker
I think this will make it better.
00:26:10
Speaker
And I completely agreed with everything that she suggested.
00:26:15
Speaker
There was nothing that I felt so precious.
00:26:20
Speaker
I know that I'm new.
00:26:21
Speaker
I know that this is the first book I've ever
00:26:25
Speaker
you know, have ever got published.
00:26:27
Speaker
So I would, I want somebody to give me that critical feedback.
00:26:31
Speaker
I want to make it the best that it can be.
00:26:34
Speaker
I'm sure there are always things that I could, I could make better, but I really like getting,
00:26:39
Speaker
I really liked getting feedback, especially when it was so nicely delivered is the way Sian delivered it.
00:26:46
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:26:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:47
Speaker
So get a nice publisher.
00:26:49
Speaker
That's the lesson of this.
00:26:50
Speaker
Take away.
00:26:52
Speaker
If they're coming at it from a from that collegiate perspective.
00:26:58
Speaker
And I think you can tell, you know, sometimes I write at the beginning, I'd work with some critique partners who,
00:27:06
Speaker
wouldn't be quite as helpful and would be much more either cutting or I felt like I didn't really agree with them.
00:27:15
Speaker
Whereas with, you know, the friend and with the way Sian presents her information, it will be either she'll say, I think you should do this, or she'll ask me the question and then we will discuss it.
00:27:27
Speaker
So it's all about working together, not about her saying, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this.
00:27:32
Speaker
So that's what I thought was really important.
00:27:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:35
Speaker
There's definitely a skill to critiquing.
00:27:40
Speaker
We've talked about this before on the show.
00:27:42
Speaker
When you spend time with a writing group, you learn how everyone is and how everyone works with writing and the craft.
00:27:53
Speaker
With that knowledge, you know how to approach each other.
00:27:56
Speaker
It's like learning to speak a language to a certain person in some ways.
00:28:02
Speaker
Yeah, and I think different people want different things.
00:28:06
Speaker
I know that I'm quite a logical person.
00:28:10
Speaker
So I like if somebody says this isn't working because of this and this might be a better option or something along those lines, then I'm quite easily convinced in that sense because I might say, oh, yeah, that sounds really sensible.
00:28:27
Speaker
Let's make changes.
00:28:28
Speaker
Whereas if somebody just said, yeah, I don't like that.
00:28:33
Speaker
That doesn't give me anything.
00:28:34
Speaker
It's not very constructive.
00:28:35
Speaker
It's not constructive.
00:28:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:37
Speaker
And speaking of groups and advice and mentors, if you were able to rewind the clock, go back to a time before you had been signed by an agent published, what advice would you give yourself?
00:28:52
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:28:54
Speaker
Oh, I don't know.
Reflection and Personal Influences
00:28:55
Speaker
I think I quite enjoyed the journey so far.
00:28:59
Speaker
I mean, my advice would probably be don't write fantasy.
00:29:07
Speaker
Go straight into crime.
00:29:09
Speaker
So maybe give myself more time to think about what genre I want to write.
00:29:16
Speaker
But actually, I am really happy with the way, I mean, maybe even start earlier because I...
00:29:24
Speaker
when I discovered writing and I really, I really, really enjoy it, it would have been great to, to have even started earlier.
00:29:32
Speaker
I mean, I'm only 30, so I hope I've got a long career ahead of me still, but, but yeah, just to, to, to give myself that opportunity to have started earlier, I think would have been, would have been great.
00:29:45
Speaker
But I, I,
00:29:46
Speaker
I did actually think there was value in writing that first novel because letting it go was such a valuable lesson to learn.
00:29:55
Speaker
You know, it had been the first thing I'd ever written.
00:29:59
Speaker
I'd learned so much on it.
00:30:00
Speaker
It was almost like a training bike, you know, that when I let it go, I wouldn't want to change the experience I had when I was writing it and when I was learning how to write and that excitement about writing it.
00:30:15
Speaker
So,
00:30:16
Speaker
I mean, yeah, maybe think about, think more about the genre that I want to write.
00:30:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:23
Speaker
Find the genre that's right for you.
00:30:25
Speaker
But do, maybe I could have given it, given it up a bit earlier than I did.
00:30:31
Speaker
But overall, I'm pretty happy.
00:30:33
Speaker
But that's a hard, that's a tough skill.
00:30:35
Speaker
It's a tough skill to learn is, is, is knowing when to give up.
00:30:39
Speaker
words as it were because you put your heart and soul into every sentence so you know giving up just a paragraph or like a whole chapter that's hard enough giving up a whole book you know that's something that a lot of people will have to do as authors not many people publish their first book I think that's the reality of it.
00:30:57
Speaker
Yeah I think what we've learned through this as well Jamie I don't know whether you agree is that you know I think
00:31:02
Speaker
it's so important, like what you've said, Sarah, to be able to let go.
00:31:06
Speaker
And that's the main sort of take out is that you definitely, it's so prevalent in everyone we've spoke to that they've just had this skill of just letting an idea go or a full book or a, or, you know, concept and kind of honing in on what their, you know, their skill is and what story they want to tell and in which way that is right for them, which I think is, you know, it's really important.
00:31:30
Speaker
valuable yeah definitely I think I have I'll have to do so I mean I haven't answered the advice question particularly well because I I do I am really appreciative of the journey I think it's been it's been really good and I've found lots of
00:31:46
Speaker
lots of great resources and met lots of great people and it has got me to this point but on the letting it go point even now with the islanders it's out in the world there'll be people that love it there'll be people that like it there'll be people that don't and there'll be people that absolutely hate it and I need to now let that go I'm not quite at that stage yet
00:32:07
Speaker
But it's true, it's out now.
00:32:09
Speaker
There's nothing I can change.
00:32:11
Speaker
I'm really proud of it, but I have to let go and move.
00:32:15
Speaker
My headspace is still quite in this one, I guess, because it's my first.
00:32:20
Speaker
But I hope as time goes on, I'll be a bit better at that sort of chain, where the wheel of moving on to the next one.
00:32:30
Speaker
Yeah, definitely.
00:32:31
Speaker
And you've like lived and worked across the world, really.
00:32:36
Speaker
How much of those different cultures do you think and experiences have informed your writing?
00:32:42
Speaker
So my first book, the fantasy book, was really inspired by, well, partly Plato's Republic, but also living in Malaysia because there's sort of three different cultures.
00:32:57
Speaker
main cultures and ethnicities that live in Malaysia.
00:33:02
Speaker
So, Malay Malaysians, Chinese Malaysians and Indian Malaysians.
00:33:07
Speaker
And just seeing the way that they all interacted and the way that they kind of worked as a community really informed my writing, even sort of the dress and the names of
00:33:20
Speaker
And yeah, and everything.
00:33:21
Speaker
I'd say the island has been less inspired by living abroad.
00:33:27
Speaker
It was mostly inspired by just, yeah, watching reality television.
00:33:35
Speaker
And crime.
00:33:36
Speaker
Yeah, to some extent.
00:33:37
Speaker
I mean, one of the characters initially in the book was Polish because I've lived in Poland and my boyfriend is Polish.
00:33:47
Speaker
And so I wanted to bring that in.
00:33:49
Speaker
in some way.
00:33:51
Speaker
But yeah, then the naming didn't work.
00:33:55
Speaker
And he said, oh no, you can't, you know, the name in Polish would be very complicated.
00:33:59
Speaker
And I thought, oh, that would just, that'll terrify people.
00:34:01
Speaker
So I changed her to being Russian in the end.
00:34:04
Speaker
Honestly, when we found out that we were interviewing yourself, Jamie was like,
00:34:09
Speaker
this is the person you'd love to speak to, Emma.
00:34:12
Speaker
She has wrote this reality TV sort of concept thing.
00:34:17
Speaker
All I have watched through lockdown is reality TV and crime, Sarah.
00:34:21
Speaker
So this is my perfect sort of just book in general.
00:34:26
Speaker
What have you been watching?
00:34:28
Speaker
Is there anything you'd recommend?
00:34:29
Speaker
Below Deck is what she's been watching.
00:34:32
Speaker
Below Deck.
00:34:33
Speaker
There you go, Jamie.
00:34:35
Speaker
Jamie knows.
00:34:36
Speaker
Jamie knows.
00:34:36
Speaker
Below Deck, which honestly, the first three seasons, awesome.
00:34:40
Speaker
Kind of teeters off, but then it's good.
00:34:42
Speaker
And then is it married at first sight in Australia?
00:34:46
Speaker
What an absolute whirlwind.
00:34:47
Speaker
Yeah, I've seen that advertised.
00:34:49
Speaker
I really enjoyed what was the one where you, they can't, love is blind.
00:34:56
Speaker
Love is blind.
00:34:57
Speaker
I had a great time watching that.
00:35:00
Speaker
Although I got a bit annoyed because it kept saying love is blind and then everybody was incredibly attractive.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:07
Speaker
It's not that much of a risk, is it?
00:35:10
Speaker
I know exactly.
00:35:11
Speaker
It didn't really make sense, but I loved it anyway.
00:35:14
Speaker
It was so good.
00:35:15
Speaker
But I think that brings us nicely on to the last question.
00:35:18
Speaker
Jamie, would you do the honours, please?
00:35:21
Speaker
I would love to do the honours.
00:35:23
Speaker
The final question, Sarah, is if you were marooned on a desert island with nothing but one book, which book would you take with you?
00:35:35
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:35:37
Speaker
So I think it would have to be a book that I could read multiple times.
00:35:44
Speaker
Can it be a collection or just one book?
00:35:47
Speaker
Well... I mean, people have found many ways to cheat and manoeuvre around the system.
00:35:55
Speaker
What collection would it be if it could be a collection?
00:35:57
Speaker
I think it would be a toss-up between...
00:36:01
Speaker
like the Winnie the Pooh collection, because I just think those books are great and very, you know, very philosophical.
00:36:11
Speaker
So true.
00:36:12
Speaker
Great.
00:36:13
Speaker
And then the other one probably would be very basic, which gets said a lot, I'm sure, Pride and Prejudice.
00:36:20
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:36:21
Speaker
I mean, it's a classic.
Desert Island Book Choice and Farewell
00:36:23
Speaker
It'll never go out of fashion.
00:36:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:24
Speaker
And I think it's probably one of the only books that I can read
00:36:29
Speaker
I mean, so Harry Potter, I can listen to time and time again on, you know, on audiobook with Stephen Fry.
00:36:36
Speaker
So, you know, if an audiobook was involved, it would have to be that.
00:36:39
Speaker
But Pride and Prejudice, I can, I have read and can read multiple times.
00:36:43
Speaker
I'm not that good at rereading books.
00:36:46
Speaker
I think Pride and Prejudice is one of the only ones I've reread more than once.
00:36:51
Speaker
So it would have to be Pride and Prejudice.
00:36:53
Speaker
Oh, great.
00:36:53
Speaker
That's wonderful.
00:36:54
Speaker
That's wonderful.
00:36:55
Speaker
Well, thank you so much, Sarah, for coming on the show.
00:36:57
Speaker
Yeah, thank you.
00:36:59
Speaker
It's been so insightful talking to you and I'm sure for all the listeners as well.
00:37:03
Speaker
So...
00:37:03
Speaker
thank you go and buy sarah's book now because it's out um so yes the islanders check it out exactly it'll be i should say that i actually write under sv leonard so it's the islanders by sv leonard ah yes the islanders by sv leonard is there a reason why you write under sv leonard yeah well i um i i work full time um so and i have a
00:37:30
Speaker
professional work contacts and that sort of stuff so and you know a linkedin profile so um i thought it was helpful to have the separation between between the two oh definitely yeah yeah perfect very sensible i think we were hoping for like a kind of secret agent answer to that but that makes a lot more sense yeah that and i've killed i've killed lots and lots of people there it is
00:37:56
Speaker
To keep up with everything that Sarah is doing, you can follow her on Twitter at SV Leonard or on Instagram at SV Leonard author.
00:38:03
Speaker
To make sure you don't miss an episode of this podcast, follow us on Twitter at writing one UK and on Instagram at writing one podcast.
00:38:09
Speaker
Thanks so much for listening and we'll catch you in the next one.