Ask the Author: Julie Highmore
Answered Questions (6)
Julie Highmore
The American’s Cousin
A couple of years back, I had the crazy idea of a detective who was also a grandmother as my central character. I imagined her as single, mid to late forties, attractive, with few domestic skills and one or two dodgy habits. I saw her car-chasing criminals with a toddler strapped into a seat behind her, or doing surveillance whilst pushing a buggy and passing as a doting grandmother – which, obviously, she would also be.
Here in the UK, we had an excellent TV series called Last Tango in Halifax, featuring a forty-something woman, Gillian, who was left to run a Yorkshire farm single-handedly after (sort of accidentally, or maybe not) bumping off her abusive husband. When her teenage son got his girlfriend pregnant, Gillian found herself still running the farm but now with a baby on her hip. She was funny, spoke her mind, liked a drink, and had enough residual energy to jump into bed with most of the men, young and not so, who came through the farm gate. Gillian was beautifully played by Nicola Walker (whose face I saw throughout the writing of The American’s Cousin!)
Another hugely popular and pretty gritty TV series was Happy Valley, starring Sarah Lancashire as a tough uniformed cop who was also a hands-on grandma. It was when Sarah Lund in the final season of The (Danish) Killing also became a grandmother, that I realised I hadn’t had that original an idea, after all - I’d just tuned into the zeitgeist!
Julie (doting gran)
A couple of years back, I had the crazy idea of a detective who was also a grandmother as my central character. I imagined her as single, mid to late forties, attractive, with few domestic skills and one or two dodgy habits. I saw her car-chasing criminals with a toddler strapped into a seat behind her, or doing surveillance whilst pushing a buggy and passing as a doting grandmother – which, obviously, she would also be.
Here in the UK, we had an excellent TV series called Last Tango in Halifax, featuring a forty-something woman, Gillian, who was left to run a Yorkshire farm single-handedly after (sort of accidentally, or maybe not) bumping off her abusive husband. When her teenage son got his girlfriend pregnant, Gillian found herself still running the farm but now with a baby on her hip. She was funny, spoke her mind, liked a drink, and had enough residual energy to jump into bed with most of the men, young and not so, who came through the farm gate. Gillian was beautifully played by Nicola Walker (whose face I saw throughout the writing of The American’s Cousin!)
Another hugely popular and pretty gritty TV series was Happy Valley, starring Sarah Lancashire as a tough uniformed cop who was also a hands-on grandma. It was when Sarah Lund in the final season of The (Danish) Killing also became a grandmother, that I realised I hadn’t had that original an idea, after all - I’d just tuned into the zeitgeist!
Julie (doting gran)
Julie Highmore
Read and re-read books you wish you'd written, and take note of the style of the author. I remember some advice I once came across, saying it's a good idea to actually copy pages of a book you like, sentence by sentence, until you get a feel for the pace, dialogue, tone, etc. I didn't actually try this, but before writing my first novel, Country Loving, I read several humorous diary-form novels - Bridget Jones, Samuel Marchbanks and others - and I'm sure they helped me get going on my own. Obviously, in your own work, you shouldn't just copy the style of another author, but figuring out, or simply absorbing, how writers you admire form their stories might help you find a 'voice' you feel comfortable with.
Julie Highmore
It's true that I didn't do much rewriting at all for the first nine romance/family themed books, and that most of the changes I did make were suggested by my editor. However...writing a crime novel is very different, which is why it took me over two years to produce The American's Cousin. Having finished the first draft in around ten months, I sent it out to friends and family members to read and some of the feedback suggested that the action and tension wasn't maintained throughout the second half of the book, despite the end being quite twisty and dramatic. I could see what they meant and so set about rewriting the second half. It took me about six months, and judging from the responses I received for the new version, it was worth the effort. Hopefully, I've now got the hang of keeping up the suspense!
Julie Highmore
I'm writing the second Edie Fox book, to follow The American's Cousin. I don't want to give too much away, but following a dramatic first case for rookie PI Edie, a client arrives at her door with an unbelievable story that the police would never take seriously enough to investigate - but will Edie and her team?
Julie Highmore
What I love most about writing is getting to the point when the characters have become so real to me that I wake up each day excited at the prospect of 'seeing' them again. That might sound a bit sad to those of you with proper engaged-with-the-world lives, but I'm actually very happy hanging out with my imaginary friends! The second best thing about being a writer is the pay... (couldn't find the laughing emoji...)
Julie Highmore
I tend to get writer's block only when I'm trying to decide what book to write next - characters, setting, storyline. Then, once I begin the novel, I become quite absorbed and rarely stop until it's finished. My new book is (almost) the exception. The American's Cousin took me three years, on and off, to complete - perhaps because I was writing in a different genre, while also trying to keep some aspects of the previous books that I knew my readers liked, such as family dynamics and humour. Even then, I wasn't exactly blocked - just slow! The second in the series is definitely coming more easily.
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