Kitty Johnson's Blog - Posts Tagged "closest-kept"
The Before Trilogy and Closest Kept
A while ago now, I fell deeply in love with the Before series of films: Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013) starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, directed by Richard Linklater.
If you haven’t seen them, the films follow the spark and evolution of a relationship between a couple - Jesse and Celine - who meet on a train (in Sunrise) and decide to spend a night in Vienna walking and talking the night away. They meet again in Paris after 9 years apart (in Sunset), and then, (in Midnight) we pick up with them 9 years later on holiday in Greece after they’ve had two children together. The actors and the characters age in real time, and the films were an amazing collaboration between the actors and the director, with the actors helping to write their own dialogue. And dialogue is what the films are really about - hours of conversations between Jesse and Celine about life and love, time, self-discovery, age, loss, and parenting as the couple gets to know and love each other.
The films largely break the “show don’t tell rule”, and yet remain - to me, and thousands of others - hugely interesting, all those conversations brimming with subtext and crackling with attraction, vulnerability and emotion. Humour too.
So what has the Before trilogy got to do with Closest Kept? Well, when I set out to write a novel about the shifting relationships between two couples, I had the kind of subtext and emotions of those long conversations between Jesse and Celine in my mind. I wanted to try and see if, here and there, I could create something similar - to allow the reader to really get an insight into the dynamic between the friends and lovers as well as to get to know the individual characters. I was unsure, when I started working with a developmental editor, whether these long scenes of dialogue would make it into the finished novel, or whether I’d be asked to cut them down.
So much about the novel deepened and changed during the developmental editing process - it was a painful, but extremely worthwhile experience which I’ve spoken about before. The novel is certainly very much stronger than it was before all the changes. But, hurrah, those two long scenes of conversations between Lily, Inga, Matt and Alex that were so close to my heart survived pretty much intact.
You can read them - and the rest of the novel - from publication day on 6th May.
If you haven’t seen them, the films follow the spark and evolution of a relationship between a couple - Jesse and Celine - who meet on a train (in Sunrise) and decide to spend a night in Vienna walking and talking the night away. They meet again in Paris after 9 years apart (in Sunset), and then, (in Midnight) we pick up with them 9 years later on holiday in Greece after they’ve had two children together. The actors and the characters age in real time, and the films were an amazing collaboration between the actors and the director, with the actors helping to write their own dialogue. And dialogue is what the films are really about - hours of conversations between Jesse and Celine about life and love, time, self-discovery, age, loss, and parenting as the couple gets to know and love each other.
The films largely break the “show don’t tell rule”, and yet remain - to me, and thousands of others - hugely interesting, all those conversations brimming with subtext and crackling with attraction, vulnerability and emotion. Humour too.
So what has the Before trilogy got to do with Closest Kept? Well, when I set out to write a novel about the shifting relationships between two couples, I had the kind of subtext and emotions of those long conversations between Jesse and Celine in my mind. I wanted to try and see if, here and there, I could create something similar - to allow the reader to really get an insight into the dynamic between the friends and lovers as well as to get to know the individual characters. I was unsure, when I started working with a developmental editor, whether these long scenes of dialogue would make it into the finished novel, or whether I’d be asked to cut them down.
So much about the novel deepened and changed during the developmental editing process - it was a painful, but extremely worthwhile experience which I’ve spoken about before. The novel is certainly very much stronger than it was before all the changes. But, hurrah, those two long scenes of conversations between Lily, Inga, Matt and Alex that were so close to my heart survived pretty much intact.
You can read them - and the rest of the novel - from publication day on 6th May.
Hurrah! Publication day for Closest Kept!
Today’s the day! CLOSEST KEPT is officially released into the world, taking along with it long hours of work and re-crafting, hundreds of lines of dialogue delivered to me from my characters as I walked the dog, and emotions - plenty of emotions! As a writer, I always feel things along with my characters, and there was a lot to feel with Lily, the viewpoint character of CLOSEST KEPT. I like to think that, were she able to read the novel, she’d like the way I told her story, even if she found the words painful to read at times.
CLOSEST KEPT celebrates friendship and the power of taking the risk to face up to what might be holding you back in life. I hope you enjoy it, and if you do, I’d be eternally grateful if you could help to increase visibility by leaving a review!
CLOSEST KEPT celebrates friendship and the power of taking the risk to face up to what might be holding you back in life. I hope you enjoy it, and if you do, I’d be eternally grateful if you could help to increase visibility by leaving a review!
