Things I am always trying to put in novels which never really fit
- Urban legends. Like that one about the
woman who lost her pinky finger in the mad sales at a shopping centre, picked
it up off the floor, and finished her Christmas shopping before going to the
hospital to have it reattached. I don't think this has actually ever happened,
but I have been told it by a few people who swore that their cousin/best
friend/aunt swore it was true. I am always trying to include stupid (and often made up) anecdotes
in stories where they don't fit. Also I love this story: it's hilarious, and
even though I am fairly sure it didn't happen, I can imagine that it might.
- A girl called Wolf. Between
writing Girl Saves Boy and my bank robbery book (which is being published next
year), I wrote this really wacky, really terrible murder mystery novel called
Signs & Wonders (I still like that title. I can't remember where I stole it
from). The central character was sarcastic and obnoxious and her name was Wolf.
But the book was terrible! And I still liked the name! So in another novel I
started but never finished, she was the freckled, mysterious (how's that
combination?) object of another protagonist's affection. But that name didn't
really fit with her and there wasn't enough of a story to sustain that novel to
novel-length, and so I gave the name Wolf to the twin of a narrator of another
story I never finished. I think I need to give up on the name.
- Girls with male names
generally. I have trouble with gender-appropriate names. This is often because
the genders of my characters change a lot.
- Single narrators. Everything
that I write that's vaguely successful (by which I mean everyone who reads it
doesn't hate it) has multiple narrators. I have started many, many novels with
just the one narrator, and finished a couple of them, but they are always
terrible. I do not know why.
- Non-linear timelines. I always
want to go all Pulp Fiction/Memento and write a book out of order, which is
thrilling and fast-paced and great. Sometimes I try and include time travel as
well, just to get really tricky. It never works out. Everything written out of
order ends up back in order when I'm editing, because really, it's just
confusing.
- Sarcastic, cigarette-smoking
grandmas. Geraldine in Girl Saves Boy is sarcastic and cigarette-smoking, but
she is not a grandma. My grandmother is certainly not sarcastic and
cigarette-smoking. I don't think I would write that sort of character quite as
much if she were.
- Twins. I have a lot of failed
novels about twins.
