Ask the Author: Sally Spencer
Answered Questions (12)
Sally Spencer
My publisher suggested that I end the series there, because by then I had written nineteen Woodends, which was a lot for a single detective at the time. I thought it was quite a good idea, because there several unresolved questions (the most important being Bob Rutter's relationship with the poisonous journalist) which needed to be brought to a conclusion, and once they were, the nature of the team would inevitably be changed in a way which neither I or my readers would have liked. Besides, given the chronology of the books, Charlie was due to retire, and I had already planned to move him out of the stone cottage on the moors where I once lived myself to my home on the Costa Blanca. I never planned to abandon him completely, and I haven't. He has appeared in two or three of the Monika Paniatowski novels, and his next appearance will be in one of my Paco Ruiz novels (written as James Garcia Woods) which will be published early next year.
Sally Spencer
Boris Johnson is prime minister. Britain is in danger of sinking without trace.
Sally Spencer
I'm going to try to finish a few of the "heavier" books I've started over the last year or so, so I'll be reading Duff Cooper's excellent biography of Tallyrand and Hobsbawn's history of modern Europe. For fiction, I'd like to read Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials.
Sally Spencer
None I can think of, though I did once write a thriller (as yet unpublished!) based on my experiences in the Iranian Revolution.
Sally Spencer
I feel a little awkward about answering this question, because the only fictional couples that come immediately to mind are the ones in my own books. And it's a bit of a shock to me to realise that all my books do feature couples - Charlie and Monika in the Woodend books, Monika and Beresford in the Paniatowski books, Sam and Ellie in the Blackstone books, Paco in Cindy in the Ruiz books, and Jennie and Charlie in my new Redhead series. I never planned that - I never even realised I'd done it.
Actually, I can think of a couple I rather enjoy - Lucia and Georgie in EF Benson's marvellous books. They are a married couple (although of course they do not allow anything as unpleasant as sex to sour their relationship) and the staunchest of allies in the life or death struggles of social inconsequence which dominate the life of Tilling.
Actually, I can think of a couple I rather enjoy - Lucia and Georgie in EF Benson's marvellous books. They are a married couple (although of course they do not allow anything as unpleasant as sex to sour their relationship) and the staunchest of allies in the life or death struggles of social inconsequence which dominate the life of Tilling.
Sally Spencer
It's hard to say, since I don't know which one's you've read before. I try to make all the books stand-alone, but if you fancy the idea of the Monika series, the first one is THE DEAD HAND OF HISTORY.
Sally Spencer
It's a good question - and I'm not sure I know the answer. Sometimes, with the contract signed and the book expected, I sit down and wrestle with a plot which is highly manufactured and artificial at first, but becomes more organic as the book progresses. Sometimes, I see a location or hear of an event and start to think about how I can build a book around it. And sometimes, almost an entire book just pops into my head, seemingly without any effort at all on my part.
Sally Spencer
It's a process. I agreed with my publishers that I would start a new series, and I didn't want to make it another police procedural, since I am also still writing my DCI Monika Paniatowski novels, so I thought I would write about a female private detective called Jennie Redhead. The next questions was where to set the books. I didn't want to locate them in Whitebridge (as the Paniatowski novels are) or anywhere similar to it, but it had to be somewhere I knew about, and since I had studied in Oxford, I thought I'd set the series there. I then decided that it would involve both the university and the town (later books in the series might involve only one of those two components - I don't know yet), and I came up with a plot which would draw both town and gown into it. But even that was only the beginning - the person I thought was the murderer when I started writing the book turned out to be totally innocent when I reached the end of it.
Sally Spencer
I am just about to start the 12th in my DCI Monika Paniatowski series. I don't have a plot yet, and though I know my characters well, I have no clear idea how they will develop personally in this book (they often surprise me).
Sally Spencer
I've never really had a serious case of it. There are times in the day, or even two or three days at a time, when I feel I can't work, so I do something else - but I've never had a serious long-term block. This may, in part, be because I consider myself a journeyman writer. I have a publisher's deadline to meet and I keep getting emails from my readers asking when the next book is due, and I make myself meet their expectations.
Sally Spencer
I recently picked up a book I published twenty years ago. I had forgotten much of the plot and several of the minor characters, so it was almost as if it had been written by someone else - and I enjoyed reading it.
That was great!
That was great!
Sally Spencer
If you're writing for yourself, then my only advice would be to keep reading and re-writing what you've written until you feel happy with it.
If you're writing to sell, then the first thing to do is to consider what market you're writing for, because very few books (probably none) have universal appeal. Are you writing for the teenage market? An adult market which reads to relax? An adult market which would like to be challenged? Once you have decided, so you should read some books which have been successful in that market, and try to work out what that success is based on. But you should never try to imitate any of these books. You must have your own voice, and if you do not, the reader will not warm to you.
Before you start writing, you should ask yourself what the book will have which will justify the reader giving up several hours of his time (time he'll never get back) to reading it. If you can't say what you hope he will get out of it, then it is probably not worth writing.
You should know much more about your characters than you ever tell the reader. If you have a central character called John, and I ask you what he likes to do to relax, you should know the answer - even if you've never thought about it before - because you know him.
Finally. if you find rejection hard to take, then don't become a writer - a few authors find success with their very first book, but most acquire enough rejection slips to paper a wall with.
If you're writing to sell, then the first thing to do is to consider what market you're writing for, because very few books (probably none) have universal appeal. Are you writing for the teenage market? An adult market which reads to relax? An adult market which would like to be challenged? Once you have decided, so you should read some books which have been successful in that market, and try to work out what that success is based on. But you should never try to imitate any of these books. You must have your own voice, and if you do not, the reader will not warm to you.
Before you start writing, you should ask yourself what the book will have which will justify the reader giving up several hours of his time (time he'll never get back) to reading it. If you can't say what you hope he will get out of it, then it is probably not worth writing.
You should know much more about your characters than you ever tell the reader. If you have a central character called John, and I ask you what he likes to do to relax, you should know the answer - even if you've never thought about it before - because you know him.
Finally. if you find rejection hard to take, then don't become a writer - a few authors find success with their very first book, but most acquire enough rejection slips to paper a wall with.
About Goodreads Q&A
Ask and answer questions about books!
You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.
See Featured Authors Answering Questions
Learn more