Today I am REALLY happy to welcome Holly Seddon to the blog answering some questions about her brilliant debut novel – you can see what I thought about it HERE and more details about it follow after the questions. Thanks SO much Holly and to her publisher Corvus books.
A pretty standard question to open but trust me, this is endlessly fascinating for readers even if writers must get sick of answering it – but tell us a little about the original inspiration behind “Try not to Breathe” – what started it for you?
It started with Amy, my character in a long-term coma. I was cooking a roast dinner and listening to a health programme on the radio where they were discussing persistent vegetative states. They interviewed some of the relatives of patients in that condition, some of whom had been trapped like that for years, and someone described it as a “living death”. That phrase stuck with me and I started to imagine a murder victim who didn’t quite die but wasn’t really alive… And what would happen to her loved ones as the years passed.
Giving Amy, locked inside her own mind, a “voice” in the narrative worked so beautifully – I kept finding myself anticipating what she might be thinking next – I wondered how much of that is realistic? In the sense of any research you did into patients in coma/vegetative state after trauma, who might perhaps have recovered and remembered the experience?
Thank you, I’m glad it felt realistic and respectful. That was my main concern, that anyone whose loved one had been affected by something so harrowing wouldn’t find my imagined approach offensive. It’s such a rare condition with a poor prognosis that there’s very little source material but I did draw on accounts and autobiographies from people who had undergone similar traumas or related conditions. There’s an amazing memoir, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby who suffered with locked-in syndrome following a huge stroke. He dictated the whole book by blinking, which I can’t even begin to imagine. Mostly though, and I think it’s important to say this, I used masses of artistic licence.
Amy is stuck, but in a lot of ways Alex is too – she may be conscious in the real world but her personal demons haunt her. For me the two characters had an underlying connection in that way – talk a little about constructing that character, what did you hope readers would take from her? (And will she return? She feels like she has more to say!)
Ah, Alex. My girl. I actually started writing Alex for pretty self-serving reasons. I needed someone to stumble upon Amy and then have the skills and desire to solve her cold case. So – coming from a journalism background myself – it made sense that she’d be a writer, and she needed to be living in a small town despite her glittering background, so I gave her some ‘challenges’ but then she took on a life of her own and her own story started to emerge and, I know this sounds pretentious, but she kind of tugged me down some dark alleys with her. She wasn’t all planned out from the get-go, far from it.
I always said Try Not to Breathe was a standalone novel with no plans for a follow-up, but… A lot of people have asked if Alex could come back and I’ve really started to miss her in recent months. I like the idea of her tackling some other cold cases so we’ll see!
Of course the other important person in this story is Jacob who has never truly moved on from Amy or let her go – this felt very real – did you speak to anyone that had a loved one in this situation (although perhaps not due to violent circumstances) or do you have any personal experiences that fed into Jacob’s character?
I didn’t speak to anyone who’d been through similar as such but I have spent a little time in hospitals with loved ones. I found that I drew on my teenage experiences and those of my friends for young Jacob though.
The storytelling for me was atmospheric and beautiful – you juggle a lot of layers especially with an eye to the personal relationships, as a writer how do you plot? Is it all laid out in your mind, do you always know where things are going to end up? Or is some impulsive?
Thank you so much. I plot loosely but if I did a chapter-by-chapter outline I’d hate the novel and myself before I’d even started writing. I find that a basic framework is important so I don’t just flim flam around but I need to see how the characters emerge and what ideas pop up along the way.
Try Not To Breathe for me was a novel that evoked a strong emotional response. Do you have any books you have read that have particularly affected you? Made you laugh, cry, think? Really I’m looking for some recommendations…
I’m a very emotional reader! I can’t even discuss Life After Life or A God In Ruins (Kate Atkinson) without choking up. I also loved Laura Barnett’s The Versions of Us. That kept me awake and weepy a few times.
Tell us a little about you in 5 easy soundbites:
* Tea, coffee or other?
Tea – I live in The Netherlands where no-one has milk in their tea and the teabags aren’t ‘the same’ so I buy bumper packs of British teabags from the M&S in Amsterdam. I need my tea.
* Real book or e-book?
My husband bought me a Kindle about five Christmases ago and I read a lot more as a result and became braver with my choices too. It’s so much easier to download a book on a whim or in the middle of the night and I’m a big fan of e-books BUT I do love the smell and feel of a real book. We’ve just bought a house and the first – and only, so far – renovation we’ve made is to have a proper bookcase built in so we can finally get all our books on the shelves. I expect to be buying a lot more ‘real’ books as a result.
* An author that gives you writers envy
Kate Atkinson.
* Healthy eating or chocolate?
Eating healthy… in theory. But if you’d said cheese instead of chocolate, different answer!
* One thing you would desperately want to have if stuck on a desert island.
A notepad and pack of pencils. Can that count as one? Maybe if they were purchased as some kind of set? Please?!
Thanks so much!
My pleasure!
About the book:
You won’t be able to put it down.
Just remember to breathe.
Alex is sinking. Slowly but surely, she’s cut herself off from everything but her one true love – drink. Until she’s forced to write a piece about a coma ward, where she meets Amy.
Amy is lost. When she was fifteen, she was attacked and left for dead in a park. Her attacker was never found. Since then, she has drifted in a lonely, timeless place. She’s as good as dead, but not even her doctors are sure how much she understands.
Alex and Amy grew up in the same suburbs, played the same music, flirted with the same boys. And as Alex begins to investigate the attack, she opens the door to the same danger that has left Amy in a coma..
Try not to Breathe is available NOW from Corvus and you can purchase it HERE
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Happy Reading!
