Emily Critchley: 'Suspense in mystery and thriller fiction is key and I knew I needed to keep readers guessing'
BY Emily Powter-Robinson
23rd May 2023
Former student, Emily Critchley, has written several books for children and young adults including her debut Notes on my Family and her middle grade novel The Bear who Sailed the Ocean on an Iceberg both published by independent publisher Everything With Words. Now, her debut adult novel, One Puzzling Afternoon, is being published by Zaffre an imprint of Bonnier on 25 May 2023.
We spoke with Emily about the importance of writing groups for aspiring authors, tackling the notoriously tricky dual timeline and the inspiration behind her 82-year-old protagonist.
You took our six-week online Writing a Psychological Thriller course in 2020 and our Writing Crime Fiction course back in 2021. How did the courses impact your approach to writing?
Both courses taught me the importance of knowing your genre. Suspense in mystery and thriller fiction is key and I knew I needed to keep readers guessing, keep them turning the page. I also wanted to create a character readers could root for and would want to spend time with. In Writing a Psychological Thriller, I learned to think about premise and how to sustain suspense by asking a series of questions, some of which may be answered early on in the book, others that won’t be answered until closer to the end. Writing Crime Fiction taught me how to plant plausible red herrings that won’t fault the reader’s reasoning, and write fully fleshed-out suspects driven by their own desires and motives. The reading lists for both courses were fantastic and I now feel I have a much better understanding of the expectations of the genres.
Many of our students find lifelong writing friends on our courses. Are you still in touch with anyone you met on our courses?
I was already a member of a writing critique group when I took the Curtis Brown Creative courses and felt joining another might be too much to keep up with! I know, however, that students from both courses went on to form writing groups and stayed in touch. Writing courses and groups are so important for new and aspiring writers. Your writing friends are your champions, your writing support group and, being avid readers, offer honest and impartial feedback.
Your latest book One Puzzling Afternoon is being published by Zaffre in May 2023. It is described as a dual-timeline novel that balances heartfelt tenderness with a suspenseful mystery as elderly Edie Green uncovers the clues behind her best friend's disappearance before the truth is lost in her memory forever. Can you tell us a bit more about the novel and the inspiration behind it?
The novel started from two lines that came to me one day out of the blue. ‘I first see Lucy Theddle standing outside the Post Office on Tuesday afternoon. Looking exactly the same as she did in nineteen fifty-one.’ I knew the voice was an elderly woman’s, and that Lucy had been a school friend. But how could she look the same? I had to figure it out. I didn’t do anything with the lines for a year or so but they wouldn’t leave me alone. I knew I had to write the book. I decided Lucy had gone missing in 1951 and that the mystery of her disappearance had never been solved. I also had an idea for an eccentric female character who was living in a small town in post-war Britain conducting séances for the local community. She became Edie’s mother in the 1951 timeline. After writing the first few present day chapters I realised that Edie was often confused and that she was in the early stages of dementia.
Dual timelines can be notoriously tricky to navigate but you manage to weave the past and the present together seamlessly to build suspense. How did you go about approaching a dual timeline?
I wrote my first draft straight through from beginning to end, alternating between the two timeframes. I really enjoyed writing the book in this linear way as it meant I could be with Edie in 2018 for a week or so and then switch to the fifties, and then back again. Writing dual timelines can be tricky; they need to be interconnected, playing off against each other so the transitions don’t feel jarring for the reader and the timeframes aren’t two separate pieces of work but part of a coherent whole. I was very aware I needed to keep a consistent pace as I built towards a reveal in both timeframes. Various sections were added or moved during the editing process and I found the 1950s timeline needed more editing in order to develop the various plot strands, but I really love both timelines equally.
One Puzzling Afternoon is your debut adult novel. You’ve written several books for children and teens, including your YA novel Notes on My Family which was nominated for the Carnegie medal. Did you face any new challenges or surprises when writing your first adult fiction novel?
I’ve always enjoyed writing from the perspective of teens as not only are they experiencing so many significant events and emotions for the first time but because they usually feel like outsiders. I believe this can also be true of the elderly in that they are on the margins of society, no longer seen. Although I was writing for a different audience, I was still writing a teenage character in the 1950s timeline, and luckily the older Edie’s voice, along with her fears and frustrations also came quite easily.
What first inspired the character of Edie Green? What techniques did you use to inhabit the voice of an 82-year-old woman?
I really love books written about, or from the perspective of, older female characters such as Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, or Laura Palfrey in Elizabeth Taylor’s Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, and mystery novels too of course. I believe it was this love of the older or elderly woman in literature that first inspired Edie. I am interested in what it must feel like to have so much life and past behind you, and in the unreliability of memory. For Edie in One Puzzling Afternoon, the past and present are becoming blurred which makes her quest to solve the mystery of Lucy’s disappearance even more challenging.
Alongside writing, you work part-time as a secondary school librarian where you run a popular creative writing club. How did your students react when you told them that One Puzzling Afternoon was going to be published?
The students have been so supportive. They were thrilled when I told them One Puzzling Afternoon was going to be published. I feel very lucky to be running a creative writing club and witnessing the developing work of some very talented young writers. I try my best to inspire them but more often than not, they inspire me. They trust their imaginations and have such amazing ideas.
Finally, what’s next for your writing journey?
I’m currently working on my next adult fiction novel. I’m afraid I can’t say too much about it yet, but watch this space!
One Puzzling Afternoon, is being published on 25 May 2023. Pre-order your copy here.
Find out more about took our six-week online Writing a Psychological Thriller course and our Writing Crime Fiction course here.
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