How I Wrote We Are Family by Louise Walters
Like all my novels, it’s rather difficult to describe how I wrote We Are Family. I don’t actually remember writing much of it… sometimes my novels just seem to appear, to grow… 20,000 words… 40,000 words… I do remember how this one started, though.
Circa 2007: I was taking a creative writing course as part of my Open University literature degree. We had a writing exercise… I think it was for a play script… and I can’t recall the precise prompt, but I think it was two characters in conflict: a pretty standard dramatic, and fictional (and real life) scenario. And I wrote about two women, Jennifer and Alison. Alison suspects her husband is having a fling… and her imagination takes her to a dark place, even suspecting that he is having this fling with Jennifer, her oldest and best friend.
Of course, her husband is not having a fling at all. But somebody else is, and that’s the basis of the novel. Without giving too much away, Jennifer and Alison’s friendship is put through the wringer.
This little scene I wrote for the OU course went on the back burner, for years. Life took over (more babies) and another novel took root in my mind. This became my first published novel, and to date, my only trade published novel. I then wrote another novel, and another… I set up my indie press, and pretty much wrote nothing of my own for four or five years… then I wrote and self-published my novella, another project that had been hanging around for a long time.
I have accepted now that this is how I write my fiction: ideas (usually characters, rather than situations), followed by years of them living only in my mind. I find I get to know the characters pretty well. I see them, hear them, watch them, sometimes talk to them… the writer’s imagination is a weird and wonderful thing!
I ceased indie publishing in June 2023, and picked up another long-term idea… but I found that Jennifer and Alison became rather persistent. I’d more or less relegated them to the bottom drawer. But they wanted out. So I opened up the last draft I’d written. It was short, but it was a start. It’s then that my memory goes particularly hazy… I just wrote their story, bit by bit, page by page. I wrote a synopsis too, and it was lovely and clear and I found I could follow it easily as I finished the novel. This is the first time I had worked out the entire plot before writing most of the novel. I liked it. I felt very in control.
I decided I wanted to try literary agents, but was worried about the length. I had an early but complete draft of around 50k words, which is a little short for the genre (literary-commercial or upmarket commercial). I tried about a dozen agents. No takers. Initially disappointed, I then saw this as a sign, or an opportunity, and decided that I would again self-publish. The huge advantage in making that decision was that I no longer felt the need to pad out the novel to 80k. I can’t abide padding in novels. I tend to write short, and the finished and published We Are Family is 52k words. Plenty long enough for the story it tells.
It feels wonderful to finally get Jennifer and Alison out of that bottom drawer and off my To Do list. I’m quite a pragmatic writer, and I don’t like to leave projects I’ve started unfinished. Even if it takes years, bringing all my fiction ideas to fruition is immensely satisfying, and it’s also great practice. And of course, it’s fun, despite the tedium of endless proof reads!
The original scene I wrote back in circa 2007 is now the second chapter of my novel. The entire story sprang from that single scene, and I’m happy with the way it’s turned out.
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Louise Walters is a novelist and a freelance editor, working from her home in rural Northamptonshire. Her debut novel was published by Hodder in 2014. She has since then self-published four further novels. She ran her one-woman indie press from 2017 to 2023, publishing a dozen books by seven authors.
My social media links are:
Website: https://www.louisewaltersbooks.co.uk/
Twitter: @LouiseWalters12
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/louisewalterswriter/
WE ARE FAMILY
The fifth novel from the critically acclaimed author Louise Walters
Alison looked at Jennifer. How she envied the perfect make-up, the still-quite-fresh skin, the apparent lack of grey hairs, the slim figure unscarred by pregnancy and childbirth; the sophisticated, single existence.
Jennifer and Alison go back years, first meeting when teenagers at school. Their friendship has seen its ups, downs, highs, lows, triumphs, and disasters.
The friends are now in their late forties. Alison is happily married to the dull but dependable Malcolm, and they have a teenage son. Jennifer is divorced, well-off, and carefree, and determined to stay that way.
So she astonishes everyone when she announces she is pregnant. Shock turns to delight, and Alison is keen to support her oldest friend. But when she finds out who the father of the baby is, the friendship must face its biggest test.
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Category: On Writing
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