Hello! Episode 3 in the TELL ME YOUR SECRET video series is a special competition! You could be in with a chance to win some rather snazzy armwarmers AND get your hands on a limited-edition early reading copy of TELL ME YOUR SECRET! (You can see the prizes in the video.) [THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED!]
I recently filmed a series of short videos to give you a little insight into TELL ME YOUR SECRET. It’s all about the book’s characters, settings and my writing process. This is the first episode where I talk about the storyline. Enjoy!
My next new novel, Tell Me Your Secret, will be on sale in June.
My books were published:
The Cupid Effect (2003)
The Chocolate Run (2004)
My Best Friend’s Girl (2006)
Marshmallows For Breakfast (2007)
Goodnight, Beautiful (2008)
The Ice Cream Girls (2010)
The Woman He Loved Before (2011)
The Rose Petal Beach (2012)
The Flavours Of Love (2014)
That Girl From Nowhere (2015)
When I Was Invisible (2016)
The Friend (2017)
The Brighton Mermaid (2018)
Tell Me Your Secret (2019)
None whatsoever! I’ve written this piece called The Two Ice Cream Girls to explain my feelings on the TV adapation and the changes made.
At present only My Best Friend’s Girl, Marshmallows For Breakfast, Goodnight, Beautiful and The Ice Cream Girls are available to buy in the US. The Woman He Loved Before should be released sometime in 2013. In the meantime, the only way I can think of you to get my other books over there is to order them from a UK website, or ask anyone who’s coming over here to get them for you.
In general, the answer is no. I draw on elements of other people’s stories and personalities to create my books, but my work is fiction. I am not any of my main characters – they tend to have much more exciting lives than me. My ideas come from life, from talking to people, from overhearing conversations in public, from wondering how I’d handle myself in certain situations. Like I say, I write fiction so I make up plots and characters but the original situations that I draw my ‘what ifs’ from are based on real life.
Finding out what I think is very unlikely to help you get published. Your best bet is to keep going with your writing, get it into as excellent shape as you think possible and send it off to agents and publishers. If you do get rejection letters try not to let it dent your confidence too much, just keep writing. Being published is fantastic – and it’ll be all the more amazing if you’re published for doing something you love.
Despite what many people say, it’s virtually impossible to predict what publishers will love and will reject so, it’s always best to write what you love and send it out there in the best possible shape.
One of the most important things I learnt from being a journalist is to be honest about the things you endorse or say. It makes whatever you do endorse all the more credible because you do genuinely think it’s amazing. Unless I’ve tried something, read it or gained something from it, I’m not able to say I love it. At the moment, I have so little time, it’s very difficult to read or try anything new. So, apologies, I can’t at the moment endorse anything.
I make the time. I’ve had two jobs (full-time journalist and novelist) for so long that I had to find whatever little time I could to write. I used to write on the train to work, in front of the television, in the middle of the night when everyone on my side of the globe was asleep. It was what I had to do to write my books and pay my bills. In my experience, you have to do a lot of non-novel work to be able to write books. The idea that you get a huge advance on the first go is wonderful. . . and mostly the stuff of fiction. If it happens to you, then fabulous. If it doesn’t happen to you, then try not to feel discouraged, keep going. Also, having another job is great for researching stories to write about.
I haven’t taken any creative writing courses and I wouldn’t recommend any without having tried them. A good place to start would be the Society of Authors who might have a list or would be able to point you in the right direction. You will have to be a member, though. Also try asking at your local library or local adult educational institute. If I was signing up for a course, I’d do a little research on the tutor to see what qualifications and pieces of work they’ve had published.
I’m not one for writing sequels, so I doubt very much I’ll write a sequel to My Best Friend’s Girl (I really think the story of Tegan and Kamryn has been told) nor any of my other novels. I do sometimes speculate about what happens to my various characters after the story has ended, but I don’t think my speculating would make good enough books. . . Having said that, you never know what the future holds, but at the moment, I’m not planning on writing any follow-ups.
Please don’t take offence if I don’t reply to your emails, I love getting them but until I am given access to a cloning machine where I can duplicate a Dorothy Koomson who can answer emails, I am unable to reply to each one personally.
You can buy the paperback of When I Was Invisible here: When I was Invisible on Amazon
Dorothy Koomson reads from The Brighton Mermaid
It’s here! The first read of The Friend. Click on the image above or on THE FRIEND EXTRACT to read the first few pages of my 12th novel.
If you want to read more, you can sign up for my booky letter at: By Your Shelf and you’ll be emailed the passcode so you can read an extra 20 pages.
Don’t forget, you can order The Friend here: ORDER THE FRIEND.
I am a huge supporter of their work and how they aim to help to lower and eventually eradicate the high levels of illiteracy in this country.
It’s only when you hear the patrons of the charity talk that you’re reminded how so many people don’t have access to books – especially with what has been happening to libraries in recent years. But you know my feelings on that.
At the event, held in London at the Hatchette building with amazing views of London, I had one of those moments. You know, one of those moments, when you look across the room and spot Malorie Blackman and your heart stops because you’re looking at one of your writing heros. And she’s talking to another author you admire – Chris Riddell – and you realise that this is one of those few moments when you can go and make a total show of yourself in front of them and NOT ACTUALLY CARE.
So that’s what I did. I told them I was in awe of them. And Malorie said she’d read my books (swoon) and Chris said we should meet for coffee because he lives in Brighton (swoon again) and I sort of do, too. And I wished that I wasn’t on a self-imposed social media break because I so wanted to tell the world. I settled for telling my husband who was more impressed than I was, if that was possible. (And didn’t even mind me waking him up to tell him about it.)
Do have a look at the work the National Literacy Trust do if you get the chance. They are doing some brilliant stuff and they could always use people to help out. For example, you could host a Tales and Teapots party to raise funds for the National Literacy Trust. Me, I’m so counting down the days until it’s acceptable to hit Mr Riddle up for that coffee by the sea…
Keep checking back here for news of my new events. And don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter to be kept up to date on the new stuff I’m up to.
With The Ice Cream Girls, I have had numerous emails from people all over the world telling me how the book changed their lives or the life of someone they know. Such as the 60-year-old woman who said the book reflected her experiences in a way that she had never been able to share. Such as the domestic violence perpetrators outreach worker who said the novel had shown a man in her class that he was an abuser and that his wife had been right to leave him. Such as the woman who, after reading the story, finally plucked up the courage to see her relationship for what it was and to leave. Those are just three examples from all the powerful emails I’ve had.
When I write a book I feel an enormous sense of responsibility to tell accurately and sensitively the stories of the people I speak to, which is why those emails bring tears to my eyes: not only has something I have written touched someone, but I have managed to accurately portray the realities of people’s lives.
I have to admit, when I first started researching for The Ice Cream Girls I didn’t know or understand that all abusive relationships are rooted in emotional manipulation – I thought it was all about the physical violence. I found out that without the psychological control, the violence wouldn’t happen more than once. Having learnt this, I told the story of The Ice Cream Girls knowing that anyone, including ‘nice’, ‘ordinary’, ‘normal’ girls from two-parent families can and do find themselves manoeuvred into the situation that Poppy and Serena were in.
The TV drama that is based on my novel doesn’t seem to agree with what I learnt from my research and it seems to fall into the trap of regurgitating the stereotypes believed by those who have no experience or knowledge of domestic violence. While watching the drama I couldn’t help thinking that, while the people who made it had liked the basic idea of my book, they decided that abusive relationships and girls being groomed into sexual relationships by older men simply didn’t happen in the way I had written about them.
After the second time I outlined my concerns over the potentially damaging messages in the TV drama, the show’s executive producer admitted that their drama ‘tells a slightly different story with slightly different characters and different motivations’. Which is true, there are two versions of the story called The Ice Cream Girls: both have protagonists called Serena and Poppy, both have Poppy and Serena accused of killing an abusive man called Marcus.
The Serena I created was a shy, clever-but-naïve young girl manipulated into a relationship by her teacher who then went on to brutalise her; the Poppy I wrote about was a young girl, close to her father who thought the older man she was involved with loved her even when he abused her. My Ice Cream Girls were trapped in a nightmare situation not of their making and they couldn’t work out how to escape.
My Ice Cream Girls, as many people from all over the world have told me, were loveable, likeable and deeply sympathetic to the point where readers were torn about who they thought had murdered Marcus.
So, essentially, there are two versions of the story called The Ice Cream Girls – the research-based novel that I wrote and the TV version.
I’m sure a lot of people enjoyed the TV version – the actors did a great job with the material they were given. But I hope the viewers questioned whether those situations play out in real life as they did in the TV drama, and that they consider how very different my book, the original story, might be to that version.
A further difference between the two is that the TV version had a different ending and a different killer. For those asking: I didn’t have any say or input into any of the changes including the ending.
