“
A
suicidal woman steps in front of a commuter train, changing the lives of its
passengers forever, in this psychological novel by the author of Ella’s
War.
When the
day starts with tragedy . . . where will it lead?
Eight strangers start their day
unaware of the events about to unfold, but they find themselves having to
reassess who they are and what they want from life after a woman steps in front
of their train.”
–synopsis for The Train.
This month, we profile British turned
Aussie author Sarah Bourne, who’s
virtually unique in that she exclusively writes standalone thrillers and
character studies.
15) Sarah, it
has to be said that your throughline for The
Train is somewhat reminiscent of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 2017 movie, Aftermath, in which a grieving husband and father struggles
to cope with the deaths of his wife, daughter and unborn grandchild. What
inspired the idea for The Train?
Interesting…
I’ve never seen that movie. I might have to watch it now! The idea for The Train came because having been a
counsellor for many years, I’m always struck by how people can experience the
same event but have totally different responses to it. I wanted to make the
single event a dramatic one that had the power to shake people out of their usual
ways of thinking and reacting, hence the suicide. And then I had to make the
characters representative of commuters on a train to London, which also gave me
the chance to write about other issues, as each character has their own
sup-plot and story arc. So, Iris, an older woman, is facing issues of aging and
loneliness, Claire, a middle-aged woman is struggling with caring for elderly
parents and putting her own life on hold, and so on (don’t want to give too
much away!) I love creating all the characters and trying to weave some of them
together in a way that didn’t feel contrived. I’ve had people messaging me to
tell me which was their favourite character and ask more about them! I love
hearing from readers.
14) As I’d said
in the introduction, you’re virtually unique in my dozens of previous subjects in
that you write standalones and not series. Why is that?
Great
question! Even though my books are quite character driven, I trend to write
around themes and as much as I like some of the people I create and would like
to spend more time with them, I feel like they’ve done their job within the one
book. Having said that, the first thing I ever wrote (a still unpublished YA
paranormal romance trilogy) made me fall in love with my characters. I couldn’t
stop thinking about them, but I knew their story was finished. In the end I had
to write them a letter and thank them for coming into my life, but now it was
time to leave! I know it sounds mad, but it worked, and I could move on to
writing something else.
13) Are there
any plans to turn one of your standalones into a series or one with new
characters?
Several
people have suggested I write more about the characters in The Train – maybe
give them each a book of their own, but I haven’t got it in me! Other readers
have wanted to hear more of what happened to Laila after the end of InVisible.
I love that they are so invested in the character and the story that they want
more, but I also like to let the reader imagine for themselves where her lie
might have taken her after the book has ended. I love books that leave me
wondering about the characters – they’re the ones that stay with me more than
books where everything is neatly wrapped up.
12) You once
wrote that you got into writing fiction “almost accidentally”. How did that
come about, exactly?
It
was a total accident! When my kids were in their early teens I had more time to
do what I wanted. I work part time, and love to swim and do yoga, but I needed
something creative in my life. I wanted to do a photography course, but
couldn’t find one locally, so picked up a pen and a notebook. I thought maybe
I’d write a short story, but it turned into the aforementioned YA trilogy!
320,000 words in all. And that was how I got the writing bug. Now I can’t stop,
even though every time I finish a book, I worry I’ll never have an idea for
another one. Once I let go of that anxiety, I get another idea, sometimes
several, and then I have to choose which one to go with. Sometimes I get into
the research and realise it’s not going to work, or start writing and it
doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere so I abandon it and start something else.
11) Describe
your typical writing day, if there is such a thing. Do you draft exclusively in
notebooks or journals or laptops or is it a combination of both? Do you set a
word goal for yourself and, if so, what is it?
I
don’t have a typical writing day. I work odd hours – early morning, late
afternoon/evening, so have time during the day. I’m very good at letting other
things get in the way of writing, and always think I should be more
disciplined, but I can’t force it. I am in awe of people who sit down and write
a certain number of words a day, but I don’t work that way. When I’m in the
flow, I can sit at my computer for hours, other days, my writing feels
constipated and I have to leave it! If that happens for two or three days in a
row, I leave the computer and go to my notebook. I love the physical act of
writing with a nice pen, and often find that it frees my thinking up again and
I find the way forward in the story. Once that’s happened, I tend to go back to
the keyboard again.
10) Plotter,
pantser or plantser?
Panster.
I’ve tried to plot out books but the characters always seem to hijack the story
and take it off in directions I hadn’t even thought of. Although it can be
challenging starting a book with little idea of where it’s going, I also love
the process of discovery as I write. Sometimes I have to pull the story back a
bit and take charge, but usually the characters seem to know better than my conscious
mind where they need to go and how to get there.
9) You’d also
written on your blog a
couple of years ago at the start of the pandemic that it had made writing more
difficult. Has that been mitigated in the years since?
Looking
back, I think I was in a state of anxiety at the beginning of the pandemic; it
felt like the world have become a threatening place, nowhere was safe. Also,
both my daughters were working in the UK and couldn’t get home as Australia
closed its borders very early on and even Australian citizens couldn’t get back
easily. So I was anxious for me and worried about them, and trying to get used
to seeing friends on Zoom rather than in real life. The house suddenly felt
small (it’s not!) and I didn’t have any space in my head for anything other
than dealing with the day-to-day activities of my life. Fortunately, after the first
few months, the anxiety subsided as we all settled into this strange new way of
life, and I actually ended up being quite the writing machine!
8) Let’s talk
about Ella’s War, an almost typical Sarah Bourne book with a
seductive storyline: A WWII nurse wakes up in a hospital bed in 1947 with no
memory of how she got there. Now, you’re a counsellor. Was your profession able
to inform you as to the experience of an amnesiac or did that require special
research?
I
haven’t worked with anyone with amnesia, so I had to do a lot of research for
the book. I actually had an idea that it was going to be a comedy – woman wakes
up with no memory but she’s a well-known wealthy socialite, so all these men
come and claim to be her husband to get their hands on her money. It quickly
fizzled, but as I was wondering what to do with it, I read a short article
about nursing in the war – specifically that WW2 was the first time nurses were
at the front rather than way behind the lines. I thought that was interesting,
so read all I could about it, and Ella was reborn as a nurse who was grappling
with the trauma of all she’d seen and had to do in her time in France and
Germany.
7) Who were some
of the authors you’d read while growing up in England and had any of them gone
on to influence your own work?
I
wasn’t a great reader as a youngster, but had to read the classics at school –
Hardy, Austen, Shakespeare, Dickens, the Brontes and so on. It wasn’t until
after college that I discovered the joy of reading for its own sake, and then I
felt I had to make up for lost time! I read widely, although I can’t read
horror and I’m not a great fan of sci-fi. I think everything I’ve ever read has
influenced my writing in some subliminal way, but I particularly love the
writing of John Boyne, Niall Williams, Anne Enright (is there something in the
fact that they’re all Irish, I wonder?), Kamila Shamsie, Mohsin Hamid, Rohinton
Mistry, Kate Atkinson, Chris Cleeve, William Nicholson. The list goes on, but
they all write fantastic characters in interesting plots, which is what I
aspire to do.
6) I know you
wouldn’t practice yoga if it hindered your writing. But does it really center
you and facilitate the writing process?
My
yoga practice is very important to me. I feel like it grounds me in a way
nothing else can, except maybe a long walk in the countryside or by the ocean.
But I can practice yoga anywhere, anytime, and it always leave me with a sense
of clarity. When I’m feeling blocked in my writing, or know I have to write a
difficult scene, I get onto my yoga mat and focus on the breath, the movement,
the alignment of my body, and let everything else fade into the background. By
the time I’ve finished my practice, I can usually move forward with the
writing. It feels like a gift.
5) Exile, your latest release, is perhaps your most Gothic
novel, a character study between a mother and daughter in the Shetland Islands.
What inspired this and why was it necessary to set this story in the remote
island of Yell?
When
I was a teenager my mother had a friend who was in her fifties and obsessed
with a man she worked with. He was all she could talk about. They weren’t in a
relationship but thoughts of him filled her every waking moment. Years later,
working in Mental Health, I came across a woman who had been diagnosed with Erotomania,
or De Clerambault’s syndrome, and the symptoms were exactly the same as my
mother’s friend had. Move forward again, and I decided it would be a really
interesting theme for a book, so I did a lot of research and found that there
are degrees of this issue, from the lovely ‘falling in love’ feeling called
limerence, to full blown Erotomania. Add to that the fact that I like writing
about dysfunctional relationships, and Kirstie and her mother were born! Kirstie
has burned a lot of bridges in London, so decides to remove herself and her
‘illness’ to a remote island where she hopes her Obsessive Love Disorder won’t
be triggered and she can get her life back on track. But, of course, other
issues arise, not least her mother coming to visit and the cracks in their
relationship coming to the fore.
4) InVisible has at its backdrop the 2005 terrorist attacks in
the London Tube. How were you able to get into the mind of your main character,
Laila, and was research into Islamic terrorism difficult to do?
The
idea for the book actually came from hearing a radio interview with Lisa
Guenther, an American philosopher, talking about the phenomenological effects
of solitary confinement. I bought her book and found it fascinating, so read a
few more books about solitary confinement, and then started thinking about a
character. I wanted to write about a woman, and I didn’t want her to be in
prison for a specific crime, so I decided that she was wrongfully held, and the
only reason I could think of that someone would be in solitary was under
suspicion of terrorism.
I was quite worried when writing this
book that I’d end up on some sort of watch list because I did so much research
into terror groups, training camps, terrorists, etc! I also had help from a
couple of people I met who had been in Afghanistan and Northern Pakistan quite
recently (not as terrorists, I might add!) and their comments were invaluable
in terms of creating the sense of place.
As to getting into Laila’s head, I did
what I do with all my protagonists and major characters – I wrote a detailed
profile of her physical, mental and emotional traits and felt my way into her
as a person. Then I asked myself a lot of questions about her situation, how
she might respond to what was happening, and so on.
3) Are there any
plans to write a straight up police procedural or a good, rattling murder
mystery?
Funny
you should ask that! During lock down last year I started writing a murder
mystery series, featuring DI Luna Bright. It’s a new venture for me, not only
switching genres, but creating a series. It’s very different to writing
stand-alone novels, because I have to think about character development over a
much longer time-frame as well as come up with inventive ways for people to be
killed! It’s great fun, though.
2) You’ve been
living in Australia for about a quarter century now, yet none of your novels
are set there. Any plans to do so?
I’ve
tried to set books in Australia, I really have, but they always end up
somewhere else. In one that hasn’t yet been published, the protagonist started
in my own part of Sydney, but quickly went to India and stayed there! I’m not
sure what it is that gets in the way of setting a book in Australia – I think I
worry that I need a different vocabulary to describe the very different place.
England is small and cosy, Australia is vast and the outback can be quite a
hostile environment. Maybe there’s also a sense of nostalgia in writing about
the England I remember, even though I love living in Australia. I suppose
England is in my blood!
1) What’s next for Sarah Bourne?
I have an earlier book of mine being re-published
later this year. Two Lives tells the parallel stories of two women involved in
a car accident and how their lives eventually merge again with interesting
consequences!
I’m also
looking for a publisher for the Di Luna Bright murder mysteries, as well as
another stand-alone novel about a family dealing with grief (seems to be a
recurring theme for me!)
As always, I
have a number of writing projects on the go, so I’m keeping busy.
Thank you so
much, Robert, for these great questions. I loved answering them.
If
you’re interested in learning more about Ms. Bourne’s work, please follow the
handy links below.
Exile,
published 23rd March 2022
InVisible
published September 2021
Ella’s War
published June 2021
The Train
published April 2021
Twitter:
@sarahbourne007
FB
Sarah
Bourne Author
Instagram:
SarahBourne007
Cartoon intermission.
