All posts tagged: characters

Helen Cooper talks about fragmented conversations, hidden histories in families, peering in windows, &other dark truths in her debut, THE DOWNSTAIRS NEIGHBOR–plus miniatures and driving!

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By Leslie Lindsay How well do you really know your neighbors? How well do you know yourself? These are the overarching questions explored in this fiction debut by Helen Cooper. WRITERS INTERVIEWING WRITERS ALWAYS WITH A BOOK Helen Cooper & Leslie Lindsay in conversation From the U.K., Helen Cooper’s background in teaching with an emphasis on Academic Writing. Her creative writing has been published in Mslexia and Writers’ Forum; she was shortlisted in the Bath Short Story Prize in 2014, and came third in the Leicester Writes Short Story Prize 2018. The Downstairs Neighbor is her first novel. ABOUT THE DOWNSTAIRS NEIGHBOR: THE DOWNSTAIRS NEIGHBOR (Putnam, Feb 16th 2021) is a delicious blend of family drama meets domestic suspense as an entire three-flat Georgian home is a-rumble about the whereabouts of a missing seventeen-year-old girl. Cooper’s writing is tremendous and strong, while she presents a cast of characters: a mousy woman living alone (or presumably so) with a pet hamster, the ‘perfect’ Harlows, Steph and Paul (and their missing daughter, Freya), the driving instructor and his wife. It’s one house. …

Wednesdays with Writers: Getting to “know” characters, Lisa Unger talks about the dichotomy of ordinary and extraordinary, how she ‘found’ the title to INK & BONE, how writing is a delicate union of observation & imagination, of intuition & creativity

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By Leslie Lindsay  From her stunning debut, BEAUTIFUL LIES, to last year’s critically-acclaimed CRAZY LOVE YOU, New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger is a force to be reckoned with. Today, I’m super-excited to welcome Lisa for her third visit and book chat. Join us as we delve into the dark world of a reluctant, edgy young psychic, the granddaughter of Eloise Montgomery. If you’re an Unger fan, you’ll know exactly who Eloise Montgomery is—we’ve met her in THE WHISPERING HOLLOWS series as well as a token appearance in CRAZY LOVE YOU. And if you’re not yet familiar with the complex, fearless, and original mind of Lisa, then it’s time to get you acquainted. Visited by apparitions and haunted by dreams since she was just a child, 20-year old Finley Montgomery has never been fully able to control the things that happen to her, from her personal life to other psychic-related events. She moves from Seattle, WA to the fictional town, The Hollows where she lives with her grandmother in hopes of understanding and harnessing her …

Write On, Wednesday: The Symptoms of Resistance

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By Leslie Lindsay I have a serious bout of Resistance. Do you know what I am talking about? Here are the symptoms: I want to work on my novel-in-progress, but I don’t think I can do through the steps of opening up the Word Document. Instead, I look at everything but the novel-in-progress. Publisher’s Lunch surely will have some new book that gets me excited enough to start writing. Oh wait–I’ll just order that new book. Then I’ll drift over to my Facebook Page and add some asinine comment. Oh, but there’s email to respond to! Does that count towards my word count? Let’s summarize this symptom: distration that appears like work. Self-doubt. “I can’t do this. It’s hard. I don’t wanna…hey, maybe I’ll pet the dog for awhile.” That’s self-doubt and distraction. Combo platter. No one will care about my book. I’ll never get an agent. Even if I do, I’ll be that rare case in which the agent can never sell it to a publisher. Years will go by with an unsold manuscript. …

Write On, Wednesday: Tour of Non-Sites

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By Leslie Lindsay I was driving around my neck of the woods here in southwestern Chicagoland the other day when it dawned on me how much of my novel-in-progress really could be set here.  Okay, full-disclosure: it is set in this area–at least parts of it are–but the names have been changed.  I can’t give everything away, lest there won’t be any point in using faux names for these suburbs I have created, the street names, the style of housing.  As my car wound around the US highways,  the suburban landscape having morphed into housing developments seemingly overnight from corn fields, I see a strong resembelence to the world I  created for my characters–Annie, Steve, Joe, Beth and their counterparts.  We could go south a ways and I could show you the real Cherrydale, inspiration for Steve’s stomping grounds.  If I shot over west, I’d point out the McMansions that made an appearance in Annie’s chapter on the secret shopping adventure for a real estate developer.  If we go back to the US highway I mentioned, …