I never know what kind of story I have written until it’s finished. When I start, I have a vague idea of what I am going to write, but that idea often turns out to be wrong, or at least completely different. I think I’m going to travel from A to B, but I end up on a diversion through all the other letters of the alphabet before I get there. It’s all part of writing a book without a plan. Of just starting out and seeing where you end up, and it can make things a little chaotic, but it also feels like reading something brand new every time. I keep going because I want to know what happens next. I always get lost and I take a lot of wrong turns and dead ends when I’m writing, and the story feels more in charge of things than I am. But I trust it will work itself out. I wrote this story because it was the one that demanded to be written.
Really, it started with Elk. All of my books begin with a spark, a voice, a particular character, and this book is Elk’s. She tells the story, and we see the world through her eyes and her eyes only. Writing in the first person like that (using ‘I’ instead of ‘he’ or ‘she’ or ‘they’) means that you really get under the skin of one particular character and as an author you can totally disappear.
Us in the Before and After is a book that’s all about friendship. Mab and Elk meet in a maze when they are eleven. Elk is stuck and defeated, and Mab helps her find the way out. After that they are inseparable. Until they’re not.
There is a moment in the middle of the story, a paper-thin instant that divides the Before from the After, and Elk tells that story from these two places, the first in the now and the second looking back.
All of my books share common ground because I am particularly interested in several ideas. In things going missing, or being missing, or missed. In living on the edge of something – a friendship group, a landscape, a secret, a realisation. In all the ways that real life, and life itself, is odd and miraculous and much stranger than fiction.
This is a sad story. It’s about grief and loss and having to let go. But it’s also filled with joy and laughter and love, because we don’t grieve losing what we never cared about. I cared deeply about these two girls, and Mab’s big brother France, and Elk’s little brother Knox, and the chosen families we make all the time, the networks that keep us happy to be alive.
In the end I think it’s about how lucky we all are to be here, and how precious it is, how essential love and kindness and connections can be. I think Elk wanted us all to realise that right now, before the after, while it’s still not too late.
That’s so cool you are so incredible by Jorgie Hickey - 26-07-2024 15:09Benjamin sounds like a fantastic author! Loving the journey he goes on through the characters eyes. What a lovely blog xby Carla Chandler - 20-07-2024 10:25It is a very good story with lots of moral teachings. I think surely you are a good writer.
by Hadassah Bello - 20-07-2024 09:11This book might be good book.
I’m going one of the books of her and read it .by Mellisa - 12-07-2024 19:43
Reply from Young Writers...Wonderful! Let us know what you think once you've read it!
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