What story to write? Simon and Julia.
Coming up with an idea to work up to into a book isn’t easy. You’re going to spend a long time with it for the manuscript module — even longer if it attracts the eye of a publisher!
So . . . is it the book you’ve always wanted to write? A character who won’t leave you alone? A message you believe a child needs to read?
In the first of a series of posts from the 2023 cohort, Simon and Julia tell us how they got the ideas for their stories.
“Every family has stories passed down through the generations. Mine is no exception, with tales of a travelling musician eaten by wolves in a Russian forest, a great uncle shot on Brighton seafront by a German Messerschmitt, and the Irish grandfather who stole the family pigs and ran away to England to join the Army. This grandfather inspired Brotherhood, but it wasn’t intended to be my MA manuscript, even though the idea had been in my head for years. I was close to completing a ‘sliding-doors’ YA novel, but my grandfather’s story refused to let go. Then, I met an Irish publisher at last year’s London Book Fair. He thought there might be a gap in the market for a novel set in the period between the Easter Rising of 1915 and subsequent War of Independence, and featuring two young brothers on opposite sides. The result is the creation of totally fictional characters who act out some of my grandfather’s experiences. The novel is set in places I know. Family members who remember my grandfather took me to the old family farm and I was shown the hayloft where he and his brothers slept. I was told of the day he returned home in his British Army uniform only to be turned away by his father.”
Simon Bor’s manuscript, Brotherhood, is the story of two brothers, Tom and Niall. Tom sells the family pigs and runs away to war. Niall stays in Ireland and becomes involved in helping his friend Caitlin and her father escape from Ireland.
“I started the MA with the rough draft of a contemporary gay story set in Paris. It was an idea I loved and I was absolutely determined that this was what I was going to write. But when I tested the first chapter in workshop, everyone felt it was too adult. Scrambling for something to do instead, I pulled out an old idea for a historical novel centering around the French student uprisings of June 1832, a subject I’d been obsessed with for a few years. I knew it was going to be a story about a young aristocrat who would end up embroiled in this uprising. And I knew it was going to be a love story. But the more I got to know my protagonist, the more I realised this was not about a lesbian woman, but about a non-binary character. It all fell into place from there. So while the final project isn’t quite what I had in mind initially, at least I got to keep Paris as a setting!
Julia Dielmann’s Queer historical YA manuscript, Love and Liberty, is set in Paris in 1832. When free-spirited aristocrat Adrienne de Clairmont receives an unwanted marriage proposal, they have to make a choice: stay in their gilded cage or chase the freedom they’ve always longed for. But can they find the courage to live and love openly if it goes against everything they’ve ever been taught?