Fun Questions and Answers for Famous Five Plus

First lines are important in novels. What is the favourite first line you’ve written and from what work is it?

“Look out!  Stop!  Margaret didn’t look.  She didn’t stop until she was pushed into a doorway.” APPLAUSE (2^nd book in the Dudley Sisters Quartet) http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00J7Y5LCW

If someone told you your characters were sitting in the room across the hall, would you walk across to meet them? Why or why not?

I think I would.  I know them and love them, so I can’t see why I wouldn’t want to meet them.  When I was an actress I believed wholeheartedly in the characters I played, eventually (on stage) becoming them.  That way the audience would believe in them too.  I work the same with the characters in my novels.  Gosh, imagine if I met them and I'd got one of them wrong.  The protagonists in my novels are sisters and, although they have very different personalities and characters, they are all very strong women.  If I had got one wrong, I would expect her to tell me.

If you could magically become one of your characters, who would it be?

The next one.  It is always the next one for me.  When I was writing Foxden Acres, it was Bess Dudley.  Writing Applause it was Margot Dudley – and now it’s sister number three, Claire Dudley.  It is always the next lead character that I want to be, and who excites me the most.  I like beginnings, I like starting new things, and I like the unknown.  Claire’s story, China Blue, is set in France with the SOE and French Resistance.  It’s a love story and she’s a heroine. Who wouldn’t want to be Claire?

What day of the week is your favourite for writing?

I’d like to say, Monday.  I would like to say I am disciplined – and that I work on weekdays and spend my weekends relaxing, or visiting interesting places.  The truth is, when I’m writing, I am often woken up in the early hours of the morning with characters, or ideas, running round in my head.  When that happens, I have to get up and write it down, or I forget.  When the creative thoughts and ideas are flowing I write every day, sometimes for weeks.  When they are not flowing, I find it difficult to write a shopping list. 

Compare your novels to a food item or entré.

FOXDEN ACRES (2013), my first novel, is a healthy homemade crusty loaf.  It is made with homegrown ingredients, kneaded with strong capable hands, left to rise in its own time – and then baked with love.  http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00BCX59LE

APPLAUSE (2014), my second novel, is a tiered cake-stand full of fairy cakes.  Some with icing, some with chocolate, others with custard, cream, or with a cherry on the top.  The higher up the cake-stand you look, the more exiting the cake.  http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00J7Y5LCW 

CHINA BLUE (2015), which I am currently writing, is a Madeleine.  La véritable petite Madeleine de Commercy.

   

Fiction Blog: http://madalynmorgansfiction.blogspot.co.uk/

Non-Fiction Blog: http://madalynmorgan.blogspot.co.uk/

Website: www.madalynmorgan.com

I’ve really enjoyed this Q and A session.  It was fun.  Now I’d better write that shopping list. x