February | 2019 | Much To Do About Writing

An interview with… Penny Joelson

My Research Secrets slot in Writers’ Forum features YA writer, Penny Joelson. She explained how she wove personal experience and research into her YA novel, Girl in the Window.

research secrets - penny joelson4

The book is about a teenage girl called Kasia, who has ME so spends most of her time staring out the bedroom window. Nothing ever happens on Kasia’s street so when she sees what looks like a kidnapping, she’s not sure whether she can believe her own eyes. she notices a girl in the window opposite and hopes she saw something too but when Kasia goes to find her she is told there is no girl.

In the feature you can see a copy of the interview that Penny used as part of her research to gain a young teenage perspective of ME.

I prepared a survey with open questions and an option to add further information. I was overwhelmed with the response and the moving stories I read.

Penny explained that while some research needs to be done before writing, she prefers to write a first draft and then do more research, check facts and add details. This stops her from info dumping and the feeling she must include everything she discovered.

covers

You can read the full interview in the Feb 2019 #208 issue of Writers Forum. You can find out more about Penny Joelson and her books on her website: www.pennyjoelson.co.uk or follow her on Twitter @pennyjoelson

Characterisation

Something that has always interested me is characterisation.

When I write fiction I always start with the character. I decide who my protagonist is going to be and what interesting character traits that could have. For me, character comes before plot. I always do a character questionnaire that I have devised to get all my ideas down on paper before I forget them. The questionnaire is designed to make me think more deeply about my characters. I use it in my creative writing workshops.

I am very aware that in a children’s book the protagonist needs to be a child. but, not any old child – it needs to be a child who is pro-active, brave and can use their initiative. This is true of all fiction. The characters can’t just sit there and expect other people to sort out their problems.

Alice

I have learnt over the years to trickle information about character into my writing rather than write blocks of character description. Andrew Melrose, the senior lecturer at King Alfred’s University in Winchester, once said in a workshop at a SCBWI Conference in Winchester, many years ago:

“Make your characters whole, make them real, make them people. Leak the clues deliberately and at a good pace. Let them evolve.” Andrew Melrose

I like this quote it is written in a few of my notebooks so I come across it regularly. I have always tried to follow this advice. However, I have also found that sometimes you need to state the obvious, as it is not always obvious to the reader. When you get to know your characters it is easy to forget that everyone else does not know as much as you do.