Amanda Prowse, author of 'All Good Things' - Prolific bestseller discusses creating a universe of characters, completely pantsing and why creativity helps trauma
Writer's Routine
Dan Simpson
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 15 December 2023
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Amanda Prowse has written over 30 books. Her newest is 'All Good Things', which tells the story of life-long neighbours, the Kelleways and the Harrops, who couldn’t be further apart. However, when they celebrate a big anniversary, huge secrets are revealed and change everything.
She has written fiction, non-fiction, novellas, short stories, and memoir. Her novel 'A Mother's Story' was Sainsbury's eBook of the Year. Her work, 'The Boy Between' is a compelling memoir written with her son, detailing his experience with depression. Amanda often explores trauma through her writing, and we discuss how she researches these experiences...but only ever writes what she knows.
We discuss how she has created an 'Amanda Prowse universe' in her mind, picking characters out that she wants to focus on, yet even through all this, she doesn't ever plan or plot, but simply knows everything that will happen, and exactly what her characters are thinking.
You can hear why everything she was told about writing, turned out to not be not true, also how much she has learned about her characters over the last 30 books, and whether success has changed anything about her life and how she works.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome along to this week's writer's routine where we're chatting to |
| 0:12.6 | Amanda Prouse. She has written over 30 books. The new one is All Good Things. We talk about |
| 0:19.7 | how she never plans, but instead just knows what the characters are up to and I've always been up to. |
| 0:27.1 | Also, you can hear how she researches some of the traumatic things that she writes about. |
| 0:32.9 | And we discuss how the things that people told her about writing turned out not to be true. |
| 0:39.1 | And when I heard how difficult it was or torturous or how they struggled, I thought, gosh, |
| 0:43.5 | I'm finding this very easy, which finds I'm either doing it right or I'm doing it wrong. |
| 0:48.2 | And I didn't know which, because you don't know until your book, you know, sees the light of day. |
| 0:53.5 | But I found it made me so happy that I remember thinking, if I could just do this every day, |
| 0:59.1 | just get up, go downstairs, in my PJs, sit in a chair and tip-tip away. |
| 1:03.8 | I think I could die really happy. |
| 1:05.7 | And I remember thinking that, that I'd found the one thing that bought me just unbridled joy. |
| 1:11.3 | There is more on the way with Amanda Prouse in this week's writer's routine. |
| 1:23.2 | Yes, welcome along to the show. |
| 1:25.1 | This is writer's routine where we take a look through an author's working day and life. |
| 1:29.6 | We see how they plan every part of themselves and their space and their family around trying to get an idea down on the page. |
| 1:39.5 | My name is Dan. Thank you for listening. |
| 1:41.8 | Now, here's a question. Are you a plotter? Or are you like my guest this |
| 1:47.9 | week? You're about to discover one of the biggest pantsers around. Do you meticulously plot? Do you |
| 1:53.9 | outline? Do you know exactly where your story is going? Or do you make it up as you go? Do you fly by the seat |
| 1:58.6 | of your pants? Somehow, is it all just there? Well, if you're a |
| 2:02.0 | pancer, if that's you, this might help, even though you don't want to be a proper plotter. I know that, |
... |
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