Anna Kent, author of 'The House of Whispers' - Domestic Noir writer talks about the 3 act structure, pseudonyms, and learning to write genre
Writer's Routine
Dan Simpson
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 21 January 2022
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, we're joined by Anna Kent, with her sort-of-debut novel, 'The House of Whispers'.
See Anna Kent, is also Annabel Kantaria, who has already published 4 books. This is her first as Anna Kent. It's domestic noir, so treads the line between eerie psychological thriller, and chilling whodunnits at home. We talk about how she learned to write genre, and what she pays attention to when structuring the novel, also how she knows when to carry on writing.
'The House of Whispers' tells the story of Grace and Abi, friends who parted ways at Uni. Then Grace returns into Abi's life... and they slip back into the comforts of each other's lethal charm and company.
You can hear how she got published, about the contest she entered, and the meeting with a publisher that changed her life.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, welcome along to a brand new episode of writer's routine. |
| 0:12.0 | This week, chatting to author Anna Kent. She's just published a new domestic noir book called The House of Whispers. It's all about an old friend that slips back into someone's |
| 0:22.9 | life and how guilt and obsession changes everything. We talk about pseudonyms, also what she |
| 0:29.2 | had to learn before writing domestic noir, and why starting things off on Google doesn't always |
| 0:35.7 | work. Well, my first draft was only 60,000 words. I mean, |
| 0:39.2 | I knew nothing about writing novels and I had Googled how long does a novel have to be and |
| 0:43.9 | come up, I'd come up with 60,000 words, but apparently it's 80 to 90,000 words. So the first |
| 0:49.1 | comment was it's not long enough. Stick around more with Anna Ken in this week's |
| 0:52.8 | writer's routine. |
| 1:02.2 | Yes, welcome along. |
| 1:07.0 | It's writers routine, the show where we take a look inside the working day of some of the world's best authors. |
| 1:09.2 | My name's Dan Simpson. |
| 1:10.7 | Thank you for being here. We're on show |
| 1:13.8 | 200 and something now. I really appreciate you coming along for the ride, joining us as we take a little |
| 1:20.3 | peek inside some writers' working days. Now this week, it's Anna Kent with her sort of debut. I say sort of, because Anna Ken is also |
| 1:32.7 | Annabelle Cantaria, and Annabelle has published four novels. For Anna, this is her first. She's |
| 1:40.5 | worked as a journalist in magazines, as a radio producer, also as a book editor too. |
| 1:46.0 | We talk about what editing taught her about writing and how she was able to be an impartial observer for her own work, |
| 1:54.0 | a skill which I imagine we'd all love to get at some point. |
| 1:59.0 | Now, the new novel is The House of Wispers. |
| 2:00.9 | It's all about Grace and Abby. |
| 2:02.3 | Friends who fell out at university, whilst their friendship was all consuming and exhausting. |
... |
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