Hannah Beckerman, author of 'Three Mothers' - Domestic Noir author discusses trying to be a critic, making characters unique, and putting pressure on your own work
Writer's Routine
Dan Simpson
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 21 August 2025
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, we're chatting to Hannah Beckerman. She's been dubbed the 'new Queen of Domestic Noir', and after the success of the bestselling, 'The Forgetting', has published her 5th novel, 'Three Mothers'. If you love Louise Candlish or Liane Moriarty, you'll enjoy how Hannah writes.
Here's the blurb...
When seventeen-year-old Isla Richardson is killed in a hit-and-run incident, a community’s lives are thrown into disarray. For Isla’s mum, Abby, it is her second devastating bereavement, having lost her husband five years ago.
Tackling friendship, family, social prejudice and the pressures facing young women, Three Mothers how well do we really know our children? And how far would any of us go to protect the people we love?
Hannah also works as a broadcaster, journalist and book critic, reviewing for The Guardian, The Observer and BBC Radio 2. She presents as a judge and panellist at book events, and we discuss what pressure that puts on her own writing, and how much she tries to learn from other authors' work.
You can hear how much she knows at the start, why she treats it like a 'regular' 9-to-5, and how she makes sure her characters are all unique when writing genre-fiction.
This week's episode is sponsored by Faber Academy. Their flagship 'Writing a Novel' course is more than a course, it's a commitment to your craft. Find out more at faberacademy.com/writing-a-novel
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, welcome to a brand new episode of writers' routine where we're chatting to |
| 0:13.5 | Hannah Beckerman, dubbed the new queen of domestic noir. |
| 0:18.6 | Hannah's back with her fifth novel, Three Mothers. We talk about how other |
| 0:22.4 | work in the world of writing impacts her own writing. Also, how much she knows at the start, |
| 0:29.3 | whether to plan or plot. I think I'm sort of somewhere in the two, lots will change. I do start |
| 0:34.8 | with a pretty detailed writing plan in terms of the story arc and a five-act |
| 0:40.0 | structure and where it's going to go. But so much changes during the writing process. And I do |
| 0:44.9 | have those moments when I think, you know, that character wouldn't do that or wouldn't it be |
| 0:48.9 | interesting if this character suddenly did this or wouldn't it be interesting if this? So I deviate a lot, but I feel like I |
| 0:55.2 | need that navigation just to get me going. And we run through her work as a book critic and how much |
| 1:00.8 | pressure that puts on her own stuff. Why do you cry at some bits of books? And, you know, why do you |
| 1:06.7 | get frustrated at other bits? And why do you think some bits are good and some bits are bad? And I think, you know, I think everybody is, you know, anybody who is a reader is a book critic, |
| 1:15.4 | whether or not they're writing about it in a newspaper or online or whatever. |
| 1:19.7 | We're all book critics if we're readers. |
| 1:21.9 | And I think, you know, dialing up that critical ear when you're reading is really imperative if you want the right. |
| 1:29.0 | It's all on the way in a brand new episode of writer's routine. |
| 1:39.1 | Now this week's episode is sponsored by Faber Academy, whose flagship course is back. It's the writing a novel course |
| 1:46.8 | that you can get onto in person, if you're in the UK, and even further a field online. It's not just a |
| 1:54.0 | course, it's a commitment to your craft. Faber Academy is a place where you can learn the essentials |
| 2:00.1 | of novel writing like no other. |
| 2:03.2 | Now, this podcast lets you hear from the best authors around, and this course can help you become one yourself. |
| 2:10.1 | Faber Academy delivers a comprehensive program over months that covers everything you need to bring your novel to life, going into detail on the |
... |
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