Marthe Jocelyn, author of 'The Seaside Corpse' - Children's writer discusses getting 50 books done, plotting mystery, and writing exercises
Writer's Routine
Dan Simpson
4.9 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 6 October 2022
⏱️ 54 minutes
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Summary
Marthe Jocelyn is about to publish her 50th book. It's called 'The Seaside Corpse', and is the 4th in the Aggie Morton Mystery Queen series. It's based on a young Agatha Christie, who solves crimes with her best friend Hector Poirot. The new one takes place in 1903 Lyme Regis, when searching for dinosaurs, Aggie comes across a dead body.
We talk about how much she plots mysteries, and why this story has made her mix that up a bit. Also, you can hear how accurate she wants to get her story to real-life 1903 Lyme Regis, and how she researches it. You can hear how much she thinks about how her books look, how a form of peer pressure helps her write, and how using writing exercises, like only using one-syllable words, can really help you think about the story.
You can find out more about Marthe's work at marthejocelyn.com!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of writers' routine. This week we're chatting to |
| 0:14.2 | Martha Jocelyn, who has written 50 books. 50. 50, of all forms for young readers. There is Y.A. Picture books, mid-grade, loads in |
| 0:26.9 | between, and we talk all about it this week. You can hear how much she thinks about the way her books |
| 0:32.8 | look. Also, all about her new one, it's in the Aggie Morton Mystery Queen series inspired by |
| 0:39.7 | Agatha Christie. |
| 0:41.1 | And we talk about how much she plans what will happen along the way. |
| 0:45.2 | That was very relieved to read in the edited versions of Agatha Christie's notebooks that she often did not know, and that gave me great comfort. |
| 0:57.8 | But she was very much aware of the method of the murder. I think that was for her, was often |
| 1:06.6 | how she started, was knowing how the person would die. Whoever that person might be and whoever |
| 1:13.0 | might have caused it was not necessarily at the front of her process, but how the murder would take |
| 1:21.5 | place. So that I actually did know. I knew the body had to be found on the beach, so either it had |
| 1:27.0 | fallen from the |
| 1:27.7 | cliff where it was a drowning. There's more with Martha Jocelyn in this week's writer's routine. |
| 1:43.4 | Yes. Welcome along to the show. It's writers routine where we take a look inside an author's working day to see how they get stuff done, to see how they get that idea from their head and they get it down on the page. How they plot it. How they plan it. How they plan their day to give them the best chance of getting |
| 2:02.4 | that done, of getting their creativity out there, of giving it the best chance to flow, I guess. |
| 2:08.6 | Let's chat to Martha Jocelyn then. She writes all types of books for young readers. |
| 2:13.2 | And there's a lot to learn in this. Even if you don't write for the same audience that Martha does, |
| 2:18.6 | it's always good to almost remember the rules so then you can try and rip the rule book up. |
| 2:26.0 | I think that's always a great bit of advice. We talk about how to write young adult fiction |
| 2:30.7 | and how that differs from mid-grade. Also, how she plans out picture books, how she writes |
| 2:35.5 | entire stories with one-syllable words, but makes them very engaging at the same time. I always think |
| 2:43.0 | it's good to be reminded of these writing tricks and writing games you can play with yourself, |
... |
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