Half Bad Blog Tour: NK chats to Sally Green

As part of her blog tour for Half Bad, we chat with Sally Green. 

Sally lives in north-west England with her husband and son. We loved her debut novel, Half Bad and were thrilled to be part of her blog tour. We chat to Sally about her book, her advice for new writers and which magical ability she’d like to have… 

Thank you for joining us today, Sally. Can you tell us a little about Half Bad and how the idea originated?

Half Bad is my first novel and the first book of a trilogy. It’s set in the present day and most of the action takes part in the UK. It’s the story of Nathan a teenage witch. At the beginning of the story Nathan is a prisoner of the White Witches. He is being kept in a cage, not because of anything he has done, but because of what he is – a Half Code (half White Witch and half Black Witch) – and because his father is the most feared of the Black Witches. The story traces Nathan’s life from birth to his seventeenth birthday by which time he must escape White Witches and go through a Giving ceremony (receiving three gifts) to become a true, adult witch. Nathan’s life is full of physical hardship, even torture, but his mental struggles are as difficult as his physical ones. He is alone, abused and afraid of both the White Witches and the Black, and added to that he is not sure how he himself is going to turn out – whether his Black half or White half will dominate.

I think my first inspiration came from a storytelling festival I went to in 2009 (Festival at the Edge in Shropshire). I was steeped in folklore for three days and loved it, but it was noticeable that in virtually all the old stories three was a significant number (three suitors, three branches on a bramble, three wishes etc.). From that I had the basic idea of a scenario where to become a true, adult witch you had to be given three gifts. I didn’t know much about witches but I knew there was ‘good’ white magic and ‘bad’ black magic and the themes of good and bad reminded me of the lines from Hamlet ‘there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so’. I liked the idea of playing around with the assumptions that the White Witches would be the good guys and the Black Witches would be bad.

Which magical ability would you like to have?

I think being able to change my appearance to look like someone else would be really interesting. I’d love to spend the day as a man or boy.

Do you plan and edit as you go?

For novel writing I do have an overall plan for the book in my head – the story arc. But I’ve tried to plan in detail, but as soon as I put it on paper I find it kills all my enthusiasm and just doesn’t work for me. I realise now that I am very character driven and prefer to see what happens as I write, but I have to make sure I steer my characters in the direction of the story arc. With Half Bad I did edit it as I wrote – so I’d write for a day and then start the next working day by editing the day before’s work and then get going on the new day’s work. This is a very slow way of writing though, as sometimes (indeed often) I’d spend the vast majority of my writing day only working on edits and not moving the story forwards. For Half Wild (the second book of the trilogy which I’m working on at the moment) I knew that I didn’t have much time to write so I changed my approach and didn’t edit until I’d pretty much completed the first draft of the story. I now prefer this method as it’s faster overall, though we’ll have to see how the end product turns out!

Which authors do you admire? Is there a book that you’ve read that has stuck with you?

There are so many authors I’d like to list here. Mainly, I read literary fiction and David Mitchell is the contemporary author I probably admire most, both Cloud Atlas and Number9Dream are favourites. Having said that it’s Hemingway, and his short stories in particular, which have stuck with me. There’s a short story called ‘Big Two-Hearted River’ which I think is perfect in its style and simplicity. I first read that about 33 years ago and I still re-read it and still love it.

What’s your favourite word?

I don’t have one.

Do you cast your characters and do you have anyone specific in mind for your main characters?

No, but I do have actors who have inspired the look of a couple of my characters in my mind, so they are who I think of when I write. Aidan Turner (who I saw on TV in ‘Being Human’ and is now in the Hobbit movies) was always my idea of how Gabriel looks. I was a bit stuck at this stage of the novel and needed a new character and it instantly helped when I thought of putting Aidan/Gabriel into it – something to do with him being very attractive I think.

Your five pieces of advice for new writers?

Gosh, I don’t think I’m going to come up with anything new:-

1 – Read a lot and read widely. And read as a writer; try to work out why some things work for you and why other aspects don’t.

2 – Write everyday – something, anything, don’t worry about it all being good.

3 – Write in different forms, to learn about and from them – stories, diaries, letters, poetry, scriptwriting, non-fiction…. I’m no poet but I do think writing poetry helped me realise how one word can make a difference to a sentence, to a mood, even to a character. I thought I’d be good at scriptwriting because I like writing dialogue, but there’s so much more to it, for example there are whole sections in a film with no dialogue, but mainly I learnt that I had to see each scene from each person’s point of view not just the main character’s.

4 – If you’re serious about writing as a career then always be professional and when you are ready to submit a manuscript make sure it represents you well.

5 – Enjoy it. Writing should be a joy – even when it’s hard, it’s a joy.

Half Bad by Sally Green is published by Penguin £7.99 paperback

Sally blogs at http://www.halfbadworld.com

Sally’s blog tour for Half Bad stops off at Jessheartsbooks tomorrow so be sure to check that out along with the other stops on the tour. Details are displayed on the tour banner. 

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Laura

I’m Laura. I started Novel Kicks in 2009. I wanted a place to post my writing as well as give other writers like me the opportunity to do the same. There is also a monthly book club, a writing room which features writing prompts, book reviews, competitions, author interviews and guest posts.

I grew up by the sea (my favourite place in the world) and I currently live in Hampshire. I am married to Chris, have a cat named Buddy and I would love to be a writer. I’m trying to write the novel I’ve talked so much about writing if only I could stop pressing delete. I’ve loved writing since creative writing classes in primary school. I have always wanted to see my teacher Miss Sayers again and thank her for the encouragement. When not trying to write the novel or writing snippets of stories on anything I can get my hands on, I love reading, dancing like a loon and singing to myself very badly. My current obsession is Once Upon a Time and I would be happy to live with magic in the enchanted forest surrounded by all those wonderful stories provided that world also included Harry Potter. I love reading chick lit. contemporary fiction and novels with mystery.