Authors Liz Kessler and Joanne O’Sullivan Talk Hauntings, Hurricanes, and How to Find the Story

Joanne: I finished Haunt Me this weekend and I absolutely loved it! There is such a strong sense of place. I loved that you centered this story around a room inhabited by two teens, one alive and one dead. Obviously, the room is critical in Erin and Joe’s story—how else would they have met?! I wondered if a house (an old house maybe?) had been the inspiration; if you walked into a room and felt something the way that Erin (and later her mother) had. Or if I’m completely off, what was the inspiration?
Liz: Thanks so much for your lovely response to Haunt Me. I finished reading Between Two Skies last week and thought it was wonderful—so we are starting from a very lovely position of being mutual fans! Yay!
I agree that there’s a strong sense of place for both of us. The setting is crucial, as is the feeling of home and a sense of being uprooted and placeless. I found it really interesting that when I was reading your book, I thought that we had some very similar underlying themes—in books that on the face of it are so very different.
You are absolutely spot-on in what you say about the setting for Haunt Me. The inspiration actually came from a house we lived in for six months. We’d just moved to St. Ives in Cornwall and rented a lovely house while we looked for somewhere to buy. As the months passed, we gradually became aware of some strange happenings there. Certain things never seemed to stay where we’d put them. Curtains came down, shadows appeared on the wall when there was no one there. Almost all of the strange happenings took place in one particular room. At the time, I have to say I was quite freaked out and was very glad when we managed to move. But they say nothing is wasted on a writer! And it planted the seed of an idea. I wanted to write a book that was very much focused on one room. There would be two main characters: one who had lived there when they’d been alive, and one who had recently moved in. I wanted the room to link them, but didn’t know how. As I began to work on it, I had a sense that the two people needed each other to fill in some kind of gap that would enable them each to be able to move on in their own way. It also evolved into a love story, and as someone who has written mostly middle grade books for the last decade, it was wonderful to explore this as fully as I wanted to. It turned out to be the most emotional experience I’ve ever had writing a book. I would walk my dog along the rugged coast path near us, listening to a playlist I’d made for the book as I walked, and scenes would come to life in front of my eyes. I’d end many of these walks in tears and have to run upstairs to my office and get it all written down! I loved the whole experience of writing this book.
While my book deals with very personal feelings of loss and displacement, yours deals with these issues on a much larger scale. I’m interested in how personal your involvement was in this area, and how you managed (very successfully, I have to say) to tread the path of your characters’ journeys whilst also opening the window on the hurricane that devastated so many people’s lives. How much of a challenge was it to deal with the wide and the closeup viewpoints at the same time?

Joanne: To answer your question about my connection to South Louisiana and Katrina, I lived in New Orleans and fell in love with it while I was in college. My husband and I considered moving there, but ultimately decided it would be too hot for him!
After Katrina hit, there were two friends I was concerned about and couldn’t find (one I’ve just reconnected with recently and the other I heard was okay, but I still have never found contact information for her). I spent a lot of time on the message boards that I mention in the book, and then in subsequent years read probably 100 or more narratives about people displaced by Katrina. The ones that really grabbed me were the ones by kids; those who had been expecting those ordinary milestones of teen life like a dance or a homecoming game that would never happen. Those little things haunted me—they have so much weight when you are a teen. Everyone who was involved in Katrina, I think, ended up being part of a bigger-picture scenario, though. The politics of the response to Katrina exposed some ugly but real truths about how Americans feel about those at the bottom end of the economic spectrum. Those who chose not to evacuate or couldn’t afford to were judged; some believed that they had brought whatever happened to them on themselves. Grounding the story in the personal while referencing the bigger-picture issues was a matter of trying not to be heavy handed, but not pretending that these issues weren’t present.
So, another thing I think our books have in common is the complicated sibling relationship—love exploring that! I’d love to hear more about how you developed the Joe-Olly dynamic, with all those complications of guilt and grief.
Liz: I was really interested to read what you said about the politics as well as the little things we take for granted. I think you handled it all beautifully, and the love story felt like a lovely light touch weaving through the bigger picture. Closer to home, as I’m sure you know, London experienced a horrendous situation recently when a tower block went up in flames. As well as being an utterly horrific personal tragedy for so many people, the political issues are similar—people living on the edges of poverty not being catered for, looked after, or respected enough to give them safe living conditions. It’s heartbreaking and rage-inducing at the same time.
In reply to your question about my characters—funny thing. Olly wasn’t in the story in the early stages of my thinking about it. Then one day, I was doing my thing, walking the dog along the coast path, listening to my playlist, when a song I’d put onto it without really knowing why came on. It was “Like I Can,” by Sam Smith. As I listened to the song, I had this moment where I imagined each verse being sung by a different boy. I envisioned a kind of contest between them, each saying why the girl should love him. That was when I realized Joe had a brother! I really enjoyed exploring the dynamics from that point, and exploring the differences between them, as well as figuring out how the relationships between all three contained a delicate balance where they all depended on each other to be able to move on with their own lives.
I’ve talked quite a bit about my process of writing this book. I’ve honestly never had a book come to me quite like this, but I do always plan them out an awful lot before writing, and that was no different this time. Months of planning and a full chapter-by-chapter breakdown before I write a word of the book. How about you? I’m always interested in the process. Are you a seat-of-the-pantser or a plotter like me?
Joanne: That’s so interesting about the way Olly came into the picture. Ideas come to me while I’m walking and listening to music, too! I feel like most of my story ideas have come from songs. And it’s interesting that this book grew more organically for you.
I have definitely always been a pantser, but for my new project, I outlined the whole thing. That’s actually been pretty reassuring—I know where I’m going now!
BTW, I see that we have both been journalists in addition to writing fiction. Tell me about your nonfiction work and how it has informed your storytelling!
Liz: Yes, I worked as a journalist for a few years, only really on a local and regional level. For me, the biggest thing this did for me was help me to sharpen up my writing to get to the point without too much waffle (I hope!) and to have a healthy discipline with deadlines! I have occasionally been influenced by real-life events, but to be honest, that’s usually something going on in the background that weaves its way into the themes, rather than being a direct and explicit element of my stories. Quite different from you, I’d say.
Interesting that you have had ideas come to you from songs as well. Here’s a question: do you think your job as writer is to “make up” the story, or is it more to find the story that is waiting there to be discovered? I very much feel it’s the latter, and I think that all the little things I do—listening to music, making collages, going for walks, visiting inspiring places, etc.—are part of the journey of finding the story that kind of already exists and that is my job to unearth and share. I’m always interested in where others stand on this kind of question.
Joanne: I love this question! And I love your answer to it. I, too, feel like I need to find a story that’s out there, and I always feel like I’m “discovering” a story rather than making it up. That’s one of the things that keeps writing interesting for me. I find that little things I see or overhear in everyday life make it into my stories in surprising ways. It becomes obvious that an idea or incident would be important to a character who’s kicking around in my head. Speaking of that, I know you have the Emily Windsnap series, but for a standalone book like Haunt Me, on a practical level, how do you get in the zone for writing: short spurts, blasts of inspiration or daily slog?
Liz: I’m so glad you feel the same way as I do about stories. I just feel there’s something a bit magical about it—something a little bit outside of ourselves, and we have to take lots of leaps of faith while we’re doing it. I feel like I have to treat the story with awe and respect and love, and in return it will (hopefully!) open up to me.
For Haunt Me—and, in fact, for most of my books—I find that in the early stages, an important part of getting in the zone is about going to the right place for that book. I get a lot of inspiration from my surroundings, and I always feel I need to visit somewhere that either feels like the inspiration for the setting or has lots of qualities that feel right for the book. I do a lot of wandering around with headphones on and a pen in my hand in the early plotting stages! Once I’m on the writing stage, I find I can do the short spurts a bit more easily. I set a word target each day and I’m not allowed to play out until I’ve met that day’s target. Or that’s the theory anyway!
Haunt Me and Between Two Skies are available now.