On Writing The Accidental Series

The accidental series

When readers asked about a follow-up to my debut novel, Sugar and Snails, I was surprised. Although I had thoughts about how my character, Diana, might have developed since 2004 when the novel is set, I didn’t plan to explore them in fiction.

Savvy authorpreneurs know that you can sell more books with a series. A strong hook and competitive price for the first book entices readers into your world and leaves them wanting more. A series especially effective in genre fiction, such as crime and fantasy, but less common in the literary and reading-group fiction that I read and write. That kind of novel should be complete in itself, even if the exact conclusion is left to the reader’s imagination. So, no, I wouldn’t be writing a sequel.

My perspective turned on its head shortly after I submitted my third novel, Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home, to my publisher in May, 2020. I’d been obsessionally editing the already much edited manuscript in lockdown, a project well suited to those anxious and disorientating times. For a couple of days, I felt relieved to have let it go. Then I began to miss my character. I missed her more than family and friends.

Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home is set in a long-stay psychiatric hospital at the end of the 1980s. Matty, the main character, is seventy and has been a patient for fifty years. She has survived the injustice of her incarceration by retreating into her imagination where she’s an heiress in a grand country estate. Her story is tragic but, as a person, she’s a lot of fun.

Watching TV footage of care homes in lockdown, my heart ached. Would the residents feel unnerved by staff in gowns and visors, especially if they were already confused? I wondered what someone like Matty would make the strange new etiquette. When I realised that, if she were still alive, she’d be due a big birthday, I couldn’t resist finding out. 

At first, I thought I was writing Lyrics for the Loved Ones for my own entertainment. But, as more characters arrived and the themes stretched beyond the pandemic, I began sharing scenes with my critique group. Encouraged by their response, I kept writing.

But two books don’t constitute a series. Early last year, with Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home published and the first draft of Lyrics for the Loved Ones set aside to rest, I realised I’d left a gaping hole in Matty’s history. I’d covered her childhood and old age, but her five decades in the asylum were uncharted. How would she react as a young woman shut away after being forced to give up her ‘illegitimate’ child for adoption? Would she find friends? Would she rebel? Would she attempt to leave?

I answered those questions in a novella, Stolen Summers, published for World Mental Health Day in October 2022. With the publication of Lyrics for the Loved Ones, I have the series – albeit a short one – I never expected to write.

So, am I a convert? I’ve certainly enjoyed spending more time with Matty and getting to know her better at different points of her life. Fortunately, readers also find her fascinating: for author, translator and blogger Olga Núňez Miret, she’s one of the most memorable and heart-wrenching protagonists I’ve met. But I also wanted variety: each book includes other significant characters with their own issues and narrative arcs.

Being familiar with her character from Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home, I felt more confident as I embarked on the later books. But nothing felt formulaic; each book was an adventure.

As with writing prompts, some of the constraints enhanced my creativity. Some were obstacles to manoeuvre around. I had to ensure that minor details, such as a character’s birthdate, pinned down without much thought in the first published book, were consistent across all three. Sometimes that required revising the plot.

I also wanted to ensure that each book would work as a stand-alone story, consistent with the others but not dependent on them. Latterly I realised that seems to be the case for series generally in literary fiction, such as Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, Margaret Atwood’s Maddaddam trilogy and Jane Gardam’s Old Filth. These series are often shorter than in genre fiction. Should I stop at three?

While it’s possible that I’m done with Matty, I have notes for two additional books. For now, however, I’m focused on getting Lyrics for the Loved Ones into readers’ hands.

Lyrics for the Loved Ones

After half a century confined in a psychiatric hospital, Matty has moved to a care home on the Cumbrian coast. Next year, she’ll be a hundred, and she intends to celebrate in style. Yet, before she can make the arrangements, her ‘maid’ goes missing.

Irene, a care assistant, aims to surprise Matty with a birthday visit from the child she gave up for adoption as a young woman. But, when lockdown shuts the care-home doors, all plans are put on hold. 

But Matty won’t be beaten. At least not until the Black Lives Matter protests burst her bubble and buried secrets come to light.

Will she survive to a hundred? Will she see her ‘maid’ again? Will she meet her long-lost child? 

Rooted in injustice, balanced with humour, this is a bittersweet story of reckoning with hidden histories in cloistered times.

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Anne Goodwin is a former clinical psychologist who crafts entertaining tales from serious topics. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize. Her novels and short stories feature marginalised identities, mental health difficulties and social justice. 

Website https://annegoodwin.co.uk/

Twitter @Annecdotist

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