Writing The Second Novel

In Autumn of 2018, I was riding high. I’d recently signed with an agent for my debut Little White Lies and we were soon to go ‘on sub’ to publishers. I was developing plans for ‘Book 2’, so that we could pitch for a two-book deal: I had a first chapter and a punchy blurb (both of which had been shortlisted in a competition). I had a ‘hook’; I even had a synopsis.

This second novel thing? I was nailing it, man.

Then I spoke with my agent. ‘I’m going to be completely transparent,’ she said. ‘I like it … but it’s not the right genre. I’m just not sure it fits with Little White Lies.’

One of the worst / best things about my agent (Sarah Hornsley) is that she is basically always right. She was right about this – and I knew it. ‘So… do you have any other ideas?’ she asked. I did. Kind of. I had a premise, at least – one that Sarah liked. Within days, I wrote a pitch of about five lines… and off it went, with my debut, to publishers.

Fast forward to April 2019 and I had secured a two-book deal with HQ/HarperCollins. The edits for Little White Lies were all done and its publication date was scheduled. Now it was time for me to settle down and get cracking with ‘Book 2’.

And that’s where the trouble started.

The blurb you can now read for Safe and Sound was pretty much what I had pitched to my agent back in 2018. But six months later, I still had no idea what my story was actually about. 

Safe and Sound was inspired by the true-life case of Joyce Vincent, a woman in her thirties who died at home in late 2003 and whose body was only discovered in 2006. In 2011, filmmaker Carol Morley created a deeply-moving docu-drama about Joyce’s life and death, based on interviews with those who had known her. 

I’d first seen ‘Dreams of a Life’ around 2013 and remained moved and emotionally haunted by it for years. I watched and re-watched it, as the urge to explore my own narratives around this event grew and grew.

So in 2019, I tried. I wrote an outline and it was BAD. I walked miles through the Lincolnshire countryside, trying to figure out the answer the very question I had set up for myself: How DID Sarah Jones’ death go unnoticed for ten whole months?

I tore up my first outline (all 3,000 words) and went back to ground zero: new setting, new characters, new plot, the lot. This outline I couldn’t even finish properly. After about 2,500 words, it trailed off with: ‘maybe someone else dies??? Ug.’ That one also went in the bin.

Part of the problem, I think, was that filmmaker Carol Morley had already composed such a revealing and moving narrative, that sometimes it felt as if there wasn’t another story left to tell. Maybe Morley had already fulfilled the need for ‘that story’, and the Universe didn’t need another version. But still, the idea wouldn’t leave me alone (plus I was kind of already committed).

I needed something else, I realised. Another angle. ‘Your protagonist, the housing manager who investigates?’ one of my writing friends said. ‘She has to unravel. It has to be a story about her too.’ And she was right. There had to be more to this book than just solving a mystery (although obviously I’d have to deal with that too). 

A scene came to me (the one where Jenn does something odd in the swimming pool), and suddenly her character came to life. I wrote a third outline, the first half of which I was happy with at least. I wrote a first draft, tidied it a bit, sent it to my agent. Based on her feedback, I re-wrote my story again. 

But at last, I was finding my way. Characters and scenes were coming more easily: Prin and Jane arrived fully-formed, and the scene where Jenn races across London in the middle of the night suddenly gave me access to the whole ‘feel’ of the book. 

In March 2020, I sent the manuscript to my editor. From there on, after some more edits, the HQ team took my book into their capable hands. The team came up with the perfect title, and designer Anna Sikorska created that perfectly eerie yet beautiful cover. 

It’s amazing to now set Safe and Sound alongside Little White Lies on my bookshelf. These books each had quite a different conception and journey to publication, but I am equally proud of them both. Somehow Safe and Sound grew from a last-minute, cobbled-together pitch paragraph to a fully-formed book. This process always seems like alchemy to me, even though I know first-hand the sweat and graft it requires!

And what about that other book – the one that my agent rightly said didn’t fit? Well, that story has been quietly set aside. I think it might be someone else’s to write.

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Philippa East grew up in Scotland and originally studied Psychology and Philosophy. After graduating, she moved to London to train as a Clinical Psychologist and worked in NHS mental health services for over ten years. Philippa now lives in the Lincolnshire countryside with her husband and cat. Alongside her writing, she continues to work as a psychologist and therapist. Philippa’s first novel Little White Lies was published in 2020 and shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey New Blood Dagger. Her second novel Safe and Sound is another suspenseful and gripping tale, and available to pre-order now.

Twitter: @philippa_east