CULTURE CLUB
AS THE NEXT STOP ON THE JOURNEY OF THE PARIS CONNECTION AUTHOR LORRAINE BROWN ARRIVES, WE GET A GLIMPSE INTO HER SCRIBBLING LIFE
’m interested in what people can bring to a relationship that’s going to change someone else. We tend to be drawn to a certain type of relationship, which is connected to the past. If you’re always going for that same type of person, and it’s not quite working, what’s going to make you try something different – and what happens when you do? There’s going to be conflict and challenge, which is why I like exploring the ‘opposites attract’ trope. I also like the fake dating trope, which I’ve not explored in my books yet… My week is divided into two or three days of counselling, and the rest writing. I can’t imagine writing five days a week. It’s good to get out and have your brain stimulated by other stuff, meeting people and challenging yourself in different ways: going into central London for work, hearing conversations on the Tube or bus. I try to write in coffee shops, because I started out in Waterstones cafe, Hampstead. I’ll sit there for a few hours and nurse a cup of tea. I work best when it comes to deadlines, leaving it to the last minute. You need that rush of adrenaline. Around when The Paris Connection got traction, winning a competition with Penguin Random House, I started work on my diploma in psychodynamic counselling. I was able to see my characters in a completely different light. I now think: why are they like this? It makes them feel so
much more realistic. When I wrote Sorry I Missed You , I was working at the University of Cambridge in the student counselling department, seeing definite patterns when things have gone a bit wrong in childhood
FINDING SOLACE Pandemic life had a huge impact on Lorraine’s writing in Sorry I Missed You
– and the impact on how romantic relationships are navigated now.
In Sorry I Missed You , my male lead, Jack, is an actor (something I used to be). The idea of my protagonists being neighbours dawned on me before lockdown, but it was made even more urgent. I live in a block of flats, a bit like Jack and Rebecca, and became hyper-aware of everything my neighbours were doing, fascinated by what they were cooking or what time they went for their walk. I have to know a place well to set a book there. I started writing my third book during the pandemic and it’s set in Florence. I was struggling, because I’d only been there for half a day. As soon as I could, I went... and suddenly everything clicked. I would like to set something in Cambridge – it’s such a beautiful, romantic city. There’s this book on writing called Save the Cat! , which is quite Marmite in terms of how writers think about it. It helps you plot and craft the whole story, with various highs and lows, midpoints and finales. I signed up to do this US-based course, which started at 11pm. I plotted the entire novel during those three Saturdays in real
time. When I sat down to write, I’d only left myself two months – something to do with homeschooling. I reread Stephen King’s On Writing , where he says to just motor through the first draft. I thought, well, I’m short for time. seriously. It also toughens you up to feedback, which is something you get a lot of when you become published. The Paris Connection came out in the US and I remember seeing comments online about it not being very steamy. I thought: what does that mean? Then I read US romcoms and understood. Through TikTok, I’m reading the books that are really piquing people’s interest, hitting those markers. Seeing what they’re doing is helpful at the moment. My first writing course was ten weeks and it made me feel I was taking it
CAMBSEDITION.CO.UK SEPTEMBER 2022 27
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