The Accident (36 page)

BOOK: The Accident

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Q. Why did you use diary entries alongside the main thread of the story?

I felt it was really important that the reader understands why Susan is the way she is. She’s nervy, neurotic and paranoid and, without the diary entries, it would be hard to be sympathetic towards her. During the course of the novel Susan moves from whole to broken, to whole again and I thought it was important for the reader to see – via her diary entries – how very broken she was. Both threads of the stories build at the same time and I hope the climaxes are as satisfying for the reader as they were to write.

Q. Your main character, Susan, is a very ‘unreliable narrator’. Did you find her difficult to write?

Not really. Once I’d heard Susan’s voice in my head the words just spilled out of me. That said there were times – when she was lashing out at people who didn’t deserve it – when I just wanted to shake her and tell her to trust people, but I totally understood why she was the way she was and why it was so important that she discover what had happened to Charlotte in her own way.

At the beginning of the novel Susan says that she feels like she was ‘sleep walking’ through her own life but, by the end, she’s totally in charge of it. That was incredibly satisfying to write.

Q. Did you always know how the novel was going to end? Did you ever consider an alternative?

No, I always knew that James would die at the end and Charlotte would wake up. I did consider Susan killing him but I didn’t want her to become as vicious as he was. I also umm’d and ahh’d about whether or not Brian should return to the hospital room. I didn’t want him to be a ‘hero’ and save the day but I liked the idea that the habit that had annoyed Sue so much at the beginning of the novel (of him always returning to collect something he’d forgotten) actually helped save her life at the end. I also thought that, given how Sue had done so much over the course of the novel without Brian’s support, it would prove his love for her if he came to her aid.

Acknowledgements

Huge thanks to my editor Lydia Vassar-Smith and the team at Avon/HarperCollins for their support, encouragement and enthusiasm. You transformed this book from a figment of my imagination to something tangible and I couldn’t be more delighted.

Massive thanks to Madeleine Milburn for supporting me every step of the way. You kept believing, even when my own belief faltered, and that marks you out as a very special agent indeed.

A big thank you to my friends and family – particularly my parents Reg and Jenny Taylor and my brother and sister David and Rebecca – for continuing to ask ‘how’s the novel?’ even when the answer was little more than a sigh. And lots of love to Suz, Leah, Sophie, LouBag, Steve, Guinevere, Angela, Ana, Nan and Granddad.

Grateful thanks to everyone on Twitter and Facebook who helped me out with research – particularly Andrew Parsons for his hospital procedure/drug expertise and Kimberley Mills for sharing her experience of caring for a coma patient. Thank you – and sorry – to Emily Harborow. The video research footage you surreptitiously filmed for me ended up on the editing room floor but I’m sure I’ll be able to use it in another book.

Big thanks to Jim Ross for taking my lovely new author photos and to Rebecca Butterworth for doing my makeup.

A huge thank you to my writer friends. Writing can be such a lonely business and you keep me sane (and watered with booze). Special mention must go to Carolyn Jess-Cooke, Sally Quilford, Leigh Forbes, Helen Hunt, Helen Kara, Karen Clarke, Rowan Coleman, Miranda Dickinson, Kate Harrison, Julie Cohen and Tamsyn Murray for being particularly lovely.

Lastly, and by no means least, all my love and thanks to Chris and Seth. I wrote this book while I was on maternity leave – not because I had a very sleepy baby and lots of time on my hands – but because I thought I was going to go mental from sleep deprivation and writing was the only thing that kept me sane. I couldn’t have done it without you Chris. Thank you for pushing the baby around town at 5a.m. so I could sleep, thank you for taking him to visit your relatives so I could write and thank you for telling me, over and over, that I
could
do it. It looks like I did.

http://cltaylorauthor.wordpress.com

www.twitter.com/callytaylor

About the Author

C.L. Taylor lives in Bristol with her boyfriend and toddler son. She started writing fiction in 2005 and her short stories have won several awards and been published by a variety of literary and women’s magazines.

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First Published in Great Britain by HarperCollins
Publishers
2014

C L Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780007540037

Version: 2014-01-23

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