INSPIRATION FOR THE HOPE AFFAIR
Writing has been a long-held aspiration, but with a
busy career and family life, I was time-poor, so it took its place on the back
burner, a distant dream. On stepping down from my full-time role as a business executive
I was suddenly liberated. I could now choose how to spend my time: family,
hiking the gritstone edges of Derbyshire’s Peak District and, yes, writing. I
had an idea that had been percolating and in my inimitable style launched into
it with gusto, the end result being a self-published novel: Paradigm Shift back
in 2013. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of writing a book that brought
together two of my interests: business and politics. And I could claim it was
prescient as one major plot saw the advent of Brexit! Back in 2013!
The experience motivated me to join a writing group
and then to acquire a writing coach, herself a talented published author.
She was great.
Most of the time.
She was also a task master as I was coaxed to jump
through the learning hoops of writing a novel. There was a bit more to it than
had naively first occurred to me. But I was up for the learning experience and
she seemed to enjoy the wielding of her editor’s red pen much as I had when the
children were at school. How ‘the kids’ enjoyed the delicious irony of me being
subjected to the same torture! But I had caught the writing bug!
Thanks to my writing group and in particular to my
writing coach I came to better understand the importance of point of view (POV)
or perspective. After trialling different approaches I settled for a third
person narrative shared between the two main protagonists: Christopher Townsend
and Caroline Hope. Similar hoops were presented to me in areas such as
characterisation, plot, narrative, dialogue, and planning. And then I could
begin to dip into my own bank of life-experiences, challenges, successes,
failures, and colourful characters who could inspire traits in some of my
fictional characters. Slowly but surely Christopher Townsend and Caroline Hope
and the bohemian Olivia emerged, as did some of the less savoury characters
such as Horatio Pilkins and the despicable Sebastian.
My main characters also had to face up to
unpalatable choices as their story unfolds: sacrifice power and financial gain for
the love of his life? How to respond to bullying and sexual exploitation? How
to recognise and then deal with fraud heinous crimes?
I hope readers will enjoy the fictional story as
much as I enjoyed the main characters coming to life as we debated around the
dinner table the agonising choices that Christopher and Caroline faced. So it
was that the inspiration for The Hope Affair had its roots in the real-world
challenges and events I’ve met along the way, working with truly inspirational
people – with the occasional rogue thrown into the mix!
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