UNDER THE COVERS
Building a back story
Tales of writerly woe will come in handy when your talent is finally rewarded with fame and fortune, right? muses Gillian Harvey
If you’re anything like me, you gobble up stories of successful novelists who started off on the back foot, battling rejections from agents then publishers, enduring disappointing novel performance, maybe even taking a career break until WHAM! They wrote ‘that’ book, got ‘that’ deal, were shortlisted for ‘that’ prize and suddenly became A Name.
Let’s be honest – the worse the journey, the better the story.
At various times in my authoring life, I’ve thought to myself ‘well, at least I’ll have a brilliant back story.’ The only problem is that the trials and tribulations only become romanticised in retrospect.