Juliet Archer

The Secrets of Freya North

Yesterday, with over 50 other RNA members, I heard Freya North - winner of the 2008 Romantic Novel of the Year Award - talk about writing, getting published, her books and her characters.

Taking the titles of her last four books in vain, there were some Secrets revealed, and a few Home Truths, plenty of Love Rules (we were, after all, a gaggle of romantic novelists) but no Pillow Talk that I’m aware of.

We heard how Freya wrote fictitious reviews by famous people to get her submission noticed by Jonathan Lloyd at Curtis Brown - and it worked! How heroines are queuing up in her head to have their stories written - so plenty more books to come. How seriously she takes her research, whether it’s following all those firm male butts on the Tour de France or, most recently, savouring the delights of Middlesbrough. How her book covers have been ‘lost in translation’ when published in other languages. And how she organises her time for writing, editing and book promotion.

My favourite ’secret’: for Freya, writing is definitely an art rather than a science. She puts down whatever comes into her head and doesn’t worry about plot plans or card indexes. As she describes it, when her characters walk towards her and come into focus, they carry a suitcase containing everything she needs to know about them.

My favourite ‘home truth’: there is no right or wrong way to write! Freya hops from one tense to another and from one character’s head to another. It certainly works for her.

My favourite ‘love rules’: her characters choose their own romantic ending. If it makes them happy, like a benevolent parent she lets them get on with it - even if their partner isn’t the one she would have chosen for them.

And there was even a reference to chocolate! When Freya told us about her involvement in Girls’ Night In, a series of anthologies to raise money for War Child, she described them as a ’true box of chocolates’: some soft centres, some simply nutty, others hard or chewy. Yum!

All in all, a fascinating insight from a writer who took a slightly unorthodox route to publication and has achieved enormous success.