Eleanor Anstruther's "In Judgement of Others"

Author interview

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Eleanor Anstruther and Holly Starley in conversation on Eleanor’s novel, now available for preorder, In Judgement of Others, indie publishing, and the brilliance of Substack.

Maybe the only thing better than talking with an author whose work you adore is sharing that conversation with writers and readers whose hearts, minds, and words you adore.

To read

Eleanor Anstruther

is to be plopped in the middle of a scene absolutely vibrating with energy, and often chaos, and be able to sit back, grin, and enjoy the ride, because you’re being taken through whatever comes next by an author you can trust. I’ve come to think of this exquisite compactness of delivery—a line or even a phrase that contains paragraphs worth of information—as an Eleanorism. What a joy then to chat about why she values brevity and the hard work to get there. The answer, in short? She values you.

To share with you is to share with readers who are up for a good ride. You’ll hear in this conversation how Eleanor writes her way from outrage to compassion. (To me, both are vibrant on the page.) You’ll learn how she meets—yes, that’s the right word—characters who make you want to squeal with delight or hug them or shake them and, either way, find out what they’ll do next. And you’ll be treated to her generosity as she shares well-earned craft strategies and walks us through the different avenues of publishing. She’s had experience with both mainstream and indie book publishing (no more calling the latter hybrid, vanity, or self-publishing!), as well as publishing a book first as a serial on her substack, Eleanor’s Substack.

That is, in fact, the path In Judgement of Others has taken to the printed page. And with it, Eleanor’s hoping to blaze a trail from indie into mainstream for authors to follow. In Judgement is available to preorder now. I can’t wait to add it to my growing stack of Substack authors in print. Get In Judgement of Others fromAmazon or from (Troubador). (Preorder numbers make a huge difference for a book’s trajectory. So, it’s a great way to support an author.)

One more link before we get to the video. Eleanor’s class, “Serialise Your Novel,” all about serial publication and why it’s good for your writing, is on November 13.

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And now, from the belly of Ruby van Jangles, US, and from West Sussex, UK. To joy! To indie authors! To kitchen drama!

PS. Forgive the view. I thought we were being recorded side by side. But no. (Technology is hard.)

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Transcript

HS

Hi there. This is The Rolling Desk. I’m Holly Starley. And today we’re literally in the rolling desk hub, as well as in West Sussex with today’s guest—it’s an author interview I’ve just been so excited to share with you guys.

Eleanor Anstruther’s writing is compact and juicy and has this way of tapping into the current zeitgeist while just dropping you into the middle of a scene and bringing it to life whenever or wherever it takes place.

While studying the history of art at Manchester University, Eleanor was distracted from finishing her degree by a trip to India. This led to a 12-year series of stops before she settled down to write. Those stops included building a stone circle, starting a commune, and traveling all throughout Africa, Australia, Asia, and America.

Her debut book, A Perfect Explanation, is available in UK, US, and Italian editions and as an audiobook, and it has been long-listed for the Desmond Elliott Prize. Congratulations. Her second book, A Memoir in 65 Postcards and the Recovery Diaries, is available globally. It's also on her Substack, at Eleanor's Substack, along with short stories and craft essays and the novel that she's currently serializing, which is amazing. It's called Fallout. It's gripping. I'm like “patiently” awaiting the next week to come so I can read more. So I just highly recommend it.

In the post below, there’s going to be links to all of her work. If you're listening on the podcast, you can jump over to the Rolling Desk,nhollystarley.substack.com, and we'll have posts to everything Eleanor, or links to everything, I should say.

Today, we're here to talk about Eleanor's now available in print third novel, In Judgement of Others. In Judgement was also published first as a serial on Substack. And it is tagged as “a dark comedy of psychosis in the Home Counties. For me, it’s this profound exploration of themes that are sort of up for a lot of us right now. One of them being like this insistent binding of gender roles. Another being like the blurring of just between reality and the roles that we’re playing. And then this continued stuntedness with which we seem to have our understanding of mental illness or, conversely, mental wellness. And it’s also just wickedly entertaining.

So with all that said, Eleanor, welcome. I love your writing. I’m so glad to be here with you.

EA

Sorry, that was my internet.

HS

Oh, no worries. I’m so glad to have you here and to talk about In Judgement of Others. I wondered if you wanted to start by just giving us a little bit of the, just sort of a blurb about the book.

EA

Sure. Well, great to be here, Holly. So nice to hear, actually, just a kind of résumé of my work, because I think for a lot of writers, we just, we’re in it. And it’s it’s good to hear how much what we’ve done, because often it just feels like, you know. I’m constantly struggling. So thank you for that. It was lovely.

In Judgement of Others. Well, it’s kind of, yes, the tagline is “psychosis in the Home Counties. What it’s about is a girl, a woman, a mother called Tessa, who’s bipolar, and she’s part of an am-dram society, and they’re putting on Blithe Spirit, and she doesn’t really want to do it, but she’s sort of persuaded to do it. But within the first rehearsal really, she has a psychotic breakdown, and is sectioned and her friend, “friend,” Ros, who’s a kind of C-list celebrity and new to the area and pretty pleased with herself, takes Tessa’s role in the show. And really it's a result of what happens as a kind of result of that and how relationships really unravel.

And what I’m doing in the novel is I’m putting bipolar kind of up against other kinds of mental illness like narcissism because it really strikes me again and again how these two mental health conditions and the kind of havoc they wreak on their close society and on wider society, they’re treated really differently. So I wanted to take these two characters to kind of embody these two states of mind really and conditions and illnesses. I’m kind of hovering over all of those words, because it’s a matter of opinion really on what they are and where they land. So I take the characters and just put them in the same community and kind of pull the pin and see what happens.

HS

OK. All right. I love that. And I kind of, I wanted to start out by reading some of your work to you, if that’s OK—reading a couple of passages.

The first one is—well, your intro leads in so well to what I was going to do, because we have these two women. This first one comes from Tessa, and it is, I believe in chapter three: it’s early on.

They followed her perfectly tight arse through the rectory kitchen where vicar’s wives had felt shut in, but which now stretched from front to back with large glass doors to a garden that had grown like the house to double that after Peter bought the fields next door. On the terrace the complete collection of Midhurst society stood about in groups. Tessa wasn’t sure if she should turn over the drinks table or take the glass of Chablis Peter offered her and ask him how his summer was.

So there’s one woman.

And then we have Ros. And this is, I think, like halfway through. It’s from, I think, chapter 16.

She wasn’t aware that a drip feed of neglect, a daily laceration of the missing can lead a faith to break, an omnipotence to be born, a mind to opt for fantasy, and a body to be so riddled with discomfort that to live amongst its screaming nerve-endings becomes a thing impossible. So subtle had been the lack, so consistent, so hidden by the appearance of plenty, that when she looked back on her childhood, the absence of her parents’ care read as normal. Instead of seeing the pattern on repeat, she lived as if the yawning gap within her was for want of something given her today.

And it just strikes me that you have one woman who’s going to be sectioned during the course of the novel, and one who’s this not-quite-famous actress, but kind of revered in this small fish, or big fish in a small town sort of way. And then both of them, I see, or it seems to me, feel sort of trapped in their lives and their gender role. And they’re both sort of aware of playing roles. And then both of them have this, like, arrested development, let’s call it that’s sort of anchored in childhood trauma but not given a lot of credence, either on their own part or on the part of their caregiver givers.

And then they both have elements of delusion, though those delusions are really different. And I just wanted to ask, am I right to see the parallels between those two? Did you mean to draw those parallels?

EA

Yeah, I really did, because I think it’s really easy to write a novel where there is a hero and anti-hero and to kind of paint them very simply. But the truth of it is, even though Tessa is our protagonist, and Ros is our antagonist, the roots of Ros’s illness and the way that she acts out are in just as much trauma as Tessa’s. And they’ve just landed in—you know, the pieces have been thrown up, and they’ve landed in a different order. So the parallels are absolutely there because I didn’t want to vilify one and vindicate another. It was really important that my point is that these are all illnesses, and they should just be treated the same. I think it was just leveling the playing field I really wanted to get at.

So it was really important that we find some feeling for both. I mean I’m always really careful to not make it a prerequisite for any reader to feel a certain way about a certain character. I like to leave it really open. And it was interesting streaming; you know you get a real-life live streaming of responses. And not everybody liked Tessa. And some people preferred Roa and vice versa, so that it was it. It was good to see. And it was very telling to see, particularly those who really took to Ros early on.

I mean, she is an unreliable witness, and I do write it like that. And in a sense, we can’t help but give spoilers, so I am giving that spoiler now. But yeah, ultimately, by the end, which obviously I won’t give away, we know. I do make it possible for readers to feel empathy, sympathy, and anger and annoyance at both of them in equal parts. And I think there is a real parallel.

I mean, the main difference between them, I think, and this might be to do with the way these two illnesses, or conditions, are treated is that Tessa is pretty much aware that she’s bipolar. She has a degree of self-, well, quite a lot of self-awareness, except when she’s psychotic, obviously. Whereas Roa, you know, I think one of the identifiers of narcissism is a lack of self-awareness. They just, you know, I think we probably all know narcissists. I’m talking about clinical narcissists. And usually those people think there’s something else going on that will describe them and not that word and not that condition. So that’s the one big difference between them that Ros would be absolutely stunned if somebody said it, diagnosed her as a narcissist.

But apart from that, you know, I think you’re absolutely right to draw the parallels. And I wanted that to happen because this is, in a sense, real life. That’s what I like to depict. That’s what I endeavor to depict all the time.

HS

And you did so well. And just as you were speaking there, I was thinking about the reaction because I was one of those who was reading it as you were serializing it. And I remember there was a chapter, and we won’t give away a spoiler. At any rate, I had felt a lot of sympathy for Ros. I was likel oh wow so she comes by it honestly. And then I was reading the comments, and I was like, Oh not everybody is feeling as much sympathy for Ros as I am in this moment. So that was really fun. I’m sure as an author, like you said, it’s fun to see.

EA

You know, I’m about to teach—I was just crafting a lesson today that I’ll be teaching on serialization. And one of the things I want to talk about is how you just have to sit on your hands and keep your mouth shut. Because people are in conversations about it making assumptions, going off down sometimes blind alleys that I’ve set up, sometimes stuff they have just created themselves. And you just have to be like, no, don’t speak. It’s really … an unexpected challenge, I think, of live streaming serialization but really fun as well. There were times I felt, Oh, god, is everyone going to be really cross with me? Those who’ve gone down blind alleys that I’ve set up, you know. Will they just feel duped? So, a bit of my own stuff was like coming up, like the pleaser in me was like, Oh no. I’m really sorry. I would, like, send you off on a trip. Anyway, there it is.

HS

Oh, that’s so funny. You know, I’m sure that would be the same for me. But as the, as a participant, I was just like, wherever, take me wherever. I’ll go. This is great.

So, we have these two characters, who are super rich, super well-developed. But the thing about this book is that there are so many characters and so much richness in that like not only the um the characters that are in this play, but there's also the characters that are at the board. And I’m just wondering, just sort of from a craft point of view, did you start with all these characters in mind? Or did some of them arise as you went?

EA

Yeah, absolutely. No, I didn’t. I started with Tessa and Ros, I think, were probably the first two. And then Clare came along as a kind of balancer. She plays a very important role, Clare, even though she is kind of the third wheel. She’s very crucial. So the three of them were the kind of baseline. And then I knew Scott was there.

So, all the community that exists in the Midhurst community, they sort of arrived. I never feel like I created them. I honestly, I just feel like they arrive on the page, and I’m like, Oh, hello. And then some take ages to get to know—like Claire—I mean, forever. But that is her character. She’s very private. And others are just coming at you, like Ros.

But the ones in Mercury Ward, particularly Derek and Clive, were a complete surprise. And absolutely, that experience is the joy of writing. When that happens, when characters like Derek and Clive turn up, when I walked into the ward with Tessa, or Tessa walked into the ward, and there they were, and they introduced themselves literally on the page, you know, that’s why I do it. I do it for that experience. And they absolutely exist, you know. I know they’re still there somewhere in Mercury Ward. And I kind of feel like they deserve a book all of their own. I love them so much, and they really only have a small part. But the part they have was a complete joy.

So it’s a mixture, Holly. It’s a mixture. But I think, I think all writers find—if you’re in this, if you’ve found the right scene and you’re in it, and you’re really true to it and you stay with it—people just, they pop up. And yeah, it’s, it is magic. To me, it’s the definition of magic. It’s just unbelievable.

HS

Love it. I have goosebumps. That’s so cool. And I loved Derek and Clive. And Ethel.

EA

And Ethel. And Carrie with her fingernails. I just love them.

HS

Yeah. Such a cool experience.

EA

I can tell you actually, in fact, the scene in Mercury Ward, the scene when they do the play, that came out of nowhere as well. Absolutely out of nowhere. I was not planning on it. And when that happened, it was like, Oh my God, that’s such a good idea. They could happen at the same time. You know, and it literally just, they all got up and put sheets on and just started mucking about. I was like, Crikey. So yeah, it absolutely does happen. And God, you know, it’s amazing when it happens like that.

HS

You know, that was my experience when I read about them doing that. I was like, Oh my God, like this is so meta. And it was almost—this is a thing I think you just did so beautifully— it was like almost so meta that it could have felt contrived. And it didn’t. And, I mean, this is your whole, like, part of this theme is this idea of playing roles. You see Tessa and Ros often aware of the roles they’re playing or not, but definitely playing roles. And so I think that I kind of wanted to ask you a little bit about gender roles.

And I think, correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought I saw, like maybe a note or a comment somewhere, where you pushed back against maybe somebody gendering traits, was it? And then I think about your own life, and you’ve done so much. You did the commune. You did the traveling. You’ve certainly not opted for that like tiki-taki houses life—you know, wife, mother'; this is how women are fulfilled. And i just kind of wanted to say. I don’t know, to ask, Is that a commentary? Is In Judgement sort of a commentary on gender roles and the binding thereof.

EA.

While I was writing it, that wasn’t particularly in my mind. But you’re absolutely right that it is. It’s constantly in my mind as a human being. So it’s bound to enter my work absolutely everywhere. So, it wasn’t consciously there in the novel, but it did appear. And I think the pushback you’re referring to, I think it was probably with Julie (

Julie Gabrielli

). She and I have talked about it. And I think it was she was talking about femininity. And I have a real problem with that word. Not the feminine principle. I understand that. But femininity as a definer and that is a whole thing. I just cannot cope with it at all.

And so, yes, I mean, looking at the novel, you know, one of the things about Midhurst society—and I have I’ve kind of overly gendered it in a way—it is a bit like that. Women are kind of expected to be a certain way and men are expected to be. Men do the rugby, and women do make the lunch. I mean, that’s a complete generalization, but, you know, that’s kind of how it is. And Scott—you know, there are obviously men in the book—and Scott, Tessa’s husband is a very kind of man, you know. But I put in, he’s Irish, and he kind of suffers under that needing to be a man and being like this, sort of that stereotypical role.

But I don’t think, apart from Clare, I don’t think any of the characters actually question their gender roles at all, certainly not consciously. I think their question, I think they are role, I mean, you’re absolutely right to pick out the role-playing. The role-playing is happening on every level, all the way through the novel, from literally people to actors on stage playing a character through to the role that Tessa has to play when she comes out of hospital of being well and all of that.

But I think, yeah, I think with gender, you’re probably picking up the kind of constant internal hum inside me of challenging gender, smashing gender. Gender is a construct. I’m going to say it here and now.

HS

I love that. I love that.

EA

It’s bound to permeate absolutely everything I do. And obviously the following novel, Fallout, I really get into it, gloves off.

HS

Yes. Yes, you do. Oh my gosh. I can’t wait to find out what happens there.

I was going to—we’ve kind of covered it. But you know, I do want to read this passage because it’s a passage from later in the novel. I think it’s like chapter 22. But it’s, I think you put together so well, just all of what we just talked about here, in this moment. So if I, if I can read to you from your work again, OK. And this is. No. I’m not going to set it up. I'm just going to read it.

These people who called themselves healthy, who were allowed to walk freely while she was locked in a cage, were they so well?Were they so free of torment?  They just hid it better; Clare with her secrets, Brian with his killer wrapped in tweed, Ros with her sashaying hips that made every other woman feel shit, their symptoms didn’t call the police, they were allowed to carry on as they were and when their torment spilled over in closed lips and anger and drunkenness, people called it privacy or duty or a laugh.  People made allowances.  All she was doing when she tore up the house was trying to make the outside match the inside, trying to live with her torment too.  Was it not preferable to pretence and bluster, to truth seeping out in stabbings so subtle it was hard to believe that they’d meant it?  The secretive, the loud, the self-obsessed, where was the demand that they sort their shit out?  They could sustain their habits, the public were on their side, they could have any drug they wanted.  No one sectioned narcissists.  They could self-medicate with booze and pot and sex, flashes of violence, arrogance and condescension, and everyone would say, you shouldn’t pry, or he fought for his country, or you know Ros, she’s an actress. The emotionally dangerous could walk the streets freely, smashing lives. They’d been clever enough, or lucky enough to stay this side of the line.

I’m going to stop there. But I think that summarizes so well the point that you are making. And just, yeah, it shows your beautiful writing.

EA

Thank you. In that excerpt, you picked out really the most important line to me in the whole novel, which is, “No one sections narcissists.” That really is what I’m talking about. And I, you know, everything that Tess is saying in that moment is what makes me furious around the inequality in how we treat different mental illnesses. You know, which is, it’s not to say that psychosis isn’t something. And this novel is a love letter to a friend of mine who has been sectioned regularly since she was 21 years old. So I’ve been very close to it for a very long time. And it’s not to say that I have any romantic ideas about psychotic episodes. I know what they look like, and I know how destructive they are. and I know people need help. But it’s more like, what about the others and how destructive they are? And that’s really the point I’m making.

And the stigma around it. You know, it’s really equivalent to the stigma, it’s fine to have cancer, but if you’ve got HIV, well … Those are the kind of equivalent real unfairnesses in society that are laid upon people who are going through very, very similar challenges, struggles. And those things, narcissism, bipolar, have come from trauma. I mean, in all of my research, and that’s experiential, that’s reading, that’ss talking to professionals, it really does seem to me that all of these act outs come from a place of trauma. I’d be amazed to hear that there’s an example that certainly doesn’t. So, compassion is required on every level, everywhere. And it’s really the leveling of the playing field.

And I think that, you know, most of my books always begin from a point of outrage. I’m really angry about something. I’m upset about something. Or I’m, you know, I want revenge, vengeance around something. And then as I explore it, you know, it was important for me to find compassion for Ros, which was really difficult because I wanted to hate her. But, you know, so they are as much about how I can find compassion for the people who really drive me mad. That’s why I write these books in a way. It’s as much that as just the joy of writing.

So, yeah, you picked out the kind of absolute most important line in the whole book, I think, right there.

HS

Well, I love this. I think what you’re saying about the comparison between cancer versus HIV and the just very different stigmas, or non stigmas, that’s just such a succinct way to sum that up, where they’re just both things people are dealing with.

AE

Yeah.

HS

OK, so. I would love as an editor and a writer myself—and I’m actually about ready to start a new substack called The Joy of Revision all about editing—I would really, really love to do just some sort of craft element talk with you, if that’s OK.

AE

OK.

HS

So dialogue is one of my favorite things that you do. I think you do the dialogue just so well. You do these sort of quick and clipped dialogue. There’s these moments that really mirror real life where everybody’s just saying the thing that’s happening for them, they’re own perspective. It’s just great.

Um, one particular scene I absolutely loved was early on in In Judgement. We see Tessa follow Scott, her husband, into the bathroom. And there’s this conversation where, um, they’re just having this conversation, and she’s using the bathroom. He’s getting ready for the shower. And she says:

“Do you think Ros is better looking than me?”

“For fuck’s sake, Tess.” 

“Is that why you want her to do the play?”

“I want her to do it because she’s good.”  He turned on the shower.

“And I’m not?”  She flushed the loo.

“She’s a professional.”

“It’s only am-dram.”

“Then you fucking do it. I’m not standing in your way. Brian said you’ve got the part; Ros doesn’t want it.  Maybe I won’t do it.  Maybe I’ll tell Brian to cast someone else as Charles.” 

But he was standing in her way.  He was blocking the light and preventing her from breathing.

So, I just think there’s so much in this little clipped piece of dialogue. It talks about their familiarity. It talks about all the pieces that are going on. And then they’re just doing things in the bathroom. So I guess my question is, Does dialogue just sort of come naturally? Do you do a lot of work to get this really tight dialogue?

AE

Yeah. It does come naturally. I do a lot of work to get this really tight dialogue. Yeah, I do.

So, there will have been probably three times the amount of dialogue in that scene in first early drafts. The biggest rule of dialogue is get in late and leave early. That like applies all the time. So get in. Begin the dialogue as late as you can. Any later, and it literally won’t make any sense. Like get in there as late as you can and then leave as soon as you can. And that will tighten it up. So I abide by that rule all the time.

And the other rule I abide by is that generally when people are talking, especially that kind of conversation, is that people don’t do a lot of listening. Here we are now, we’re actually doing a lot of listening. I’m really listening to what you’re saying. I’m not thinking about what I’m going to say until you literally ask me a question. So we’re doing something that is quite unusual.

But in those kinds of situations, domestic, actually what’s happening is Tessa is having a conversation with herself, and Scott is having a conversation with himself. So, she’s just, in a sense, she’s responding a little bit. But she’s mostly just responding to what she wants to say all the time. So they’re crossing like this as they go along. But really, he’s got an agenda that he wants to shut her up and get in the shower. And her agenda is to get some sort of reassurance. So there are two conversations going on at once. And then your job as the writer is just to splice them in like that.

Yeah. So those two things are what I think about.

And also the third thing is keep remembering all the time, don’t repeat information the reader already knows. You have to find a way around it, because if you just had a scene where something’s happened and then someone has a dialogue where they’re literally talking about the reader, I know the people in the scene might not know the thing, but the reader knows it’s already happened. So you just can’t repeat things. You have to find a way. But that exercise does mean that you really move things forward.

And I think I often find this with emerging writers. There’s a temptation to kind of save up what they think is the important, exciting, dramatic moments, you know, because they feel like they haven’t got anything else. They kind of spread that out. But actually, get everything, you know, already out onto the page immediately. Get it all out as if you’re going to have nothing, because what will happen is a whole lot of new stuff will come in. And it’s really important to remember that, because, if you the writer know this thing is going to happen it’s very likely that, subconsciously, the reader knows too. You can’t be springing a surprise on a reader through dialogue. It’ss very difficult. You know what I mean. You can’t plan it. You’ve got to be so in the dialogue that the thing comes out as a surprise to you. And then your reader will be surprised as well.

HS

That’s really, really good advice. I found that, working with authors for for years, that yeah, putting too much into dialogue is an issue. You don’t want background in dialogue, say.

AE

It’s the one thing when I’m reading other people’s work. It's the dialogue. I never give unsolicited advice. So if somebody has asked me to read their work and whatever, I’ll just read it. But if they say, tell me, it’s dialogue. It's just like cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, just so much cut. And I think people panic about it because dialogue fills up a lot of space. They think, Jesus, I've just written 5,000 words, and actually I’m down to like 250. But the fact is, it’s like, that’s dead wood. Come on, have faith that you are a writer, and it will come. So, yeah, I mean just cut, cut, cut. Because yeah, dialogue is super fun. But you just have to be really tight.

HS

Right, right. And you just use it so well. The other thing that I love that you do with dialogue is we’ll see what the character is saying versus what they’re thinking. Like there’s this one line where she says—this is Ros:

“I’m thinking of having a dinner party.” She hadn’t been.

That’s just fun.

You know what else I love of yours is setting. You do just a really good job with it. Like in In Judgement, the kitchens! We’ve got Tessa’s kitchen, which she wants to redo, and she thinks that’s going to fix everything. And there’s this—it’s in the the passage that I read at the top of this hour was the kitchen of Peter and Diane’s, and it was where the vicar’s wives used to feel trapped—another little bit that just says so much. And there’s another place early on where we see Tessa walking through her house and she's, you say like a house has eddies and she's sort of curling into the eddies of her house and there's, you know clips and socks and whatever. I can't remember what all it was, but you know, as she goes up the stairs, do you, can you talk a little bit about setting and do you, it seems to me like you really like creating. that.

EA

I do. I do. I just, I’m just going to leap back to dialogue for a second. So there’s one more thing I wanted to say that Holly, that, that line you picked out about the dinner. I got braver. I have got braver at kind of like breaking stride and looking straight out of the page every now and again. So be brave. Not, you. I know you are, but for anyone else watching this, with dialogue, be brave, because you know, you can make it work.

Setting. Yeah, I worry that I spend too much time in kitchens.

HS

No, I love the kitchen.

EA

For me, the whole world is formed in a kitchen. I think about the terrible slaughter and crazy warmongers that are just wrecking our planet right now. And their crazy warmongering began in the kitchen. That’s where it began, in those environments. They’re such birthplaces of character.

We’re there. We’re eating with, you know, if we're lucky enough or perhaps not lucky, we’re with our mother or father or family. You know what I mean? They’re these melting pots of place that give birth to character. So, I’m kind of obsessed with them. And certainly In Judgement of Others was bound to be very kitchen focused, partly because one of Tessa’s neuroses, one of her act-outs when she’s becoming unwell is that she always wants to do up the kitchen.

And it’s also another theme of that community that I wanted to kind of pick out, which is kind of selling the perfect, which is something as well that just enrages me—you know, having the right kitchen with an island and the car and the thing and the thing. And so I really wanted to kind of make that writ large. So, in In Judgement of Others , I really let my love of kitchen drama out. Sometimes, people ask me what kind of writing I do, and I always want to say, “Kitchen dramas.” And I know that isn’t really a genre; it doesn’t really make sense. But literally that’s it, certainly In Judgement of Others. It’s a kitchen drama; it’s domestic drama.

But I mean, there’s a lot of writers I deeply, deeply admire, like Penelope Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Taylor and various others—1950s, ‘60s writers—whose work is very much centered in the kitchen because I think that those dramas, those everyday domestic dramas are just so full of that richness of frustration and desperation and anger and hurt and love and all that stuff. So, yeah. But there were definitely times in In Judgement of Others when I had to get them out of the kitchen as well because otherwise I’d spend all my time there. We begin there with Tessa. We spend a lot of time in Ros’s kitchen. Obviously, we go to Peter and Diane’s lovely dining room / kitchen. There’s drama at the end in that same place. And then we end up back in Tessa’s kitchen again. So, I had to kind of, sometimes force myself out. So, I do love writing setting. But again, I think that’s why, with Fallout, the next one, it was so lovely to be out in the fresh air as my main setting, even though actually it also begins in a kitchen.

HS

I was going to say there’s a kitchen there too. And we see Claire’s kitchen for a minute in In Judgement of Others.

EA

We do. Yeah, I mean, I hope, maybe I’ve got it out of my system.

HS

Oh, I love it.

EA

I don’t know. I worry that it becomes a bit samey, like, oh, there she is again in another bloody kitchen. Here we go again. But then, you know, what are you going to do? It’s like, I spend a lot of time in my kitchen. I’m not in it right now, but I spend a lot of time in my kitchen. But it did occur to me, actually, I’ve got a new novel bubbling away inside me. And I was somewhere—and I’m not going to say where the other day—and I thought (and it’s not a kitchen)—and I thought, OK, I need to come and write the novel here. Because it was, it really got me out of my—sameness, what feels to me like sameness. And I think a lot of authors, writers, you know, you do get in a groove. And you know what you love to write. And I’ll always love to write about the dynamics between people, relationships. The small is what fascinates me because it says so much about the big. But I am trying to move out of kitchens and go somewhere else.

HS

I like the kitchen drama. I’ll take more of it.

EA

OK. Cause I mean, you know, I never get sick of reading those, those authors who do it so well. I never get tired of reading family, you know?

HS

Yeah. And I think you’re so right that it’s the microcosm of the macrocosm.

EA

Yeah. And actually having said that, my first novel was set in, or there were a lot of institutions. I do also love an institution, can’t get enough of them. And that also comes into In Judgement. So, those bits when we left Midhurst and went into Mercury Ward, I really, I love that—just the horror of psychiatric hospitals. I’ve spent a lot of time visiting friends in places like that. And there’s something about the formica and the smell and the, kind of—I’m going to use the word craziness, but you know I don’t mean that as in the people are crazy but they’re this sense of that environment that just fascinates me. That and old people’s homes.

HS

Yeah yeah, they are very, very interesting places absolutely.

Another craft element of yours that for me, it’s almost like an Eleanorism, if you will, is this compactness, which I’ve kind of talked about before. I’m just going to read a couple of lines that I think just like say everything in one little line. This is from Ros, which would be obvious if I just read it.

What good was the dramatic pause if there was no one there to see it?

With just that one sentence, you’re like, Oh, so she’s just acting all the time, because this is not a dramatic pause on stage. This is just life. And she’s acting.

EA

My editor and agent in the past have sort of asked me for more. And often when I submit novels, editors say, “More. I want more.” And I’m such a, you know, brevity is my thing. I love, I mean, Claire Keegan, you know, you couldn’t get, you know, more brevitus; is that a word? You know, she writes short, and I write short. So I'm glad it's landing and working.

I’m always—I’m often, not always—I’m often being told, “Expand a bit more, spoon feed.” But I love making words and sentences work, not too hard, but hard. You know what I mean? It’s like Claire Keegan. I don’t know if you’ve read Foster. It is superb. Every single word is doing heavy lifting, even the title. And that, to me is like the, the absolute pinnacle. I want every single word, from the title right the way through to be doing some heavy lifting, no waste at all. But that’s just me. As I say, I like when I read other people’s work, and I have to read it for different things. The thing that drives me crazy more than anything is just the waste. Like, oh my God, I could have said those five pages in one sentence. Get on with it. I’m terrible.

HS

Yes. That was, with authors over the years, a lot of my work was gently being like, we can do this briefly. But yes.

And I’m not going to give this away. But I do want to tell readers to pay attention to something. There’s this tragedy that happens in the middle of this novel. And the way you reveal what that tragedy is, is like, Oh, wow. And it’s in two sentences. I’m not going to say them because that would be such a spoiler. But, um, yeah, just compact; just check that out.

Um, and then I just wondered if you could speak a little about, because I love it so much, the revision process. You did this series with

Mary Tabor "Only connect ..."

. And you guys talked about— You had authors ask you guys questions. And one of the questions you were talking about editing. Did you say that it’s important to do a micro edit in one fell swoop so that you're kind of on the same mindset—so you’re not getting a new perspective.

EA

Yeah, sure. I’m very strict about this. I learned it from Julie Cohen. The title of her workshop is Finish the Damn Book. That’s one of her main things. I’m always saying it: “Finish the damn book.” So yeah, I’m very strict.

You know, you begin a first draft. First drafts are always rubbish. You know what I mean? Don’t be disheartened. As you well know, Holly, you just have to get them out. The mistake that emerging writers make all the time is you begin your first draft, you get maybe two thirds of the way through or maybe 30,000 words through, and you decide to go back and start reading it from the beginning. It’s a disaster. You can’t do it. And there’s that doubt; oh, it’s no good. It’s not going to be any good. It’s a first draft, you know. Just get it out.

So you’ve got to get that first draft out. Even I have bits where, you know, I'll be writing, and I don’t quite, either it’s the rhythm of the sentence. I can feel it goes, she sat and dum-ba-dum-ba-da, and he came, you know, there’ll be a rhythm to it. And I'll just do X, X, X in the bit where the rhythm is, because I don't quite know, or obviously research, like I don’t stop and look things up. I just put it out there. Just get that first draft out, because as soon as you’ve got that out and nailed down, you’re like, OK, I’ve got a beginning, I’ve got a middle, and I’ve got it. It’s never going to end up like that. But there it is.

Then you can go back. And then comes the process of macro and micro. So the macro is what I do first. And that’s literally the 30,000-foot view. You know, it’s like, let me try and explain. I was just crafting a class today, and I was thinking about this. So like I opted, In Judgement of Others, to use the transformational arc. So I’ll look at that and just say, Does the basic structure run through that—inciting instance, climax, fall from grace? Does it do just the basics? Are all the chapters and the beats basically in the right place? OK I can see that’s not quite right, but I’ll just sort of lay it out. So once everybody’s kind of in the right place and the narrative arc, the emotional arc is too—so I can see that Tessa begins in place A, this polar point, and she has to end up somewhere; she has to end up, not necessarily the opposite, but she has to have changed. Obviously, everybody knows every character has to have moved from where they begin to where they end; that’s their narrative arc.

So, if those basic things are in place, then you can start getting into the micro, which is literally sentence structure and development of character. And of course, when you start getting into that, I might find, and I often do find that, like, a character just isn’t quite coming forward enough. Like with Claire, you know. Sometimes, I’ll know there’s more emotion behind it, and I can’t quite find the engine to make this mini high point have its kind of bit. And I might have to go back and spend time with her and think about it.

So, it’s not one macro and then one micro and we’re done. It’s an absolutely, like once I’ve done what I would really call the first draft, which is probably more like the third draft, I’ll set it aside and then go back to it a couple of weeks later. Stephen King waits four months. Let me tell you, I could never do that. And I’ll read it through on paper again. And then I can really hear the beats and see where it’s going wrong. Because there’s an emotional—I’m not going to use the word journey—there’s an emotional kind of wave that begins at the beginning, right? So, you’re beginning this emotional wave, and it really has to crash onto the shore at the end. You know, even it doesn’t have a big ta-da, but that feeling of like, it’s moving and moving and moving and moving and ah, there we are, there we are, there.

Or I felt like with my first novel, it felt like at the beginning of the novel, I drew back an arrow, and I let it go. And that arrow had to hit that target precisely on my last line. Like the timing had to be exactly right. There’s a feeling to it. And I draft, I don't know, In Judgement of Others probably had 12 drafts. And even then when I was serializing it, I was rewriting.

And I must say—I mean, I am calling for people to come to my class—but as well, serialization is the best way of editing a novel I’ve ever come across. And in fact, I talked to my editor recently about this. And she said, “Next time you write a novel, can you just write it as if you’re going to serialize it and then submit it to me?” Because it’s like all this work. It’s like it’s got that kind of movement to it that somehow I can miss sometimes.

HS

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that’s brilliant. And it’s just having the process. I remember I had a writing teacher super early on when I was young and in college. He said something like that he would look at a piece, like, I don't know, like a hundred times or whatever. And at the time I was like, whoa. But now writing, I’m like, Oh yeah. There’s always something that can be changed. It’s constant.

AE.

Yeah. And then like with Fallout, you know, I’m reading that out loud and reading it out loud. That’s the other thing I do, everybody. Absolutely always I read. When I think the draft is finished, I then read the whole thing out loud to myself—start to finish—so I can hear. I can hear the beats and the rhythms. And I can hear where it gets boring and falls flat and isn’t working. And where if I start falling over words. I mean, it is a long, slow process. It takes me, I think In Judgement of Others, probably it’s like, it probably takes me 18 months now to write. But my first novel took me 10 years. But I was literally learning how to do it. Now, I can produce a pretty good draft in about 18 months. But that is, you know, that’s a good 9, 12 drafts. And I will have read it out loud to myself at least four times, start to finish. Yeah, it’s laborious and obsessive.

HS

It’s wonderful.

AE

Yeah, exactly.

HS

And it just speaks to the importance of process. Like you were saying that first time was so important.

AE

It’s important. And also because, you know, you, Holly, I don’t want to waste your time. You matter. You’re a valuable person. Your time is valuable. And I apply this to absolutely everybody in the world. Everybody matters, and everybody’s time is valuable. I don’t want to waste your time. So why put out something that’s kind of half-baked? It’s just, I think it’s rude. You know, it’s like do the work. Or don’t put it out. So for me, I have a very high standard. I don’t want to waste my character’s time. And I don’t want to waste my reader’s time. So if I’ve put it out, it means that I think your time is not going to be wasted on this. And then I feel I can look you in the eye, and you can ask me what my book’s about, and I can tell you. And I won’t have any of that kind of, oh, I don’t know if it’s like that, because I know I’ve done the work.

It’s really important. What we do as writers, I think it’s a really important job. And we shouldn’t piss about with it and take it lightly and just put out any old shit. It’s not OK. I'm a real, I wave the flag and shout for standards at the moment. I really do.

HS

I love this.

AE

I think there’s a lot—and it’s partly to do with marketing, and there’s a whole load of reasons why—but standards have dropped. People have been allowed to put out stuff, writers with great potential, have been allowed and enabled to put out things, books, that are not ready and that are below par. And they could be better. And we miss out on really good literature because somebody decided that that was good enough. And it’s probably not the author. Somebody in that process decided that that was good enough. And it’s not good enough. And it says to other writers, Oh, well, apparently that standard’s good enough. I’m here to tell you it’s not good enough.

HS

Yeah. I love it. And that leads me to the last thing I really wanted to talk about here today is just marketing and publishing. You’ve had an experience of publishing through Salt. Your first book was through Salt, which is a traditional publisher, right? And then Troubadour, I believe, is hybrid. I know we’re not, we’re going to get into words. So I’d love to talk about sort of the different experiences there. And then I would love for you to talk about how you use the term indie publishing and the joy of that. And so just kind of, if you can speak to those things.

AE

Yeah, I mean, it’s been really interesting having all the spread of experience. I’ve written quite a lot about it. My first novel, yeah, was bought by Salt. They were the last on our list. Absolutely everybody turned it down. My agent was submitting. Salt bought it. They were brilliant. They published it. It was long-listed for a couple of really good prizes, and it did really well. And that whole experience, it was a really positive experience.

The only negative thing about it, I think, was that, because I was new to this whole game, I thought this was normal. I thought it was completely normal to get on Women’s Hour and be reviewed in every newspaper. So, I didn’t know that wasn’t normal. And so when In Judgement of Others was actually the second book I wrote straight after my debut, and we submitted it. And it got turned down, not by, we didn’t submit it to my original publisher. We put it out to everyone; didn’t want it. I wrote another one, which is sitting in a drawer, which I hope one day will be published. It was turned down. I wrote a third one, which is Fallout. Turned down.

So I had three novels by that time, by the time Fallout was turned down. So three novels in a row failed at the mainstream publishing fence. I was pretty desperate really, which is why I came to Substack. And obviously my memoir, I wrote straight to the page, live, serializing it as I went. And that seemed to work out amazingly well as a crazy experiment. But so In Judgement I streamed it, because I knew this was a good story. And I think, I think the edit that we submitted probably wasn’t good enough. So, I really worked on it. I was four years down the line. I was a much better writer. But because we’d already submitted it to the mainstream, we couldn’t resubmit it, which is why my only choice was to publish it myself.

So yeah, with Troubadour—Troubadour is a hybrid publisher—the financial risk is all mine. But to all intents and purposes, they are identical to a publisher. So I put up funds; there’s no advance. I pay for everything. And I can tell you how much it is. For In Judgement of Others, it’s cost me about, by the time we finished, depending on the print run, between £4,000 to £5,000. So, you know, it’s quite a hefty amount. Not as much as I hear people quoting in the States for hybrid publishing. And there are a lot of hybrid publishers out there who are a bit dodgy. So, you know, really do your homework. But Troubadour are really good.

The difference is that it can’t be submitted to prizes because every mainstream prize has in its small print that no, they call it, self-pub or author who puts up the money up front may submit. So, we are completely banned from there. I am trying with In Judgement of Others to break through into mainstream media reviews and events, because there’s nothing written that I can’t do that. And it’s just whether stigma will get in my way, which is why I’m adopted, along with many other indie authors, the title indie author—just to cut through all of the self, vanity, hybrid stigma, the whole thing. The fact is we’re indie authors. We are literally doing this ourselves with whatever resources we have and by whatever means we have. And we’re all learning on the hoof.

I don’t know if you read an article I wrote about indie publishing. Again, me outraged. But I am outraged that, in other mediums, like film. If you’re an indie filmmaker, you’re cool as hell, man. Everybody thinks it’s great, you know, it’s going to be good. Nothing stands in your way, apart from money. So, why aren’t indie authors. especially literary fiction indie authors, why aren’t we afforded the same sort of grace you know? I really seek to change that. And I really hope, I don’t know how, that’s going to happen with In Judgement of Others. But I do know that, by putting myself out there and really trying to break through, I will be helping those who come next.

Because I think like the science-fiction community, the genre fiction, they have an easier time of it, in the sense that there’s form. Like Luke Jennings, you know, that was picked up. Obviously, that’s genre fiction. So, they do get picked up quite a lot. But—please, somebody tell me if I’m wrong—I cannot so far find a literary fiction author who’s an indie author who’s broken through into the mainstream off their own bat. So, I’m really conscious that I’m doing something that hasn’t really been done before, but I’m very confident in the material.

So then to take it to Substack, that’s what’s been brilliant about Substack. And thank you everyone at Substack if you’re watching this—the guys and girls who run it. It’s amazing. It’s a really great space to try and work it out.

Again, I was researching the serialization process. And originally, way back in the eighteenth century, publishers used serialization as a way to see if a book would be marketable, which is exactly what I’m doing. I’ve discovered it is. I streamed it on Substack. Everybody loved it. I thought, OK, there’s a market for this. We all have doubts as writers. Is it good enough? You know, is it good? Yeah, no, apparently it’s got legs. OK. So, that gave me confidence to then go to Troubadour and say, OK, what about it? And then go to a publicity, a PR company; Riot Communications are doing my PR. And they said, OK, yeah, we’ll take a punt on you. We’ll take you on. Obviously, I’m paying them. But they wouldn’t take me on if they didn’t think we could do something, because it’s their reputation on the line. Proper big publicity agents do not take on someone they think is never going to make it.

So, Substack is like the most amazing stepping stone. I kind of feel like, you know when comedians try out new material in small clubs. I feel that’s what I’m doing on Substack. I’m trying out material in this club. And I know Substack’s massive. But our beautiful pool, Holly, is full of, God, the most amazing, brilliant, clever, curious writers, readers. And they really help, and they tell me by their attention or lack of what this material is like.

So, all three have been a real learning curve. And I’ll continue to use Substack, trying out new material. And I would really love my indie author published books to get picked up by a mainstream publisher, because why not? Who wouldn’t? But I tell you what, if they do this one, if this one gets picked up, I’ll be having very different conversations with those editors. I know so much more now about the industry. So, that will be a really interesting process as well.

Again, like with all these things we’ve talked about, what I want is a level playing field. And, you know, I’m really aware, like with prizes, you know, I understand that they had to find some way of regulating it. But the fact is, there’s some really great work being published by indie authors now. So, we need to do something about this because they need airtime. I need airtime. You need airtime, you know. So, I’m fighting the good fight for all of them now.

HS

I appreciate it. I did read that piece. And I was like, yes. Yeah, it was a really good. And you’re so right. Indie is such a great word.

AE

And that’s exactly what it is. That’s exactly what’s happening. We are. We just need some money. We need money and we need visibility. The big one is visibility and, obviously, money. Those two things, they’re really hard. But also it’s really worth saying, and I really salute every indie author out there. It takes such a lot of confidence to be an indie, anything. When you get a book deal, which is what I’ve had experience of, that, the act of getting a book deal, is like the universe and the world saying, “Yep, you’re good enough.” I didn’t really have to think about whether I was good enough for that book, because I had this very clear sign that I was. This time around, I have to tell myself every single day, “Yes, you’re good enough. Yes, you’re good enough.”

And that’s for all of us. It’s hard being an indie anything, because we have to prop ourselves up and pay for everything and publicize ourselves and be our own marketer. It’s really tough. I have enormous respect for anybody who’s doing it. And anybody who wants to get in touch who’s doing it, who wants a shoulder to cry on, email me, because it’s right hard.

HS

Yeah. An to your point about Troubadour and the fact that they wouldn’t just take anything, to anybody who’s out there looking for an indie publisher, if they will just take anything, that’s not who you want to go with.

AE

Yeah, that’s not it. Really do your research. I was talking to a friend the other day who had been looking at an indie publishing company in the States, and they had quoted her $45,000.

HS

Wow. Oh, my God. Also, that’s not your person. That’s not your publisher. That’s a no.

AE

Yeah. Troubadour take, I mean, they take about 75 percent. Do you know what I mean? The bar is pretty low, but there is still a bar. I mean, there’s a lot of research you can do out there, and there’s lots of really good sites. I can’t bring any to mind, but I can look some up that will give you the kind of information you need. Someone else has done the checks on them. I’ll try and find it after this because, there are definitely more. There’s a lot of scammers out there who just want to say, I’ll just have your money. Thanks very much.

HS

Exactly. Exactly. Let’s plug really quick your upcoming class on serialization.

AE

Yeah, it’s with Retreat West. It’s on November 13. There’s links. I’m constantly posting links in my notes. I’ll do one again. If we could put a link at the bottom of this, that would be super great. Come along, bring your unwritten serialized novel, your written; whatever you’ve got, bring it along. If it’s just questions, if you’ve got a finished draft, we can cover all bases. And it’d be great to see you there.

HS

Well, Eleanor, thank you so much for coming. Is there anything else you wish I would ask you about before we sign off here?

AE

No, just to say thank you, Holly. You’re such a supporter. And I think we all know what it’s like when we have certain people who always turn up, and they always fly the flag for you. They read and are there. And, you know, you are one of those people to me, and you mean a lot.

And I love your work. I hope I’m doing the same for you. I think you’re brilliant. So I want you to know how much it means to me that you support me.

And I think, for everyone out there, if you’re supporting someone and you don’t necessarily hear from them, know that it does mean a huge amount. It really does mean everything.

HS

Yeah. And you definitely do that for me. So thank you so much. Yay. I so appreciate you being here

AE

I should just say the novel comes out January 28.

HS

Oh, yes, of course. Yeah, I knew there was one more thing. I was hemming and hawing because I was like, what else?

AE

It comes out January 28. That’s when it’ll be on UK release. You can buy it globally, but at the moment there’ll be shipping costs. So just be aware of that. But we are planning on taking it to London Book Fair and seeing if we can sell the foreign rights, in which case it will be available everywhere. But I will keep everyone aware of that. If we get it onto print on demand, then it’ll be available for more cheaply.

It will also be on Audible. We’ll be recording that quite soon.

HS

Will you be reading?

AE

I’ll be reading, yeah.

It’ll be an ebook. It’ll be on Kindle. It’ll be kind of everywhere

You can preorder it now. The really big thing you can do to help me is to preorder it now. That would be amazing. If you go onto the Troubadour website or onto Amazon or onto Waterstones or bookshop.org and search for it and preorder, that makes a huge amount of difference to reviews and to bookshops wanting to stock it, all that kind of stuff So that would be super great.

HS

Yes. And we’ll have a link here and in the show notes for the podcast version of this conversation.

Thank you so much, Eleanor.

AE

Amazing. Thank you.

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