AUTHOR E.V. SEYMOUR ON HER WRITING JOURNEY FOR 'THE PATIENT'

CATCH UP WITH AUTHOR E.V. SEYMOUR AND LEARN ABOUT HER WRITING JOURNEY FOR THE PATIENT. 

Q: What’s your inspiration for the book?
 
A: I’d love to say that there was a single moment of inspiration, but there wasn’t. It was a combination of a couple of ideas that came together.
 
We live in image-conscious times. With so much focus on achieving what society considers a beautiful body that is largely unattainable for the majority of us! I wanted to throw a proverbial ‘spanner in the works’ by creating a main protagonist who is not incredibly beautiful, but is facially scarred. With that firmly buttoned down, I began to research stalking — because I knew so little about it — focusing on its devastating impact on victims. The Patient was the result.
 
Q: Three favourite writers that inspire you.
 
A: This is impossibly hard because there are so many. I’m a huge fan of historical and spy fiction and often read these in mydown time when not writing, so leaving these inspirational authors out: Lisa Jewell has to be top of my list, followed by Nicci French — the fantastic husband and wife team who wrote Beneath the Skin, a favourite novel of mine — and Dennis Lehane. All three are superb at creating original characters that are, at the same time, relatable. I particularly admire gutsy writing with big, ‘meaty’ stories and these authors do it for me.

Q: Hardest thing about writing?
 
A: Finding the right story, or rather a story that will sustain interest for hundreds of pages. If I can’t be excited about it, readers stand no chance. Time is also an issue. Juggling work and family commitments with writing a full-length novel can be demanding. In theory, the more I think about a story, the shorter the writing time, but it’s trying to find those moments when you can be free enough to drill into your characters, work out what makes them tick and then craft a story accordingly. During writing, the hardest part is avoiding plot holes!
 
Q: Tell us about the characters.
 
A: Tending towards introspection, Kim is a complex individual. Shaped by her childhood experience of being brought up in a family that mainly consisted of an older dad and two older brothers, she’s always had to fight her corner — something that will stand her in good stead later. Kyle Stannard is obviously flawed — no angel, anarchic, and morally deeply questionable. Nevertheless, he displays a refreshing awareness of his own faults and failings and so I hope that readers will forgive him. At the end, he harbours no grudges against those who hurt him and destroyed his career, which is remarkable.
 
Q: Tell us about the setting.
 
A: I lived in the South Hams in Devon when my children were growing up and drew on this experience when writing about Kim’s sleepy hideaway cottage. The scene, in which Kim is on the beach and fears she is being watched, was based on my own regular journeys, by tiny passenger ferry, from East Portlemouth to Mill Bay.
 
I know Cheltenham well and lived there when writing the story; it made research easy! The contrast between Kim’s peaceful Devon existence at weekends and the cut and thrust of Cheltenham during the working week was deliberate, to suit the narrative.

Q: What’s the biggest distraction of your day?
 
A: My grown-up children! With five of them, and as adorable as they are, it’s easy to get sucked down a WhatsApp vortex, or embroiled in a phone call. When not talking, I’m generally thinking about them. Emails are also a heck of a distraction. I try to limit ‘looking’ as much as possible, but don’t always manage it and then I have the whole issue of trying to get back into the scene being written, which isn’t always that easy. Occasionally, I’ll get up super early for a few solid hours of undisturbed writing — bliss.
 
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