Tom Pepperdine interviews author, Bethany Clift, about her writing process. Bethany discusses her writing hours, her approach to research and why she never writes at a desk..

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Hello and welcome to the real Writing process.

I'm your host, Tom Pepperdine.

And this week, my guest is the author Bethany Clift.

Now I love this interview and I'm really chuffed I got the chance to speak to

Bethany before she hits the big time.

Which I know is only a matter of time because her books are fantastic.

Her debut, Last One At The Party came out in 2021.

And there's a brilliant take on the lone survivor in an apocalypse genre.

Basically because it doesn't fall into any of the usual tropes.

There's no romance plot line because everyone is dead.

There's no aliens, mutants or zombies.

Everyone is dead is just one central character.

Who isn't a lovable Tom Hanks on an island with the volleyball.

It's a spoiled little socialite who makes lots of mistakes during her journey.

And I love that this character is clearly not a cipher for the writer.

This is a flawed character who learns and goes on a journey.

And Bethany writes with a confidence and insight into human behavior

that I just found really exciting.

It's really worth checking out.

And her followup in 2022, couldn't be more different.

And that's what excited me even more about speaking to her.

Love And Other Human Errors is just a romcom.

But it's one of the best i've ever read.

It's in a tech corporation.

And has a neuro diverse lead.

The story is split between three central characters who have very

different backgrounds and lifestyles.

And the romantic challenges make sense due to the emotional baggage they carry,

rather than any contrived external forces.

They have to learn and grow to make the relationships work.

And it's just phenomenal storytelling.

So, yeah, last one at the party and love another human

errors, both by Bethany Clift.

Both brilliant.

And I generally believe this is an episode that already age well.

Uh, I feel like it's like finding the band before they go like massive.

And I know that are those of you who work in the publishing world.

And trust me, you will want to check out her work and then reach

out and have a conversation.

I'm going to be blunt.

I don't think she's been marketed well enough, especially for her talent.

Someone will offer a better contract and you'll wish it was you.

if you need more evidence, then we're about to listen to the lady herself.

She's fantastic.

Uh, one disclaimer, before we start, I do need to say this was

recorded in late September, 2022.

which is why we're talking about the death of the queen.

Uh, the delay is my fault, but I'm glad we're finally here.

Anyway onto the Jingle.

And I'm here with Bethany Clift.

My first question is what are we drinking?

I am drinking a giant cup of tea in my writing mug.

That which I'm holding up obviously you can't see it on the screen.

It's a pink mug, and I'm gonna say it's my wife has very large mugs.

That's probably about an 18 ounce mug, I would say.

Yes.

Yes.

I, I like to have a big mug of tea so I don't have to keep running back and

forth to the kitchen and refilling it.

Also, it's a really thick cup, so it keeps my tea warm for ages.

Oh, good.

So I'm just terrible with forgetting that I've got a cup of tea.

Yeah.

And then my husband's always, " your tea's getting cold."

And I'm like, "No, it's not.

Perfectly warm."

Excellent.

So this is definitely your writer's drink then?

You're a writer fuel by tea.

Yes.

I had a special cup, so I had a special cup that I used the whole time

when I wrote Last One At The Party.

And then literally after I'd sent my last edits in, and we were at proof stage.

The day after my son dropped it on the floor and it smashed.

And everyone was like, oh my God, is she gonna be able to write again?

But when it, when I say everyone, I mean like the four of us in my family.

The important people.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

And then I struggled on using various cups.

And then for my birthday last year, my husband brought me this giant pink

mug and this one has, this one is it.

This is the one that I've settled with.

Yeah.

Good.

Excellent.

And you didn't stop writing 'cause you wrote Love and Other Human Errors,

which is an absolute joy of a book.

Thank you.

And more people should read.

Actually a TikToker was asking for romance recommendations the other

day and I put that forward because-

Oh, thank you.

TikTok is the big-

it's the big place now.

Yeah.

Oh absolutely.

But it's just because it's such human characters and they're not the archetype

tropes that you see in romance, but it has that very traditional romance structure.

It's just beautifully crafted and very enjoyable.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And where I'm speaking to you now, is this your writing spot in your house?

So I'm in my bedroom at the moment, sat on the bed.

I have two places that I write in the house.

We have quite a small house.

We have a a living room and then a dining kitchen area as well.

And my husband, since the pandemic works from home.

So one of us is normally upstairs and one of us is normally down.

So if I'm downstairs, I write in, I've got a chair, my sister's nursing chair.

After my sister had her son, she had this really lovely upholstered blue rocking

chair that she used to feed him in.

And when he grew up and she didn't need it anymore, she was, they

were moving and they said, oh, can you just have the chair for a bit?

And that was four years ago.

(laughs)

Nice.

And now if I'm downstairs, I sit in this really comfortable big chair

and I will have my laptop on my lap.

And I will write there.

It's in the window, so I get to look out of the sky and everything else.

And then if I'm upstairs, I literally sit on my bed.

So I have never, since I became when I say published, or since I signed

my deal, I've never written a desk.

I've always been in the rocking chair or on the bed.

And we're hopefully moving in a couple of months and we'll have

an office for the first time.

So theoretically I could sit at a desk and write, but I'm just not sure it's me.

I'm not sure.

Yeah.

I see these other authors with these really wonderful ornate desks and

bookshelves lining the walls and these amazing places where they work.

And I feel like I'm a little bit more scatter gunny, just write where you find

yourself kind of an author, so yeah.

No, that's right.

And I think if you are immersing yourself in the world that you are

creating, having a comfort place.

With an insulated mug.

So you've, warm tea the whole time.

Yeah, absolutely.

Because there is a level of endurance I feel with

Yes.

With writing.

You know, some people write in short periods.

Some people write for long periods.

And it sounds you are someone who writes for longer periods, would you say?

I feel I'm a creature of habit when it comes to writing.

Because this is now my day job, I try and approach it as does.

So I don't set myself a daily limit of words or anything like that.

But I I will work set kind of hours.

So on an ordinary day, drop the kids off at school, get back, start by about

half nine, and then I will go through.

I need to leave again at half two.

So I'll normally try and finish about half one, so I do four hours.

And then have an hour off before I go and pick kids up from half two.

But when I'm on a deadline or a deadline is approaching, I can write

up the kind of 8 to 10 hours a day.

Especially when I'm editing, 'cause I find editing much easier

than writing a first draft.

Yes.

I feel like it's much easier to go through.

And I know my character so much better by that point that you can almost read

through it, immediately know where you are telling them what to do rather

than them telling you what to do.

Yeah.

And that's a really great stage to get at.

It means that life's just so much easier.

But yeah, I try and be quite disciplined because I I'm a great believer in the

kind of, you can't wait for motivation.

You never get anything done.

Some days I do sit down and I'm like, oh, God's sake.

I just don't wanna, I'm just gonna look at in, don't look at Instagram.

And when I'm working upstairs, my husband always says, he always knows when I've

really settled down to write 'cause he'll hear a thunk on the floorboards.

And that's me throwing my phone to the other side of the room.

And I throw my phone to the other side of the room where I can't

reach it, and then that's it.

I've gone for the next two or three hours because there's nothing,

there's no distraction anymore.

So yeah.

Obviously I haven't thought about the fact that I can just look at stuff

on my computer, but I don't do that.

You're disciplined, that's good.

Yeah, I have that level of discipline, but I don't have the level of

discipline where I won't pick my phone up if it's by the side of me.

So quite, very lazy.

So I won't go to the other side of the room and pick it up.

Yeah.

And are you someone who, 'cause you said it's easier to edit

than it is on your first draft.

Are you someone who plans out a first draft or are you very much

just a vomit draft, just kind of word vomit from the brain?

It's different for every author, but I think when you write your

debut for a lot of authors, because you are working, a lot of this have

to work at the same time as write.

Mm-hmm.

So I was working, bringing up two kids, like trying to have a bit

of a life and also write a novel.

You know, I would write whenever I could.

I used to get up at like 4:30 in the morning so that I could write for an hour

before my kids got up at 5:30 the buggers, you know, or write, Pete, bless him,

would take them out for the day so I could get five or six hours off on a weekend.

And I think you don't necessarily know what kind of writer you are because

it's such a scramble to actually get anything down in the first place.

So after Last One At The Party, once I got a deal for that and I knew

I was gonna write another book, I was like okay, I need to find out

what kind of writer I am, really.

What kind of writer I am now that I can actually be a proper, she says holding her

fingers up in inverted commas, "writer."

And I'd seen all this stuff about people planning and I felt like that was me.

I thought, I'm a planner.

I like the idea of planning.

So we cleared one wall of everything in the kitchen and I got myself

multicolored post-it notes.

And I put post-it notes up and I broke down every chapter of the book.

And I wrote what was gonna happen with each character and I interweaved

each character's storyline.

And it looked amazing.

And I took this photo and I was like, wow, I am a writer.

Look at that.

And then I didn't look at it again, ever.

And I went off and I wrote something completely different.

And if I'd looked at that photo now, nothing on that wall

made it into my final draft.

Nothing.

Not a character.

None of the characters have the same name, none of them are same people or have the

same background or anything like that.

None of them do the same thing.

The beginning, the ending and the middle are completely different.

It's a completely different story.

It's not even got a sci-fi twist, it's historical fiction.

No, no.

It's not even, it's not even set in the future.

And then I realized that unfortunately I am a pantser.

I'd been a pantser with Last One At The Party.

So Last One At The Party for anyone who's not read it, it has got like

stuff that's set in the present day and then it has flashbacks.

And none of the flashbacks that I wrote in my first draft made

it through to my final draft.

None of them are the same.

So I would say with Last One At The Party, I probably rewrote around

50% of it over the course of writing it from first draft to last draft.

At least 50%, I would say.

And then Love And Other Human Errors.

I wrote the first draft, I sent it off to my editor.

My editor was like, I really like it, it's great.

It's in third person.

I feel because it's such a great character, maybe you should

try writing in first person?

And I was like, so you mean you would like me to rewrite my entire book?

Then she goes, like, when you put it like that?

Yes.

And as soon as she said it, I knew she was right.

So I rewrote a hundred thousand words from third person into first person.

And then I rewrote again because Love And Other Human Errors

has got three character voices.

Yeah.

And I rewrote the part of the voice of Jack.

I rewrote Jack as a character because he wasn't working in

the next draft that I did.

So I would say with Love And Other Human Errors, I rewrote the

entire thing and then I probably rewrote it again, 40% of it.

But that's just how I write.

And I'm, on the thing, I'm on the novel that I'm working on at the moment.

I am writing it and going back and making notes as my characters developed.

Because they're not the same people on the first page as

they are even 20,000 words in.

And they already are developing and changing and their wants and their

needs and who they are and where the story goes is gonna change completely.

Yeah.

But I feel it's an incredibly wasteful, but very exciting way to write.

And with the two books that are out Love And Another Human Errors, and Last

One At The Party, they have very strong female protagonists, but also really

fascinating worlds in which they inhabit.

And I was just wondering, when you start formulating a book, is it the character

first that kind of like hooks you in?

Or is it a situation or a world where you go, who would live

in this kind of situation?

Yeah, it's, that's interesting.

Because with Last One At The Party, it started with the character in

the world because I am huge lover of sci-fi and apocalypse fiction.

And Post-apocalypse fiction.

And I love a survival story and I love the machinations of survival as well.

Like for me, when I'm reading those stories, the best bits are always

like, where am I gonna go for a wee?

And you know, do you know what I mean?

How am I gonna buy food?

And what happens when the milk runs out and you know, what,

what's gonna happen then?

And I don't lose interest, but the story to me always changes when the

character that you follow finds other characters that they then make friends

with or don't make friends with.

And I was always really keen on this idea of what if you didn't find anyone else?

What if there literally was nobody else left or they'd all gone somewhere and you

could find them, you couldn't follow or.

So the world and the kind of character always a meshed together.

Because I always wanted her to be like me or my next door neighbor or the woman

across the road and not have any kind of survival skills or anything like that.

Because I think that makes for a far more interesting story than if she

knows what she's doing from day one.

Yeah.

And I get a lot of reviews that are like, she is just rubbish.

And I'm like, I, I like to think that you or I or anyone might be

better, but I feel we would genuinely feel like, everybody who's like,

oh, I would rescue the animals.

I would do this.

I would do that.

And I think would you though, would you?

Yeah.

Would you?

I feel like you probably wouldn't.

Like when it came to it, I think you'd be a bit traumatized anyway.

With Love And Other Human Errors, I wanted to write a story about someone

who'd never been in love and what it felt like to fall in love not necessarily with

someone else, but also with yourself.

So I wanted to write about the different forms and the different

ways that, that love runs through us.

Because there's so many different kind of types.

And a lot of the time, I think especially, I was gonna say especially as women,

but I think it's the same for men now.

I think there's this kind of fallacy that love is easy.

And that you literally step out of your front door someday and ha, there it is.

Yeah.

Your eyes meet a bus stop and woo, you are away and happily ever after.

And I know things are very different from the days of the Disney fairytale,

but we still make Disney fairytales.

Yeah.

And we still tell Fairytale Romance stories and you know, and I just wanted

to write something that was a little bit more, love is incredible and amazing and

sometimes it's just really hard work and it's not something that's really easy.

So I think the characters came after the idea more in that.

So I thought what are my best characters to show this?

And then the setting came as part of the story.

Because in order for the kind of AI and all the other data things to work, it

had to be set slightly in the future.

But I didn't wanna set it too far in the future because there weren't robots.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Stuff like that everywhere.

So yeah, that one was more dictated by the story rather than the characters.

Whereas I think Last One At The Party is like they both came together really.

Yeah.

And I definitely feel with Last One At The Party, so much thought had gone into what

the post-apocalyptic world would be like.

Because the things that she discovers on her way in the

cities and out in the countryside.

A lot of it rang true and a lot of it, you know, just like other people's

behaviors and how they acted in their last moments were really poignant.

Trying to be as spoiler light as possible, what she finds in Inverness.

Yeah, Yeah.

I thought was like incredible.

And you think, oh my goodness, yes.

That's a very well observed part of the human condition.

That yeah, isn't really shown a lot.

And of course that could happen elsewhere.

And I am just gonna touch on Scotland as well because my wife

and I want to retire to Scotland.

And so I loved your portrayal of Scotland and what happens.

Because the response of, oh, there's been a post apocalypse, let's just

fuck off to Scotland is exactly what my wife and I want to do.

And because it's a story where there's obstacles and challenges

and conflict, of course there is.

It does not go well.

And I just, I love that and it's saying to my wife, before we move...

we need to check this.

Yeah.

Read this.

So I love that.

But again, it was just the fantasy versus the reality and there's

definitely a fair amount of thought.

I was just wondering how you approached research to that, or

was it just thinking it through and just on your own kind of processes?

Yeah.

I talked about this a couple of times, but I don't talk about it that often.

Because I feel it's not the sort of thing that people who listen

to podcasts really wanna know.

But I'm terrible at research.

I'm just terrible at it.

I hate it.

A lot of people I know get into their character, get into

their stories by research.

And of course, if you're doing historical fiction or whatever, and they have

to read around a lot and learn a lot.

And I just cannot be arsed.

I just wanna write a good story.

Yeah.

That's why all of my novels, including the one that I'm writing now, is set in the

future because I just make this shit up.

So for last one at the party with the stuff that was very much based

in reality, like they're stuck at the Watford gap service station,

which I pass every single time I go down the M1, so that's quite easy.

I do, I have a bone to pick it.

I have a bone.

Oh, do you?

I do.

And I don't want to dissuade anyone from reading the book.

And I actually, I came up with my own reasoning.

In fact I'm probably gonna cut this 'cause I feel this is just a you and me moment.

Okay.

But it's the fact that she decides to leave London, go north.

She talks about getting it like up to what, 105 miles an hour, then

skidding, and then going down to 60 and then running outta petrol.

And then it's half two, half three in the morning.

Yep.

Yep.

And then she has to walk for a couple of hours before she

reaches the Watford Gap services.

Have you done the math?

I was just like, that's an hour and a half.

Like driving normally from Central London.

Oh, there are many.

And you didn't even pick up on the fact that electricity lasts.

Like I've had people say electricity would've been out within three days.

Oh yeah.

I know.

That was a contrivance that for the sake of the story.

Oh God.

Yeah.

I was happy to go with.

There's so much.

And the problem is you have to think about what you can get away with.

If you wanna leave this in, I don't mind because nobody's

gonna, do you know what I mean?

You've got, it was just, if she was in Leicester.

Because the thing is, when I was in my twenties, so this is

just a little anecdote of me.

My mum lent me her car for the weekend and she was just like,

oh, do a big monthly food shop.

I didn't have a car at the moment.

And of course I was like 24.

I was like, fuck it, I'm gonna visit everyone I went to uni with.

And it was just, it was like very early days of social media and Facebook.

So it was like, at a time where people actually used Facebook.

Yeah.

And I just said, message me your postcode, I'll come and

visit you and have a cup of tea.

And over 48 hours I rocked up over a thousand miles.

Oh my God.

And yeah, so dropped it off on the Monday.

And my mum, it was a fairly new car and she only used it

for a little bit of commuting.

So it had gone from 17 and a half thousand to 18,640.

And it wasn't until a couple of weeks later, she just looked at the milometer

and she was like, jesus Christ, basically further than I thought.

And I did a whole like, blog post about it, which my parents didn't read.

I don't really talk to them anymore anyway, but they weren't very

interested in me, so but my aunt had read my blog and it was just

like, what a massive adventure.

That was a great sort of travel blog.

And she told my parents.

Oh.

And she was just like, oh, Tom's road trip blog is amazing.

And they're like, road trip blog?

He was supposed to go to Tesco.

And yeah, so I, I got very familiar with the geography of the British Isles.

Yeah.

Because I went from Bristol to Cardiff to Mid Wales, Builth Wells

then across to Leicester, then up to Durham, then down to Peterborough.

Oh my.

Then across to Norwich, then into Central London, and then down to

Surrey, and then back to Bristol.

Wow.

You must really have loved driving at that point?

I don't do it anymore.

This is what I do this after that.

This is why I do everything from Zoom.

I can't be arsed to travel anywhere.

And I drank so much Red Bull.

It wasn't good for me then.

It's not good for me now.

And yeah, actually my wife does a lot of, when we do like big

drives, she loves motorway driving.

But see, I don't drive on motorways anymore either.

I have like a weird form of claustrophobia.

I don't like it if I can't get off somewhere.

If I can't get out somewhere.

It's like, I'm ok trains 'cause they're quite big.

But lifts, I don't, and motorways are like the ultimate, you can't get off when

you wanna get off and that freaks me out.

It's but what if I don't wanna drive on the road anymore?

You have to wait 12 and a half miles.

I'm like, arse.

Huge praise to the people who work on our trains.

They, they're getting a bad deal at the moment and we wish them

all well in their negotiations..

It's an hour and a half to London.

But yes.

Oh, that's from Bristol?

Yes.

Wow.

That's really good, isn't it?

Electrification.

Oh baby.

That's this is why you thought it was five hours to Watford Gap services.

Yeah.

You can see now why it would be good if I did little to research because basically..

I feel that's gonna be like a fun Easter egg for people like moving forward.

Like the glaring obvious errors like,

oh God,

the story's fantastic.

The characters are brilliantly well observed, like the human condition is so

well understood, but basic geography and physics just terrible out the window.

I know and is true.

And as I say, some of it I knew and I had to take a writerly kind of stance

on it and say in order for the story to be any good, I'm gonna ignore

the fact that the electricity should have gone off after a couple of days.

And there'd be nuclear meltdown or something.

We'd like to think renewables in the future.

It's a near future.

Well, No, it's October, so we're all fucked.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah's true.

I do wonder, I don't think I'm at any point going to print again, but

I do wonder if I did go to print again, whether I did say to Hodder,

can I just push the date back a bit?

Because it feels a bit awkward.

Mainly, it's like so I've had people reviewing it now going, yeah,

this is gonna happen in October.

And obviously not.

Again, spoilers, there's a bit where it says, God save the queen.

It was written before the Queen died.

Blade Runner is set in 2019.

Yes.

It's a really good point.

Back to The Future 2 is 2015.

You know, I think I'm allowed.

Yeah, you're fine.

I think I'm allowed of retrospective, yeah.

Yeah.

And the other bit that people always bring up is there is a bit with chicken.

There's a bit with chickens where..

They don't need a rooster.

My char- Yeah.

Where my character says, the only thing that I know about chicken is that if you

want them to lay eggs, you need a rooster.

Now-

that's the character, though.

-I know that's not true.

Everyone, I know that's not true.

My character does not know that's not true.

So I feel like I need to clear that one up because that one comes up.

And again, separation of author and character.

This is how I got over the Watford gap issue conundrum.

Again, trying to tread lightly on spoilers.

But when she's making that drive, she is on drugs.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it feels like Leonardo DiCaprio when he's on Quaaludes in Wolf

of Wall Street and he thinks he's driven that Lamborghini fine.

Oh my God.

Yes!

But the reality of it.

And so that's why I thought, yeah, of course she did 105,

she was probably doing 20.

That is that is one of the great comic moments of film.

If I see that clip at some point on social media, I do not scroll past

'cause it's always worth your time.

So I, I feel the unnamed central character of Last One At The Party

is going through a similar thing.

And I think she probably is, to be honest with you.

Yeah.

And so I feel again, it's a very well observed human condition thing.

Yeah, that's your get out because it's the character's point of view.

Yes.

It's not a omniscient narrator.

No, absolutely.

And with Obviously with Love And Other Human Errors, it's even more difficult

because there's like quantum computing in love and other human errors.

And I, I'm not like the most computer savvy person in the

world, or the most up to date on electronics and stuff like that.

There's divisions of labor in every household and in our household,

Pete deals with that side of things.

Yeah and I don't.

But I'm lucky enough that my core group of really good friends that I've been

friends with for many years are like, bless them all, massive giant geek.

Like they all work in some kind of level of computing or compositing

or some kind of design type thing.

In ways that when we get together and they chat, I rarely understand

a lot of what they're saying.

But I smile a lot and drink beer, so I'm still allowed to be there.

And when I first came up with the idea of love and other human errors

and the fact that there is quantum computing in it, and quantum theory

in it, and all these other ideas.

they very kindly did a Zoom call with me where I said, look, I

need a crash course in all this, and I need you to give it to me.

And they all sat down and we did this zoom and it was like, great fun.

And at the end they were like, so do you get it now?

And I was like, and there was just deafening silence.

I didn't have a clue.

And then I remember being really worried about it and like being

positive in our WhatsApp group saying, oh, is this, does this work?

Does this work?

Does this make sense?

And one of my friends, Andrew, came back and messaged and said, can I just ask

how many virologists did you talk to before you wrote last one at the party?

And I was like, what?

And he was like how much research did you do on 6DM?

And I was like, nothing.

It's called 6DM because I couldn't think of a name for it.

Yeah.

And he was like, then why the fuck are you doing loads of stuff on this one?

You're a writer, just go and write it.

And I was like, that's genius.

So what I actually did was I wrote love and other human errors and

I wrote it as I wanted to write.

And then when I got to editing stage, my bless him, my lovely friend Bert, I

sent him all the computery bits in it.

Every single section, had everything about quantum and about computers

and about anything else in it.

And I said to him, will you read these and tell me the bits that

are like completely ridiculous?

And then we had a Zoom call and bless him.

I like put my camera on and we had a little bit of chat and then

I said to him, oh, so how was it?

Is it okay?

And he just looked at me and he went, he just did the biggest sigh.

Yeah.

And then we spent about four hours just going through and he

basically rewrote those bits for me and told me where it's wrong.

And people say, oh, Such great research blah, blah, blah, blah.

But I had an assistant, my assistant is Bert.

Yeah.

I owe it all to him.

Thank you very much.

I think things coming out of the edit and having beta

readers can be massively useful.

Yes.

But also, it's what works in the story and it's a device.

A literal device in the sake of Love And O ther human errors that

helps push the narrative along.

Yes.

And does the internal logic of the story hold up?

Yes, it does.

And that's the important thing.

And I always say, when I'm thinking about new ideas and specifically

about the one that I'm writing now.

I'm not going to give any spoilers away, but there is something that happened in

this story whereby early feedback was, I'm not sure how you're gonna do that.

And I'm not sure whether or not that's gonna work.

And my comeback is always, if I had pitched last one at the party and an

illness that kills you in six days, again, tiny spoiler, but everyone dead

so it's gotta happen somehow, then I believe then the kickback would've been

like, people aren't gonna buy that.

People aren't gonna buy this illness that spreads across the world that quickly and

that kills the population within x amount of time trying to stop the spoilers.

But they do, because I buy it.

And I character buys it, and that's why it works.

Because what people are worried about is taking care of in a

paragraph, because that's your job as an author, is to sell that idea.

And if you sell it, they will believe it.

If you build it, they will come.

And if you sell it, they will believe it.

And it's as simple as that.

And if you're not selling it and they don't believe it, then

you're not writing it well enough.

So go back and do it again.

Oh, that sounded really harsh.

Sorry.

No, absolutely no.

And I think it is yeah, if you can't convince your readership,

then it's your skills as a writer.

Absolutely.

And I have never had a single person, I've had them pick on many things in that book.

But I have never had a single person come back and say, yeah, I

don't believe that would happen.

And maybe it's a covid thing, maybe it's because none of us

believed we'd be locked down for,

I also think one of your strengths as writer.

One of your strengths as a writer is the human reactions.

And you write different personality types authentically uh, you feel like,

oh, that's a believable human being.

That's how a, that type of human being would react.

That's a believable dog.

Yes!

Oh, dogs are great.

But it's interesting hearing you push back on that feedback because it's

such an insular job where it's just, I've got this idea that I need to

articulate the best that I'm capable of doing and hope it finds an audience.

And there can be a lot of insecurity with that and a lot of people who can lose

faith in a project and abandoned books where they're just like I've lost it.

And to have the confidence to say no, I, this holds up in my head

and this will find its audience and this is worthy of continuation.

I'm just wondering, have you had those doubts with projects?

Have you had to abandon projects?

Is there a period in each project where you have a moment of crisis?

Yes, there is a dark night of the soul in every single project that you do.

Okay.

There that I, that is a genuine thing.

That's a great way of phrasing it as well, by the way.

Yeah, it is.

I remember being told by someone, a very long time ago when I was writing

something, that at some point in every project you will reach a point

whereby you just wanna give up where you don't feel it is worth it anymore.

And if you carry on, that is your answer.

Because basically the ones that it's not worth it, you will just give up.

And the ones that it is worth it you will carry on with.

And so with Last One At The Party, I was very lucky, so I went to the

Northern Film School and did their screenwriting course and we had

some absolutely brilliant teachers.

And I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for that course and

the things it taught me about story.

But also the things it taught me about work and about having a work ethic and

also about knowing yourself as a creative.

Be that an author or whatever it's that you want to do in the creative industries.

And one of the things obviously you do learn is about throwing the

the baby out with the bath water.

So One of the great things this course taught me was to accept feedback, but

it also teaches you to be critical of that feedback and know what part of that

feedback to take and what part to leave.

Because if you take that feedback, it's not your project anymore.

So with Last One At The Party, very early on when I was querying agents,

I got some feedback that said that the person who'd read it thought

that it's an amazing character.

Absolutely loved the lead character and wondered what it would be

like if she met someone else and interacted with that other person.

And then maybe they went on the journey together and they didn't get onto to

begin with, and then they had to get done.

And it was from, it was feedback that theoretically would've

led to me getting an age.

Which obviously was my focus at that point.

I'd never got that far before.

It was amazing and I had to sit down and think whether or not I wanted to

accept that feedback at the risk of the fact that the book would not be the

book that I wanted to write anymore.

Yeah.

And.

Ultimately I didn't because it I realized, and I realized now in hindsight, it's

more important you have to write what you love because you are gonna be trying to

sell what you love and talk about what you love for at least a couple of years.

And if I'd, if that had, if that book hadn't been last, of the party

wouldn't have sold if it wasn't what it is, that's what makes

it unique, is the single person.

And actually I, I took that feedback and I did work it into the book in a

way, which I'm not gonna talk about.

Yeah.

But in my own way.

And then with Love And Other Human Errors.

At one point I was very close to not having one of the characters.

Not having Jack, who is one of the lead characters in story.

And there was the idea that I got rid of Jack to give more space to

Lena and Indiana to talk was floated.

But for me, especially in the very beginning of that story, I feel

like Jack is me, Jack is the reader.

Jack is the one who is looking at this world and is the most,

like heartfelt, heart on your sleeve, say it as you see it.

Just has no sides to him.

Yeah.

Character in a world where the other characters aren't particularly, they're

not what's the word, what's, is it honest narrators, what are they called?

Trustworthy narrators.

Yeah.

You have unreliable.

Yeah.

So the others are they're a little unreliable narrators in that

they're so focused on their own.

And I wanted someone who was gonna be there, who the audience would go with

or the reader would go with, sorry.

And for me, and actually for a lot of readers, the feedback I've

got is I was right, is Jack is the human way into that story.

Before the other characters actually give you that opportunity to

root for them, you root for him.

I think what's really good, because out of the three voices

that are portrayed in that story, his is the last one introduced.

And the others, I would say rather than unreliable, they're not honest

with themselves at the start.

Yeah.

And Jack very much knows who he is and he's more...

he's not honest with anyone else.

Yeah.

That's it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's very much this is who I am and is very open with the reader in a

way that the others are closed off.

Yeah.

And are just like in denial.

And it's fascinating to hear that he might not have been in it at

all because he's such a lynchpin.

I feel that he helps the change of the story.

But the feedback that I got again, it was really valuable.

It made me realize that he wasn't working, he obviously wasn't doing

the job that I needed him to do.

Because that was not how the reader was viewing him, the reader was

not saying, hold on a second.

Yes, I'm like immediately invested in him and he's this, and blah, blah, blah, blah.

And that's how you need to learn how to be critical with your feedback and learn

what that feedback is actually saying.

It's a bit like, what's your story actually about?

It's never just about the last woman left alive or, or someone who's never been in

love having to demonstrate their love app.

It's about something completely different.

Yeah.

In response to your original question, which I don't even

know whether I've answered, yes.

Very much, very much.

And I actually, I wrote 10,000 words of something last year that I have abandoned.

And I might go back to, but I realized it was just, it was not

what I wanted to write at this point.

Yeah, I was not enthusiastic about it enough.

And if, you're gonna write something, you've gotta bloody love it.

A lot of, I say career authors I've interviewed, talk about having, and the

metaphor that I like most is cooking on the hob and that there's like a few

things simmering in the background.

But there's the one of the moment where yeah, adding the ingredients.

Or Jen Williams came up with the great composting, which is you just lay a

load of things out and then you're seeing which sprouts grow and which

need nurturing right now, and which can just be left to their own devices.

Yeah, so it sounds like the 10,000 is yeah, let it grow,

let it be in the background.

Maybe it'll blossom.

It just needs more time.

Or it's simmering.

It's just percolating in the background.

See what happens.

I feel like in the grand scheme of thing, 10,000 words sounds a lot,

but it's just, it's really nothing.

You can write 10,000 words in a week if you want to, but it's important

because I feel every single thing you write, I do a an hour's teaching

session on like my seven things that I've learned as a writer.

And my first thing when people ask, how do I become a writer?

My first thing that I always say is, you need to learn to tell a good story.

We used to tell stories to each other all the time.

We used to tell stories over the campfire.

We used to tell stories when there was no tv.

We used to read stories, or we used to tell stories to our kids.

We don't tell stories to our kids anymore.

We read from books that other people have written.

And I think a lot of people don't know how to tell a really good story.

Like my mom.

My mom is a great storyteller.

My mom's like me, she's very chatty, will chat to anyone.

And has this absolute craft of being able to tell a really great story.

One that lasts two minutes, one that lasts 20 minutes.

You know, and she can reel you in at the beginning.

She can do a great middle and then she wraps it up at the end.

And I feel like that's something that I saw a lot.

We used to sit round after Sunday dinner and my nan would tell stories

about my mom's youth and then my mom would tell stories about us and

when we were younger and and so we learned it through the family anyway.

But yeah, just learn to tell a story and it doesn't have to be a really big thing.

It can be really short.

But the only way to become a great writer is to practice that.

Yeah.

Is to tell stories and to write.

And that's, I genuinely believe you can read all the books you like, you can do

all the courses that you like, but you know, I'm a better writer now than I

was when I wrote Last One At The Party.

And I was a better writer when I wrote Last One At The Party than I was when

I wrote my first novel 20 years ago.

It just, it's how it is.

It stands to reason.

Yeah.

But just write it.

I'm sorry.

That's completely come out of nowhere.

What were you even talking about?

That's alright.

No, it was just you know, it's about your writing process so that's all covered.

That's all good content.

That's absolutely fine.

Also, I'm not someone who prescribes to a set list of questions.

If you've answered something, then that, that's great.

We've covered it all.

It's great.

I do wanna talk a bit more about the project you're working on

that you're 20,000 words in now.

Mm-hmm.

Um, Yeah.

I'm guessing like no research.

No ( laughs)

I'm guessing near future.

Is it again a near future sci-fi?

Is it's quite far in the future?

This one.

Okay.

It's not October, it's like November.

Not October, and not 10 years from now.

Okay.

We're leaping forward.

I'm still narrowing it down, but we are leaping forward, like a mini

minimum of 20-30 years this time.

Okay, nice.

So yeah, so it's set in the future.

The nearest I can give as a kind of comparison is that it's a kind of

like a feminist sci-fi futuristic retelling of Jekyll and Hyde.

Okay.

And it's not a retelling of Jekyll and Hyde at all, but it's It's got some,

it's got a duality kind of crossover.

Yes.

So it's got this kind of like Jekyll and Hydesque kind of background.

Drafting in first person or third person?

First person again.

So it's first person, two different viewpoints this time.

Yeah I haven't given too much away and someone else is gonna write

it really quickly and we do it.

So set years in the future.

Two points of view.

I think a lot of people could write books like that and they'd all be different.

I don't think you have copyright on that.

No, I don't true but..

That'd be a hard case to win, Bethany.

No, but I shall be keeping this just in case.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, this is evidence.

Exhibit A.

Yeah.

Have you got beta readers lined up that you think would be

useful for reading this story?

Or do you like to?

No, I don't.

To be honest with you, it's difficult, isn't it?

I think using readers is very valuable to some authors.

I think using more than one can create a confusion.

Because obviously, you are the writer and you are the owner of

your own work and your own ideas and how you want your book to be.

Every time you send that book to somebody else, they are gonna come

back with a different viewpoint.

You are never gonna send your book out to someone and they're gonna

come back and say, this is great.

This is it.

Full stop.

You're done.

Go for it.

And I think for me, I would want to be really careful about how many

different cooks come to my pot and tell me what should potentially be in it.

Yeah.

And I also think it's, it sounds harsh, but you need to make sure that anybody

who reads it is worthy of reading.

Does that make sense?

That sounds really terrible.

But like you, when you think about the number of people that want to give

feedback on your work and have ideas of what should happen in your work, you have

to be assured enough as a writer to know exactly what it is that you want to write.

And it gets muddied every single time somebody else feeds back on it.

Yeah.

And I'm incredibly lucky, so my agent Cara and my editors at

Hodder have just been amazing.

And that every single time they've just added such value

to my work and such insight.

And anybody who says that they don't get editors in, I'm like, really?

I feel like, you know, okay, good luck.

Yeah 'cause I just think that it's so valuable.

But at the same time, yeah, I'm cautious about where it goes and who looks.

Especially, in the nicest possible way, especially other authors who have

their own, not their own agenda, not saying they're gonna make it terrible

or anything like that, but obviously, 'cause you are, once you're an author

I have a very specific way of writing.

Yeah.

You have a rhythm and a cadence to your words that you may not

even be aware of, but you do.

And it's very easy, I think, to attribute that elsewhere.

So interestingly, a little exclusive here for you.

I've written another book that's completely this one

is completely different.

So if it gets published, it will not be going out under my name

because it's completely different.

But it's very interesting because I do wonder whether or not people know it's me.

'cause I feel like, already I have readers who say, I would recognize your writing.

Which as an author, you never think that and you think, yeah, no.

But then I have people say, I can totally see the similarities between Last One At

The Party and Love And Other Human Errors, even if they're completely different.

Because you wrote them and I can see that kind of style.

So there you go.

Interesting.

Yeah.

I definitely think of you as someone who examines the human

condition and human behavior.

Which isn't always a author's primary focus.

It is a lot, and it is definitely something that draws me in as a reader.

Some people want nonstop action.

Some people just want a twisty, turny story that keeps 'em guessing

right up until the final page.

See, that's really interesting because I would, I consider

myself to be a commercial author.

I consider myself to be, I mean, obviously I like that I've got characters.

Yeah.

And I want my characters to drive my story, but I would still cons, I hate

when people talk in terms of literary.

We're all writing fucking books, we're literary.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Fuck, sorry, that sounds really terrible.

No, didn't mean that in a cuss.

Absolutely.

In any kind of way, but I don't think there's, there's not a single book that

I hadn't written that's not got like a turn of phrase that's beautiful in it.

It's all like fiction is literary and it's all beautiful.

But I wouldn't, I've always thought myself more as a pulpy author.

Does that make sense?

I feel I'm a pick put down.

See, this is an interesting thing, isn't it?

'cause you don't like people viewing you so differently.

I think because of the film studying background it has got

a very strong visual style.

And the language used is very accessible.

Yes.

Because of that first person perspective.

It feels very much, especially with Love And Other Human E rrors,

whether this was a conscious thing or not, I felt that they all had a

different stylistic way of speaking.

Like they've had very clear narrative voices.

Oh, thank God.

Yes.

Okay.

That was intentional.

Great.

Your biggest fear is oh, they all sounded exactly the same.

But also to like the vocabulary, like where it comes to the more technically

minded and the non-technically minded.

So it's...

Which is again, something, so my editor really picked up on that and

said, you must make sure that your language for Indiana is completely

different to your language for Lena.

And I think there's definitely a number of authors, I don't wanna put

a percentage on it, but I have read authors that don't put that work in.

And so it's nice to see and go, okay, this is a person who's, willing to

put in that effort to make these people distinct, not only in their

behaviors, but in their language.

And that's why for me, it seems very character focused.

I think, last one at the party you are expecting her to meet possibly

a man, possibly someone who, yes.

They rub each other up the wrong way.

And because that doesn't happen, it's refreshing 'cause it's oh, thank God it's

not going the way that a million other versions of this book could have gone.

Yes.

And see that's quite interesting as well.

Because I think talking about the filmic background, when you draft a film or a TV

episode, obviously you are always thinking about your kind of like tent pole scenes.

So you've got like those scenes.

And I do find that I do that when I'm writing my books.

I'm not giving spoilers, but I could tell you my five tent poles

. The cul-de-sac situation in Last One At The Party.

I feel that was very visual.

Yeah.

No, absolutely.

And I think it's that's probably why I guess that I I suppose

when you look at your own work, you look at it very differently.

Because you obviously viewed it that way for so long or whatever, and

then it's really interesting to see how other people view it as well.

Yeah, because it's not necessarily what you saw in it in the first place.

So Yeah.

It's an interesting thing because as you said as well,

like being an author is so solo.

You know, I mean, I went from working with a team of like 20 and talking to

people every single day and now it's me.

Yeah.

Have a little company and I am my only employer.

I'm the employer and the employee.

So I think you just spend so much time in your head that you don't like ever

step outside to view it from elsewhere.

And it is something where, and I, I try not to do it as a host, but

it's the, oh, I really noticed the themes of this, that, and the other.

Yeah, because no one thinks that.

There's a broad sort of thing that I want to address, but it's just the

sort of like, ah the symbolism behind this blue jumper that they're wearing?

you are probably going just what am I wearing now?

And I think for me as well, because of the way that I write that often doesn't

come until the end of the first draft.

So I will write the story that I want to, to read.

Both Last One At The Party and Love and other human errors were written because I

hadn't found a book that I wanted to read.

And the third book that I wrote was written because I was watching something

and I suddenly thought, I could write a really brilliant book about this.

Yeah.

And so I just went up and did it even though no one asked me to.

No one probably wants it.

But I sometimes think as an author you spend a lot of time when

you get to a certain stage you write because you need the money.

And I had a little gap of this few months where I wasn't really doing anything

and I thought I could sit around not doing anything or I could write this

idea that I'm really enthusiastic about.

So I just wrote it, even though it's nothing to do with anything

that I've written or won't even be able to publish by me.

But anyway, sometimes you just do.

And this one as well, this third one, ' cause I wanted to read

the book, that's why I'm writing.

Yeah.

I'm writing the book that I wanna read.

So I tend to just write that and then at the end of the first draft

I'll be like, actually that's what that character really wants.

And that's when I have to go back and obviously redraft again 'cause

it doesn't make sense if really what they want is love in the first five

chapters, what they want is a dog.

Yeah, I think readers don't really appreciate that.

'cause they go, oh, that sort of like ties in with that.

That's yeah.

And it's yeah, that wasn't first draft, mate.

No.

You know that, that's not oh, I'm gonna leave this here.

It's oh, I've ended it here.

That doesn't work unless I put something in earlier on.

Oh my God.

And the amount of times that if you could read a first draft, you would see

that basically what people have done is they've written something on page 200.

And then if you go back to page 21 and say, look at page 200 and seed that here.

And you have to.

If someone picks up a hit someone over the head.

At some point and I'm not saying if you are a good writer, but at some point if

you really want your audience to be like, oh God, you'll put that bottle there.

Yeah.

Someone else will leave that bottle there.

It's Chekhov's gun, isn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

But you never think that when you are writing, you're just writing merrily

away, someone hits someone bottle over the head note, put the bottle in.

Yeah.

Don't go back and do it, for God's sake.

And that's my other thing, is just keep going.

Tell yourself what you need to do, but don't go back and do it.

'cause you'll never finish.

And it's the difference between a good and great writer is someone will have

putting this bottle in and it just almost like jerks out, like they're just

chatting and then Dave puts the bottle down and like why is that in there?

Oh, okay.

That's gonna pay off in 180 pages.

But it's that a great writer is just one of Dave's quirk is

that he has a bottle collection.

Yeah.

And it's just like an idiosyncrasy, which looks to be dictating

another part of character.

And you don't even notice it the first time you read through it.

Yeah.

Because if you, if it looks like it's seeding something else or it's commenting

on something else, then it's disguised.

If it's just there for their sake.

And that's definitely what I've read over the last year is like if that's said it's

not a key part of the scene or saying something specific about the character.

Yes.

I know it's for something later on.

Yes.

But if it's saying something about character, if it is saying

something, if it is key to that scene, then I can't see it.

No.

And again, it's these little tools that I'm appreciating more as a

reader and I can recognize great writing more when that's fooled me.

And I don't have the pressure of having to write my own stuff.

It's great.

I just set something up in the second chapter that I'm writing the moment

that I know I will not probably pay off until maybe the last quarter.

At some point during the last quarter, that would be paid off.

And for most readers, they won't even recognize that it's a payoff.

But I know that there are people out there like me that will flick back to that

first chapter, be like, shit, I knew it.

I knew she'd put that in there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's the people that you are writing for.

You are writing for those people that appreciate that and it's not everyone.

Yeah.

And everyone shouldn't.

I've got books I flick back through endlessly and I've got other books

that I'll just read straight through that other people will be flicking back

through endlessly and you don't have to prescribe to one side or the other.

But Just know that there's always an author when you do it, there's always an

author sitting there going yay inside.

Yes, absolutely.

We've been talking at great length and I've, I realized

that we're getting to an hour.

So I have last two questions.

Okay.

Now it's my belief that writers continue to grow and develop their writing

with every story that they write.

Was there anything in particular that you feel that you learnt on your last

story that you're now applying to your current story or intend to apply?

Yes.

I feel like last time I very much tried to write in a way that wasn't me.

As in, I tried to plan, I tried to know where everything's going.

I tried to be a plotter rather than a pantser.

And this time I've very much given myself the freedom to

just write how I want to write.

And write what I want to write as well.

It's interesting because I'm obviously talking about Love And Other Human

Errors and then I wrote this other novel.

And because I just wrote it for me not knowing that it's actually gonna

go anywhere, it was just a really great kind of exercising, this

is how I want to be as a writer.

So I'm trying now to do that more in my career books.

Because it should be fun.

Yeah.

And I feel this a lot of time.

Like I see writers, I see established writers, I see new writers.

I see people who are just at the very beginning of their writing

career on Twitter saying, oh God, I'm really struggling.

And Is it easy for me to say?

No, it's not easy for me to say, because I'm there as well.

But my advice to them would be, don't.

Step away from the computer.

Yeah.

Go for a wa lk.

Like this morning before we recorded this, I wanted to try and get some words down.

I wanted to do a bit, so I started early.

It wasn't working, so I just stopped and I read just some ideas that

I'd got for like future chapters.

I wrote a little bit of timeline.

I thought about my characters.

I thought about where I wanted them to go.

I thought about some tent pole scenes.

Essentially, just give yourself a little bit of a break.

And remember that if you wanted to earn good money, you could do practically

any other fucking job in the world.

Okay?

Yeah.

Go and become a banker if you want to earn good money and do

something shit that you hate, you're doing this because you love it.

That's the reason why you're doing it.

Otherwise you'd do something else.

Sorry.

No, and I think on that we need to like gear it up.

This is why I have the last question.

Is there one piece of advice that you find yourself returning to

that resonates with your writing?

When you work.

Yes, there is one piece of advice.

So there well, there is two pieces of advice.

One is Frank Cottrell-Boyce.

Bryce, I never say your name right, Frank.

I'm so sorry.

Like I quote it all the time.

Yeah.

And I never do it.

And he says just slap it down.

Just slap it down, God's sake.

Just get it out of your brain and onto the page.

It doesn't matter whether it's good.

No one cares.

It's the first draft.

Yeah.

It's not supposed to be good.

It's supposed to be 300 pages of just noise.

And the second one is you can't edit a blank page.

Yes.

So even when I'm having a really shit day, I try and write something because

it doesn't matter that it's not great.

It's got something in it that means it's down there and I can

make it great in my next edit.

But I can't edit something that's not there.

And until you've written 70-80,000 words, you can't move to the edit stage.

So you just have to get there and it's horrible.

But once it's done.

Even when I had to rewrite the entire thing as first person, it was never

as hard as it was the first time.

round.

Yeah, because you'll always have something.

Yeah, so just write it and then worry about it afterwards, but

write it, move on, slap it down.

That is fantastic.

That is a great place to sign off.

Bethany Clift, thank you very much for being my guest this week.

Oh, thank you.

I've had such a lovely time!

Great.

Thank you.

And that was a real writing process of Bethany Clift.

Now both Last One At The Party and Love And Other Human Errors are

freely available to order at all bookshops or in digital format.

If you'd like to check out her social media, she's on Instagram and X,

but I recommend you follow her on Instagram as not only as a better

functioning website, but you also get to see pictures of her dog Pickle.

Uh, so that's @beth_Writes_stuff but you can Google it.

It'll be in the show notes.

Yeah, we'll link it.

That's fine.

Now, for those involved in this year's NaNoWriMo, I wish

you the very best of luck.

Remember something is better than nothing and don't overthink it.

It's a writing month, not an editing month.

In the meantime though, look after yourselves and keep

writing until the world ends.