Louise Jensen has sold over a million English language copies of her International No. 1 psychological thrillers The Sister, The Gift, The Surrogate, and The Date. Her novels have also been translated into twenty-five languages, as well as featuring on the USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller’s List. Louise's fifth thriller, The Family, will be published in Autumn 2019 by Harper Collins. Louise lives with her husband, children, madcap dog, and a rather naughty cat in Northamptonshire.
In Jensen's novel, The Date, something bad has happened to Alison Taylor. Her Saturday night started normally. Recently separated from her husband, Ali has been persuaded by her friends to go on a date with a new man. She is ready, she is nervous, she is excited. She is about to take a step into her new future.
By Sunday morning, Ali’s life is unrecognizable. She wakes, and she knows that something is wrong. She is home, she is alone, she is hurt and she has no memory of what happened to her. Worse still, when she looks in the mirror, Ali doesn’t recognize the face staring back at her. She can’t recognize her friends and family. And she can’t recognize the person who is trying to destroy her…
Louise Jensen stops by In Reference to Murder to talk about writing and researching her novels:
Research is absolutely one of my favourite parts of being a writer. I love learning about new subjects and often find myself so fascinated with the information I uncover I end up over researching. The danger of finding out too many facts is the temptation to share them all in your manuscript but too much detail can slow down the pace of your story and bore readers. It’s a balancing act.
My latest novel, The Date, is about a girl, Ali, who, after a head injury, develops Prospagnosia – an incurable Face Blindness. I hadn’t heard about this condition until I watched a documentary featuring a 13 year old girl called Hannah Reid who developed the worst reported case of Face Blindness in the UK after having a virus which spread to her brain – she couldn’t recognise her parents or herself. My heart went out to her and interested in learning more, I found myself Googling her condition, reading everything I could.
Although I wanted to write a book about Face Blindness I wanted to approach it sensitively out of respect for Hannah and all the other sufferers. The emotional impact of this condition is huge and I wanted readers to really connect with Ali.
I felt Hannah was too young at the time to contact for research to I Googled ‘Prosopagnosia’ + ‘Support’ and I was directed to the website of a research centre. I asked them the medical questions I needed answering but for the emotional side of characters I wanted to speak to sufferers. As with all my books I Googled my keyword and added ‘Wordpress’ into my search. Often people are blogging about their experiences and they are the ones who are generally very happy to talk.
I found three people and chatted to them about how it really feels not being able to recognised anybody. One thing I’ve learned on my writing journey is no two people’s experience of the same event is ever the same so it’s impossible to create a character which will reflect everyone’s experience. However, I took the anxiety one person felt and mixed it with the desire to live a normal life another felt and I used bits of the third person’s recovery from a head injury. As the novel progress Ali took on her own very distinct personality. It’s important to let characters develop organically and not to try to replicate a real person and their experience.
Once the first draft was written and I was happy with the concept I was introduced to a neurosurgeon through a friend and I could fact check my hospital terminology and the tests Ali would have received before her diagnosis.
Once I’d finished editing the story I traced Hannah Read’s mum to tell her that her daughter had inspired a book and she and her family read it before publication and loved the fact I was raising awareness of such a terrible and life changing condition. I’ve since spoken to Hannah on the phone several times and I still keep up to date with the research into Prospagnosia.
It can be daunting approaching people for research, but I’ve found that most people are genuinely pleased to talk about their area of expertise or their passion.
You can learn more about Louise Jensen and her books via her official author website and also follow her on Facebook and Twitter. The Date and Jensen's other novels are widely available via all major book retailers.
No comments:
Post a Comment