Branford Boase Winner!
The Branford Boase Award is an important award that celebrates outstanding debut novels. Last night, this prestigious award was given to Struan Murray and his editor, Ben Horslen, for his debut, Orphans of the Tide. We were thrilled to be given the opportunity to chat with Struan about this award!
Congratulations on this incredible award- How does it feel to have won the Branford Boase Award?
It feels really wonderful! Particularly because the Branford Boase Award recognises not just the efforts of the author but the editor too. Writing a novel is a long and difficult process, and would not have been possible for me without an editor as passionate and insightful as Ben Horslen. I am so lucky to be working with him and it’s wonderful to see his hard work being recognised!
Orphans of the Tide is a mysterious and fantastical novel- where did the ideas come from for the setting and characters?
I was struck one day by the image of a whale on a rooftop, and knew it was the beginnings of a story I really wanted to tell. In answering some of the questions the image posed — how did the whale get there, will it survive, and what could happen next? — I found myself already deep in to the process of creating a world. The ancient, gothic City that makes up this world was heavily inspired by my hometown of Edinburgh, while the main character of Ellie came from another story I’d been toying with about a young, Da Vinci-like inventor. When I learned the gruesome truth of what happens to whales when they die on land (their insides build up with gas, and they explode…), I realised she would be perfect for this story, as she would know that the only way to stop a whale exploding is to cut it open.
We have read that you handwrite, and sketch as you draft your books- what benefits does this offer you as the author?
They both help wonderfully to curtail two constant habits of mine: self-editing and procrastination. When I type I am endlessly deleting and changing and tinkering as I go, and it takes forever just to finish a sentence (often a bad one). By handwriting I have no option but to keep on going, and I find this helps to build momentum and get things finished. Then when I transcribe it to a word document I can begin to edit. It makes the whole process much more fluid.
The sketching is great when I get distracted, or if I’m struggling to turn an image in my head in to words. A lot of my stories involve big visual set pieces (like the whale on the rooftop), and it can really help to draw the scene first to figure out how all the parts interact, and get my imagination turning.
With a sequel written and equally as thrilling, can you share anything about what may be next for this series?
Yes! Though I can’t give too much away, there will be a third and final book coming out next year to bring the story to a close.
How did you find the editing process? How many stages of editing did you go through?
It went through two or three ‘structural edits’, where Ben and I dealt with broad brushstroke things like the ordering of events and whether certain scenes needed to be deleted or added in (two characters were even merged in to one character, which is quite common at this stage). Then came the line edits, where Ben suggests changes at the actual sentence level, whilst also brutally cutting words out to try and bring the overall word count down. Then there were subsequent rounds of copyediting and proofreading to get everything looking right on the page and check for mistakes. So quite a lot of stages! It was hard at first because writing is a very personal thing, so having someone come along and start chopping bits up is a bit like having a stranger poke your eyeball. But it quickly became obvious that Ben was as passionate about this novel as I was, and really wanted to make it the best version of the story that it could be.
What advice would you share with budding authors?
Ignore the voice in your head that tells you you’re not good at writing (the one in my head is very vocal). And enter competitions! They’re a great way to help you focus and give you something to work towards, and they can help to make your own writing feel ‘real’ to you. Also they sometimes have cash prizes!
Orphans of the Tide and Shipwreck Island are available from bookshops now!
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