Interviewer: Hello, everyone, this is your favourite weekly program "Writers". Today we are happy to have here Vanessa Silver, a famous writer who has won numerous awards for her short fiction. Her novels are described as extraordinary, lyrical, moving, yet funny. Hello, Vanessa.
Vanessa: Good afternoon, thank you for inviting me.
Interviewer: I've always wondered to know how people understand they were born to write books. You see, writer is not a common profession. When did you first start writing?
Vanessa: I started writing when I was still a child. I produced a newspaper at the age of six. The first edition was written in blue crayon. I wrote dreadful poetry when I was in my teens. I've still got it and it makes me giggle. I didn't write much apart from comedy, skits and sketches until I started writing fiction properly in late 2002.
Interviewer: How did you go about starting your first novel?
Vanessa: I remember I was once shopping in Brighton during a thunderstorm. I dashed into a bookshop and I picked up a random book. I drove home, sat down with some tea in my wet trousers and I didn't get up again until I had finished it. 400 pages! I have to thank that man so much! That's when I turned from someone who had bought a book to someone who would become a writer. It pushed the switch, it unlocked the feeling of "I want to do this".
Interviewer: Apart from being a writer you are also a lecturer. How did you get into teaching?
Vanessa: I think I found a thing that I loved doing and I wanted to pass on the love of doing it. I'm a totally non-academic tutor, I'm very craft-based and I try to open up creativity in people, literally in every person.
Interviewer: Do you believe everybody has a story to tell?
Vanessa: I think that storytelling is almost innate in us. People sat round fires and caves in the stone age, telling each other stories. I don't think they would have just said "I went off and got a mammoth today". We have an ability to hang on to the important parts and drip-feed people with the important bits. You don't give it up all upfront. You make them wanna know the next bit. Keep them involved by creating the character that draws them in and putting that character in a situation they can empathise with. Make the reader want to find out how they resolve this thing.
Interviewer: What is your advice for writers who are just starting?
Vanessa: Read as much as you can, not just the things you're told to read to parents, tutors and reviewers. Read anything, both good books and bad ones. Whatever genre you wanna work in, you've got to get a sense for when you're improving. Write as much as you can and at some point you will find that the words take on a shape and rhythm of their own. It's almost a physical thing to recognise what it feels like. That moment when you change from being a person in charge of the pen to someone not deliberately creating something. You'll find the point when the character takes off and does their own thing. You need to recognise that and not refuse to let the character do what they want. Don't use the character as the puppet, be a tool to the character, so you're following along behind them. Listen to your own instincts as a writer and then edit. That may mean cutting a huge amount of words or cutting down a story by a third. I think a lot of writers don't do enough, they leave it raw. There is no point in doing things by half.
Interviewer: Thank you, Vanessa, it has been very interesting talking to you.
Vanessa: Thank you.
