Everything Is Content - Bella Mackie - Everything In Conversation

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

In another very special bonus episode, join Beth and Oenone in conversation with the brilliant writer Bella Mackie. Bella Mackie is the bestselling author of both Jog On and the dark comedy How To Kill Your Family, which has recently been picked up for adaptation by Netflix. Her new novel What A Way To Go follows the death of very wealthy businessman Anthony Wistern at his own birthday party - what happened, why and who will be punished? We chat to her all about the book, terrible rich people, her writing process and our weird global fascination with true crime. Follow Bella on Instagram @mackie_bella and get your copy of What A Way To Go here! If there's anyone else who you'd love to hear us chat to, then do let us know on Instagram @everythingiscontentpodFollow us:@beth_mccoll@ruchira_sharma@oenone Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Beth. Sorry, can you do that again? I'm Beth. And I'm Anoni. And welcome back to another special episode of Everything in Conversation. There's sadly no Ruchira this week as she is on a well-deserved holiday. This week, our guest is Bella Mackey. Bella Mackey is the best-selling author of both Jog On, a non-fiction deep dive into her own relationship to running and its role in a larger mental health landscape, and the dark comedy How to Kill Your Family, her first novel, which came out in 2021, following a young woman on a revenge mission against her own family.

Her new novel, What a Way to Go Go is out now. What A Way To Go is another darkly humorous book, this time a whodunit following the sudden and suspicious death of the very wealthy and widely disliked Anthony Whiston at his own lavish 60th birthday party. We are such big fans of Bella's writing, so we're so excited for this conversation. Before we begin, please do make sure you're subscribed to the show so you always know when we drop a new episode. And let us know on Instagram at EverythingIsContentPod if there's anyone else you'd love to hear us chat to. This is Everything in Conversation with Bella Mackey. Hello.

Hi, how are you? Good, thank you. How are you? I'm good. Thanks for having me. me thanks for coming on we're so excited oh no it's really nice sorry i'm sitting next to a dog that's farting oh don't worry we have an only dog that does similar yeah she does but she's actually won't sit next to me which i'm finding really offensive she's just sort of wandering around I wish my dog would that's where his actual ass is like right next to his world and you're just living in it hello Bella welcome to the podcast everything in conversation how are you doing today I'm good yeah thank you so much for having me um I'm sitting next to my dog and it's quite hot. And yeah, it's a nice day. Perfect. Sweaty.

I'm in Wales, so I can't actually participate in this because it's Arctic in Wales. So I wouldn't give a really humid, sweaty forehead right now. So no sympathy from me. I don't know. I've mentally gone into the transitional zone. Yesterday I wore tweed and was like, I'm ready now for autumn. I'm not interested in suddenly like a second burst of summer.

My head is now fully in autumn. So yeah, I'd actually like to be in Wales. I agree. Yeah, I'm actually annoyed that it's getting hot again this week. I was mentally checking out in summer as well. But it is exciting I guess it's the end of August because it's um your new book is about to come out in September What a Way to Go is out on the 12th of September Anoni and I and Ruchira who is our co-host who

is very sadly on holiday have all flown through it we've talked about in the group chat we've been so excited uh to talk to you about it so I think we're just going to dive in although before we talk about um what a way to go i would love to turn to your first novel how to kill your family because there has been some really exciting news uh on that front hit the timeline this week netflix have announced that they are making an eight-part adaptation of How To Cure Your Family, starring Anya Taylor-Joy as the lead character, Grace, who is on a revenge mission against her family. We're very excited about this. We've got loads of messages from people saying, please ask about this.

We can't wait to watch it. So I guess the question would be, how do you feel now that that news is out in the world? And what, if anything anything can you tell us about the adaptation yeah it's weird because I'm like not allowed to tell anyone anything about it and also I sort of don't I sort of don't know that much you know because I think that they tend to kind of go to the writer and say do you want to be involved and when you say no no you can do it they go great thank you and they sort of shut the door because they want to deal with like the

professional script writers you know because I'm not a script writer. So obviously they're thinking, oh, thank God she doesn't want to write it. It was brilliant. We can get someone else to do it. And, you know, that sort of means that they sort of want to keep you away from it because I think they think we're going to change loads of things, you know, and, you know, they're very, they're very careful to say it's inspired by it. It's not, you know, they're not going to do exactly what I wrote. So I think they sometimes worry that the writer's going to come in and say, well, you can't do that.

That's what, you know, that's not what's in my book and you can't change this. And that person doesn't look like the character I imagined. So I can imagine it probably gets quite difficult for production companies

if the writer is a bit too precious about it. But obviously the Anya news is unbelievable. And it's very surreal that she'd read the book um while she was on location filming and she'd loved it and she'd been in touch with me directly which was insane to get an email from Anya Taylor-Joy and she's lovely and she's got

incredible ideas about Grace and I think she sometimes I think she knows the book better than I do because she'll say something and I have to kind of remember who she's talking about I'm like who you know what who which character is that and she's kind of got this encyclopedic knowledge of the book so I think it's amazing to see someone so enthusiastic about it and the fact that it's Anya Taylor-Joy like an actual superstar like just like I sat in a room with her just looking at her just being like how has this happened what is going on but yeah so it's it's incredibly exciting and even if they changed every single thing about I sat in a room with her just looking at her, just being like, how has this happened? What is going on? But yeah, so it's incredibly exciting.

And even if they changed every single thing about it, I'd still be just like sitting there, like screaming at the TV. I mean, like who doesn't love a Netflix binge? And the fact that I get to like see my name on a Netflix binge is insane. Also, she's quite gothic herself, isn't she? She loves like darkness and stuff. So I can imagine she'll be perfect in this role.

So yeah, no, I can. I mean, I think it's kind of weirdly made for her, even though, you know, I wasn't envisaging any specific person when I was writing it. You know, the moment she sort of was, was sort of entered the scene, I was like, oh God, right. Yeah, of course. That's who it is. And like, she had the imagination to see herself playing Grace and I, I didn't.

So fair play to her yeah she's she's amazing so your new novel which is out now is also a thriller dark comic piece what what drew you to getting into this genre and do you have any massive inspirations in the horror thriller genre yeah I've always been really fascinated by true crime, like ever since I was a really little kid, like too little, like it's inappropriate, like you should be, you know, interested in like, you know, football or, you know, dancing. And my hobby was reading about, you know, serial killers. want to write something in that genre but the thing is I think there are so many fantastic actual thriller writers kind of straight thrillers that for me to try and I didn't feel maybe like I wasn't like accomplished enough or that you know I just felt that it would be very hard for me to try and write you know something as good as say an Agatha Christie or a Val McDermid or you know there's so many brilliant crime writers that I thought I'd rather do something. It's like an in-between book. I

think it's like funny and it's also kind of, you know, dark. Um, and I just found my sweet spot. So, so yeah, it was, I think I get lots of inspiration from true crime, from crime fiction, but I think for me personally, I always want to add something else to that. Yeah, it is very funny. And you're very funny online and in your articles. My question, I guess, would be, is it daunting or how daunting is it to set out to write a novel

knowing that you want to make people laugh and knowing that you might want to freak them out, you might want to make them think, but like making people laugh, to me that I can't think of anything more daunting. Was that something you always knew that whatever it was going to be novel wise it would have comedy threaded through it yeah I think I guess the first thing is that you're not setting out kind of with the intent on making an audience laugh because the audience is invisible at that point you know when I was writing How to Kill Your Family I had no idea whether anyone would read it I mean genuinely I know that sounds weird now that it's out and

sold a lot of copies but at the time you don't imagine that someone's going to read it so I think there were a couple of people I was writing for I was writing for my mum and I was writing for my friend Janine and I thought if I can make them laugh that would be really nice um and but yeah obviously if you sat down to write comedy if I was trying to be a stand up, I think I'd find that paralyzing. But to me, given that I felt like there wasn't an audience, it wasn't as hard. And also, I think the way I approach everything is through humor. You know, like every situation I'm in in life, that's always going to be, you know, treated with humor. And I found, you know, the title of your podcast, Everything is Content.

You know, that is like my family's motto and and so you know there have been times in my life where I've had you know just dreadful dreadful moments and when those happen my family laugh at me and I laugh at them when when it happens to them too so I think if that's your mindset it's probably easier to try and to try and bring that into your writing um I mean I could have failed if someone could have you know reviewed it and said oh you know it's a fairly you know fairly straight thriller and I'd have been like oh crap I've you know the funny has not come through but but um yeah if I showed it to like the people I find funny and they liked it so that was kind of that was So with, after the success of How to Kill Your Family, was it like your publishers saying,

this is, you know, we want another kind of thriller, murdery, true crime kind of story from you? Or you're like, great, this is the trajectory I want to be on. And I've got another story in me that's following on, very different, completely separate, but following on in that genre. Yeah, I didn't know actually what they'd be like afterwards. I thought, you know, I thought I was like, oh, they're going to make me write another one the same, you know, they're going to make me write a sequel. But actually, they were

really hands off. They're incredibly relaxed, given that, you know, what they're effectively saying is go away, write something, we won't see it until it's finished. And then we'll pay you to write, you know, it's quite a laissez faire way of doing things. But they were incredibly chill about it. You know, I said, I've got this idea, I want to write this book.'s quite a laissez-faire way of doing things but they were incredibly chill about it you know I said I've got this idea I want to write this book and they went okay and then I handed that book in and they said oh no this doesn't work so I went away and wrote this book and and then then they accepted it because they don't have to accept it you know they can they buy books and they don't have to accept the finished product if they don't like it so yeah so um I think I knew I wanted to well actually did I I thought for a bit I thought

oh I should write something completely different and I should do something serious and you know pivot because my first book was a non-fiction it was about running second book was you know novel and I thought oh maybe the third book should be something completely different so I attempted something different it did not work and so sort of, I sort of realised actually the thing that I'm good at is, and the thing that I'm interested in is, you know, dysfunctional, weird, toxic, rich families. And maybe one day I'll, you know, get bored of that, but I haven't yet. It's a rich theme. It's quite literally, it is. Can we ask, you might not want to say, but where you kind of tried to go and didn't quite make it work? Because I think with writers, especially writers who are doing so well and

are so beloved as you are, it's quite refreshing sometimes to hear someone go, I tried something and I wasn't good at it or I wasn't ready to do it. So if you can tell, where did you try and go that didn't quite work? Yeah, I think it was a reaction to the fact that because it did so well I thought okay well the next book just can't possibly do as well and there's nowhere to go from here you know there's nothing to build on it's not going to be like you know I in my head I thought you know how your family might sell I don't know 30,000 copies and then you know your your second book then you improve or whatever and because that didn't happen I think I had a freak out and and also I think I felt the expectation of the reader more this time obviously because like as I said last time I had no expectation this time around I did so I I felt like I have

to try something completely different so I was and also I was sad I was so sad it was the pandemic and I was so anxious and sad that I wasn't being funny anyway so I I attempted to write a family novel which was about a family looking into a historic a historic crime in the family um but it was a much more kind of straight thriller and with without the funny and it it was just a bit all over the place and And I think because I was sad, I remember my editor just being like, there's no funny, like it doesn't feel like you wrote this.

It doesn't have your voice in it. And she was right. And so I binned it. And I sort of, I spied a bit of it the other day because it's in a Google doc and like audibly, like wanted to curl up and die.

So she was right. And it just, yeah, it was, I tried and I failed but you know there's something quite cathartic in deleting 130,000 words and just starting again which is not something I thought I would be grateful for but it was it was oddly helpful. I think what you've done with What A Way To Go is amazing it's so compulsively readable I personally am obsessed reading about the uber rich and that schadenfreude you get as well when they have their downfall. How fun is it creating these lavish lifestyles?

Like I'm obsessed with all the stories about interiors. I know that you yourself are a very fashionable person. You love interiors and home stuff. Is it really fun to kind of imagine where you could take these worlds if money was quite literally no option? Is that part of the joy you get from writing these books? It is. And, you know, I love living in that world in my head for a bit. But I think actually now looking back on it, I'm sort of kicking myself because I think that you can kind of, there's a limit to your imagination, right? Like, I can only imagine like the sort of upper limit of wealth that I have seen myself, right? So, you know, I think I underplayed their wealth, actually, when it came down to it. I think I've heard stories from people since I wrote it

about the most insane stories about rich people. You know, someone told me this story about a couple they had met who checked themselves into the door. it wasn't the Dorchester Claridge's for the night and on the on the second night or in the morning the wife apparently went oh my god darling we have the house around the corner on Abelmar street and they had forgotten that they had a house in Mayfair and I thought when she told me this story I thought oh I have totally I'm so naive i have downplayed this well apologies my dog is barking um it's the dog in the garden in the other it's the garden it's the garden next door he's lived here for six years and he barks at this dog as if he's never heard it before excuse me come here he's not he's just an idiot um if if an actual burglar came in here he'd be like

so yeah I really downplayed like actually what I could have done you know they could have been like flying in and out on helicopters they could have had a coterie of staff members you know actually my my my imagination was limited by kind of old maybe an old-fashioned view of it maybe a view from sort of 30 years ago of what the extreme wealthy looked like. I think now it's so on steroids and it's so, it's also so inaccessible. You know, these people are not, you know, they're not walking amongst us. They are sort of being dropped off from place to place, getting on a private jet. You're not

seeing them, you know, they're not, they're really not on Instagram or, you know, they're not, they're not in Hello magazine. So these people have such a level of privacy that the wealth that they have, you sort of wouldn't believe it. I mean, when she told me the story, I almost didn't believe her, but she'd worked with them. So I have to, but so yeah, I think that kind of, it makes me kick myself a bit. I think I could have had a lot more fun with it. You know, I feel kind of stupid that, you know, they only had like one housekeeper I'm thinking oh my god you know these people are not super rich like this is ridiculous so yeah um I think it's a shame it's a shame that I I I didn't have I didn't do enough research but then how could I don't know those people you know it's a shame that no one wanted

to invite me to the you know 12 bedroom stately home in in the cotswolds so you could write about it and skewer them i i think it's so i could be mean to them i think it's it's it's delicately balanced and i do think there would have been a point where people would have gone no that's just it's too silly she's taking the piss even though you would have known no people are really like this i think we're still kind of getting to getting that class consciousness and getting to grips with just how rich the most wealthy people are i think you do almost have to toe a line of believability while people get around that. And I've got a question. I wonder, not to kind of encourage you to be libelous, but these characters, so I'm thinking Simon Artemus in How to Kill Your Family, and then Anthony Weston, his status-obsessed wife, Olivia, like these horrible characters.

They are kind of, I mean, there's people in the world like them. Did you find yourself drawing from real people, not to name any names, sort of taking their characteristics or basing it on anyone? Or did you try and create the characters themselves in as much of a vacuum as was possible? Well, I know that you now run your own podcast so I don't want you to get sued so I won't name any names because it would be it would be a bad start for you you know on your you know yeah exactly um yeah there were definitely people I had in mind um and there were

yeah definitely you know certain people in the public eye that I sort of drew on for initial inspiration um and in fact actually in How to Kill Your Family we had to change a few things because a lawyer came back and said this sounds quite a lot like X and I thought sure but if X firstly X isn't reading it and secondly if X read it is X going to bring a lawsuit saying I think that's me because he's horrible so if you recognize yourself you probably wouldn't admit it um for this book i thought a lot about i can name these people because they're dead um i thought a lot about the um mogul uh robert maxwell who you know you're both probably a tiny bit too young to kind of

remember the kind of huge fiorore when he died but you know he fell off a yacht um which was called the lady galane his daughter's name, who was best friends with Jeffrey Epstein. I think that's why I was thinking about him a lot, because it was sort of suddenly the name was back in pop culture. And once he'd fallen off the boat, you know, he'd been then disgraced because he stole a bunch of money from people's pensions. And people weren't sure if it was a murder or if it was an accident or was it suicide. So that was a really nice jumping off point for me and I thought a lot about um Lord Lucan who killed his family nanny in I want to say 60s or 70s I can't remember which decade it was now it must have been late 60s um and I thought a lot about him and his wife you know how charming he was how handsome people thought he was you know

and but he sort of collapsed everything around him and his wife was left to pick up the pieces. Um, so it was, yeah, it was an amalgamation of people. And then sort of oddly, a couple of people I knew who are much younger when I was sort of in my early twenties and sort of gadding around London and going to sort of fancy nightclubs and stuff, because I had a boyfriend who was friends with lots of flashy people. So a couple of them as well um who who are who who deserve it there's um in this book there is an element of the supernatural and sometimes I think that can be can feel hack this feels perfect it sits really well in the novel and you immediately kind of get into it and are on board um maybe a really deep question what's your relationship like with death what

do you think happens when we die wow that's not where I thought that question was gonna go that'd be hell um but you're totally right actually I've read books where there's suddenly been an element of supernatural existence like it introduced into a book that doesn't is not that the premise is not that and I felt kind of a bit cheated or like oh this is not the genre that I read I don't want to read this so you are right about that and I did think that when I was writing it I thought you know does this work or is it quite jarring you know and then I thought it's fiction if I want to write you know that he he's in purgatory then I'm going to I sort of got a bit defiant um I think it does work in the end it does no it's the whole way through sorry I didn't want

to be it actually no no no no no but I think it's I think it's a really good point and because it you know definitely was something that I thought about but um I don't know I mean god I wish there was an afterlife I just think anything would be better than nothing even if it was purgatory and you're in you know the South Gloucestershire processing centre I still think that would be more interesting if I could just watch people on a monitor in the afterlife I I'd be thrilled. Sadly, despite my mum dragging me to church when I was a child, I just am not getting it. And I wish that I did. And I really hate, one of my pet peeves,

and this is slightly off topic, is science bros. And I'm not talking the ones on Huel. I'm talking the ones that read a lot of Richard Dawkins and are like ghosts aren't real, like God doesn't exist, like you fucking loser and I'm like I know but wouldn't it be isn't it just quite fun to kind of have the possibility and

so yeah I sort of, I feel like maybe I've been indoctrinated by those people but yeah, I mean maybe I'll be proved wrong and there's something amazing going on in which case I probably should have been better in life but yeah i mean maybe i'll be you know maybe i'll be proved wrong and there's something amazing going on in which case i probably should have been better in in life but yeah i like the idea i will see you in hell yeah we're all gonna be there um i like the idea um that yeah there is this sort of middle place um and i'm so glad that you did do something it would have been so easy to have this sort of like because anthony is one of our narrators and he is dead from the

first page of the book it would have been so easy to just have him sort of like hanging around and instead you've added a whole, you know, other dimension. I wonder at what point did, when you're writing a book, at what point is it all coming together? Are you going, okay, I'm going to begin at the beginning. I'm going to, it's going to be set here. There's going to be, you know, an afterlife. There's going to be a big house. There's going to be a house in London and here's what's going to happen is it chronological is it all coming in like fits and starts like what's your process when creating a book beginning to end is it beginning to end or is it start at the end work backwards etc etc I would imagine that I'm sure some people do do that right like start at the. Yeah. I wish that I could process makes it sound grander than it is. I think it's more for me,

you know, I have to do better this time around, but mostly it's like the idea percolates in my brain, percolates in my brain. I have to make sure that, you know, I always have the best ideas just before I fall asleep. I have to write them down in my notes app, you know, otherwise I forget them. And every single time I never learn, I think I'll remember that. That's the easiest thing in the world to remember. And then it's gone. So it's a mishmash of those things. And then I get very excited and I text my editor saying, I've got the whole thing. It's great. It's great. And she sort of then asks me questions that I'm like, oh, I don't know about that bit. We'll get to that later. And so I start writing immediately because I think, well, I know

these people are there in my head. I understand, you know, the general vague outline. I've got it. And then I get bogged down because I realized there are a bunch of things that, you know, obviously small things, but you know, the whole book will fall apart if I don't address them. So then I try and write my way out of it. So then I end up writing, overwriting. And actually next time around, I have to be more forensic about, you know, chapter by chapter, writing the structure, knowing where things will land, you know, addressing those kind of pivot points before I actually get to them. And I think that will make writing the book a lot easier. I think I'm going the hard way when there's kind of a straight through road and I'm doing this.

So I think I've not done it well yet, but I think that's because I've only written, this is my third book, but I've only written two novels and I still think I'm an amateur at this. So hopefully with the next one, I will have some better process. It's not something I'd recommend the way I do it. I think it must be so much harder as well though

with a thriller where you're dealing with twists and turns and whodunits and stuff, because you could so easily if you I don't know if you suddenly decide actually I want this person to be the murderer or I hadn't thought about if this is how they got killed or whatever it might be you can so easily just put so many plot holes in it or write something in the wrong order even when I was I just wrote a little memoir what a weird thing to do at 28 but anyway even in that I'd be writing it and my editor would be like you've actually already said this like three chapters ago and I was just writing the same thing

over and over again because I'd forget because you can't it's quite boring to read your own work through every single time so you just kind of want to start writing another chunk but I can imagine with a thriller that can make it quite complicated because you might not realize what you've already said and what a character's already done or how that might mess up the whole plot. I know, and you're completely right. I mean, I think that's why people plot and plot and plot. So if you listen to someone like Richard Osman talking about his books, he has a really clear idea of kind of, you know, this plot point, but this plot point, he's quite relaxed about the writing it, but he says he does constantly have to go back and forward because his books are very complicated in plot. You know, there's a lot of small things hanging on on on things and I think that's why the books that I've written so far

I think that's probably what is daunting to me about a thriller is that you do have to you know have a really good sense of kind of every tiny thing that you're that you're sort of including and I think that to me I don't think that's how my brain works. So I think for me to try and write a book like that would be difficult. A book like this is easier because the murders are almost incidental. The deaths are hinge points for other things. The deaths happen so that I can do more

writing about the families. So yeah, I think I make it easier for myself with that because I can't imagine how you can come up with like a plot like an Agatha Christie novel and have all of those bits in place that to me I think I would drop the ball on all of them I mean even in this book I remember my editor you know messaging me saying oh my god what what's happened to the earring we've just you know we've written it and then it's disappeared and you know you sort of have to go you're going oh god and so you're cramming things in and hoping that it's and it works and so it's quite stressful that yeah of making sure you don't sort of just drop things in the middle of in the middle of the novel

and then never address them again that is the magic of a good editor as well you mentioned the deaths and the dying element um when researching when researching and writing a book that does involve that does involve um murder death um kind of criminality and things like that do you end up with like a completely mad and like horrifying search history or are you taking books out the library are you emailing with experts what's your research process like for the stuff that you can't just kind of imagine so yeah so for things like you know the like the real expert research I do try and get in touch with people who can explain to me what happens in an autopsy and how quickly it would be done and you know how how an accidental death would be called and all those kind of things um I use artistic license for quite

a lot of things you know like for example in how to kill your family there are the deaths were ludicrous you know and actually sometimes people would say it's too unrealistic and I'd be like yeah that's the point like it's not supposed to be realistic that she dies in a sauna like that's not it's not what I'm going for so again there's a bit of freedom in that which means that I don't have to kind of I don't I don't owe the audience this kind of factual accuracy that I might if I was writing a straight thriller um but yeah I mean that part of it I'll do research my google history is obviously appalling you know because it is always things like you know how do I make someone you know die in a lake you know how do I push

someone down the stairs how do I you know kill someone in a sauna and and obviously that's just insane and there have been times when I have had Google that kind of warning thing comes up that says like are you okay do you need help you know you can call this number and I think obviously somewhere I must be on a thing saying like this is this is an incredibly weird history that she's got but then to be fair it's mixed in with things like you know am I dying because I've got you know anxiety or whatever so you know to be fair I think my entire history is not a healthy one it's not it's not it's not a healthy image of a person you mentioned that you love using these murders and deaths as like a vehicle to talk about the characters and the families and we see it so much in literature and in real life that kind of the richer the families get the more

sociopathic they tend to get and their relationships seem to get more strange um but your characters they're very complex most of them are slightly imbecilic and um not the smartest people on the planet and you do but you do kind of start to get a fondness for them you do you love these characters even though they are quite horrid and ridiculous and get themselves into awful situations how do you feel about them as people? Or do you just see them as ludicrous? Yeah, I certainly don't like them. People say, oh, I liked Grace. Or, you know, they sometimes say that they liked characters,

even though, you know, you're not supposed to. And I'm not sure it's like. I think with Grace, and especially because it's from, you know, first person point of view, I think it's more that you are interested in a character who doesn't give a crap what you, you know, what anyone else thinks. And it's just nasty in the way that we're all kind of in our heads. We think uncharitable things. We think mean things about people.

We're, you know, in our heads, we're unfiltered, right? Whereas obviously in real life, you're sort of raised to be a nice person. So I'm not sure how much it's like like I don't feel warmly towards these people but I do I do get a kick out of kind of their ridiculousness and their entitlements and all of those things which I don't think I would if they weren't also funny if I you know if there wasn't humor to it if it was just them whining I think quite quickly you'd get quite tired of them. I think there has to be an element of connection, doesn't there, if you're a reader to the characters, because otherwise you're sort of, you get, like the reader gets lost quite quickly and they sort of think, why do I care about these people? So I keep writing about awful people.

So in a way they have to be slightly ridiculous and funny. Otherwise I think you would get tired of them. We've got a couple of reader questions, which we could do. So from Claudia on Instagram, we had, was there anything you learned from your first novel that you took into the writing process for this book? Oh, that's a really good question. I think the couple of things I learned was, one, from feedback, but also I knew it instinctively,

was that it was too long and that the chapters were too long. I think there's a real trend for kind of shorter chapters which are kind of pacier which which lead you straight into wanting to read more um and so I was quite aware of that for for what a way to go and it is shorter it's shorter by 30,000 words not that you'd know it I got a hard copy of it and was like oh right it's still massive um but that was quite an important one and the other one was that I'd sort of shied away from doing dialogue in the first book. And actually, you know, you do have to write dialogue. And I was sort of terrified of writing dialogue because I think, you know, when you're reading your own dialogue back, it looks so stilted and kind of forced.

So I was sort of forcing myself to do that because I think it does add something to a book. I mean, I learned loads of things. I mean, I also, you know, I'm terrified by the whole process of writing a second book, you know, the difficult second album. But I mean, I do think that's the joy of writing is that hopefully you build on it

every single time. And hopefully you have more confidence to try something new with everything that you write. I mean, be that books or articles or even just kind of, you know, essays in a diary. I think the more you do it, the more you sort of learn about it.

So it's definitely, it wasn't more enjoyable writing this book. It was way less enjoyable, but I kind of felt like I understood what I was doing more. We had one other question. Well, we had a few questions, but we just picked a couple. We had another one from Claire on Instagram saying, how do you approach writing fiction and nonfictionfiction differently and do you have a preference i mean yeah they're definitely definitely different i think with non-fiction you have such a heavy responsibility to the reader that you are going to you know represent things accurately and truthfully and you know that you

are you are not you are going to try and avoid being biased about things so for jog on there was a lot of research that went into that book, a lot of reading up on stats and double checking things, because, you know, the idea that you might make a huge mistake is, is terrible, you know, you could really affect someone, you know, I was writing about mental health, you know, if you've got something wrong, you know, that could be really bad for someone. So that weighed quite heavily on me. But it was a much more straightforward process, because you're sort of dealing with reality reality and facts and, you know, you've got lots of evidence that you can draw on. Obviously, then writing nonfiction, you're sort of in the wilderness where you sort of sit down at your computer and you think, oh, well, what am I doing? And then you think, oh, I've got to make

it up. And then you think, oh, I've got to make it up. That's great. And then you think, oh, crap, I've got to make it up. So, you know, there's that horrible sort of double-edged sword, which is, you know, you've got the freedom to say anything you want to say and equally, oh my God, you've got to say something. What are you going to say? It's just your brain. So that's, you know, it's perhaps more difficult, but it's so much more fun because, you know, thinking about, you know, I'm going to write the afterlife, you know, how on earth is that a job that I have that I get to just write a book that's set in purgatory um that's a ridiculous job so I mean I do think it is it is more fun I can't see myself doing more non-fiction really also I always think the thing with the thing that draws me to writing fiction is I think you can actually be honest it's

that Nora Ephron quote of all memoir is fiction all fiction is memoir because in fiction you can be like this is a pretend person not my dad no it's true and and in you know in jog on there were lots of things i couldn't you know write about you know there were lots of things that i couldn't sort of i had to pull back from or you know i didn't want to hurt x's feelings or y's feelings and yeah you're right there are lots of people in house care family that are based on people I know um and they'll never see it I hope or never recognize it um but yeah so obviously there is yeah it's freeing like that you know you can just kind of do whatever you want I mean to be fair Nora Ephron wrote um Heartburn which is literally like a blow by blow account of her of her husband's affair where she barely conceals the names you know so I mean I think she was writing non-fiction all over the shop yeah that that's maybe a really extreme version yeah she really scorched earth yeah so good um Beth did you have any other bits you want to

sorry I realized we kept you longer than we were supposed to no don't worry I think it was maybe just the sort of true crime question about the sleuth but that you know where we could go which i think people were really interested in let's let's talk about true crime for a second because it is so interesting are you are you both really interested in true crime oh a really complex we've talked about it on the podcast a few times and in private like i have such a i i hate the kind of fuzzy true crime. I hate that we have made women afraid. I hate that we've sort of made, you're profiting off women who in the end are just kind of characters

and they were real women with full lives. But also I do get sucked into a particularly interesting, like it lives inside me. So I am very torn by it, I will say. I was really into true crime. Like I've never been a true crime podcast person but I would get obsessed with like a specific set of murders or like got really weirdly obsessed with Madame McCann at uni and watched every single thing about her so I can get really sucked in

but I'm not as true crime you know some people that is like their lifeblood and they're plugged into every podcast I'm not as much and sometimes can feel conflicted because I think it really depends on how it's handled and um Eliza Clark's most recent book what was that called penance penance was really good about that I thought I was really interesting about the kind of like that feeling um of not knowing when something is kind of like is it funny though and I did I did a podcast called drunk women solving Crime actually which is like a true crime podcast and you're all sort of laughing about these murders and artists you're a bit like oh is this is that okay I don't know yeah yeah I think it's I think you're you both sort of articulate that that feeling of uneasiness

about sort of consuming it in some form as entertainment and also finding it sort of disgusting um and I so i think i was really interested in kind of looking at that because i have such kind of i think you know human beings have always loved crime right you know in the victorian era they had penny dreadfuls you know people went to public hangings you know this is not a new phenomenon that people are interested in violence and murder and you know all of that stuff um but obviously you know the kind of documentary and true crime podcast sort of era is kind of still on the up and up you know people can't get enough of it and then I think there's a new area which is the kind of

TikTok, Instagram, social media era of true crime where people kind of get really parasocially invested in these people and and then I think it blurs a line you're not just viewing it as entertainment you're sort of viewing it as something going on in your life and you're turning up at the crime scene or you're harassing the families and that's the bit that I you know obviously it's always going to end up there if you're you're listening to podcasts about these people and watching all these documentaries that of course there are going to be some people who take it that step further and think they can investigate it um and i've been really disturbed recently at things like um jay slater's disappearance and the kind of comments

and people sort of going out to tenerife and and harassing his family and and spreading conspiracy theories and you think this is this is clearly the kind of end result of of this sort of decade we've had of true crime obsession. And so I do find, I mean, that's the thing I'm interested in. I'm no longer really interested in watching or listening to the true crime stuff, but I am interested in watching the people who do. So that's your character in the book, the sleuth, who takes it upon herself to kind of become this armchair detective who can beat the mainstream media in a very kind of Russell Brandy terminology

and get to the truth beyond kind of the lies that the true kind of bodies are telling us as the lay public, which I think that disillusionment and that detachment between people and governing bodies is also what's driving these people that sit on these gossip websites and think they can find out about any... There was that that was it a woman that fell into the lake yeah that was

people were that was wild when that was going on and so you're right i think i wondering i wonder what where we go from that safeguarding wise and because it is it's what's weird is i guess we're talking about true crimes where it's often things that have happened decades ago or you know long far enough ago that perhaps the families have grieved or it's been a long time whereas this is happening like in real time as the crime is happening and it is a fascinating thing to happen I don't know how we take give people or make people understand that you can't just go out and get involved but it was a great character in the book and it's also just so stressful you're're like, oh my God, please stop. Stop what you're doing.

I know. Yeah, exactly. But also you're right. It's the culmination of mistrust in official figures, you know, in government, in police, in journalists, you know, and the fact that you're not willing to listen to any of those people and that you are happy to just get all your,

you know, information on TikTok or Instagram or Reddit or whatever it is. And that's really terrifying in itself and that's kind of so yeah it's sort of you know even when you know paul j slater's body was found people were saying they've covered this up you know it's not it's not true that's not what happened and you think oh my god you know as a society if we don't have any agreed upon truths you know then that's quite things get quite dicey so yeah she you know my character doesn't she doesn't believe anything you know except kind of what she sees as the truth and that that is not a good place for her to be and almost although you know she um she believes in

herself she's got confidence she does um what i would say as well is i think i started reading and i thought oh okay but perhaps a character to root for here, someone. And then as her followers grow and as her, I'm always on the hunt for the goodie and actually the magic of the novel is there's no real goodie. And as her following grows, she gets deeper in it and you go, oh my God, you're kind of, it's that slippery slope that I think we're all on. And I love books about true crime where I don't have to also kind of stomach, you know, a murdered sex worker or like women as plot devices. I think what I loved about both of your novels is there's the death and there's

the murder and there's all of that intrigue. But it's not kind of, it's female rage versus like female victimhood and i think that is as much as the sleuth is also another like complex irritating imbecilic character you know there's also a lot there's a lot to play with she's also she's alive and she is doing crimes in the world which you know i don't support crimes but they are so much fun to read so much i was gonna say not because not for the podcast but um you should read um if you haven't the five by hallie rubenhold have you read that she um is a historian american historian who wrote this book

called the five which is about the five canonical victims of Jack the Ripper, the five women that are generally agreed to have been his victims. And in this book, she doesn't mention his name once. And she doesn't talk to you. The stories, she tells each of their stories up to the moment they're killed, but she does not explain how they're killed. So the entire stories are just biographical about these five women. And when you read it, you understand that the entire Jack the Ripper, like canon, like canon law has been written by men who are fascinated by him. They, they don't care about the women. They call them prostitutes. They, you know, they imply that they're sort of fallen women, nothing can be done for them. And then you read these stories and they were like whole people with people who loved

them and jobs and prospects and and you it's just such a fascinating work and it's just it for me it was it was such a good correction to the amount of kind of crime law that's out there and I thought all right this is the kind of book that we should be reading about true crime and ripperologists hate her because they think that she, you know, she kind of gave these women voices when, you know, the voices aren't interesting. So it's really, honestly, it's brilliant. And if you can't, it's very long,

but it's also on Audible and iTunes, which is a really nice way of listening to it. That reminds me of the, is it Slays and Bays? You're like the fictional one of the true crime podcasts in the book. Yeah. Because that is also a massive thing, like people thirsting after these literal like serial killers because they're so sexualized because of the way that men, without meaning

to, but it does get given away, they kind of describe them as these heroically, really sexually violent, but in a kind of sexy way. It's like everyone loves American Psycho. And Richard Ramirez and all of those people, but like everyone loves american psycho and and so yeah and richard ramirez and you know all of those people but also that that you think that they're so interesting and powerful and they must have like a a super weird like kooky motive and it's like actually if we knew who jack the ripper was he was probably some local butcher or you know it probably had quite a mundane job and lived quite a mundane life you know this person is not interesting

apart from the fact that he's killed people and you know it's it's very odd that women write to a serial killer in prison that thing i'll never understand what are you gonna do what are you gonna do fix him it's the fact it's the ultimate man to fix the serial yeah yeah yeah yeah oh like women need to stop helping people. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. It's been so nice to talk to you. Thank you. I think also people are going to absolutely love this book.

It's got all of the... Oh, thank you so much. The paciness of how I kill my family. And, but also it's so new, but it's got that same language that you speak in, which is that funny, dark comedic, where you can laugh at things you shouldn't laugh at, but it's still serious. It's great. Thank you so much. That's's really nice of you and i had a really nice time

amazing what way to go is out now in hardback ebook and audiobook so if you haven't gotten yourself a copy you can and should immediately you can and should also follow bella on instagram at mackie underscore bella thank you so much for listening. We'll see you on Friday. Bye.