Guest Author Kelli Hawkins

Ask the Author Podcast Transcript

Episode 47, 29th April 2024

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Ready for the best piece of writing advice ever? Jodi Gibson, author of REINVENTING EMILY BROWN shares a tip that will transform your craft.

Intro

In the intro, Jodi Gibson discusses this week’s guest author format and introduces Kelli Hawkins, trad published author of The Miller Women.

Show Notes

• Introducing Kelli Hawkins, author of The Miller Women
• What is your advice on writing a great first line and a compelling first chapter to hook the reader?
• What things do you do to actively build your audience or readership?
• What's your favourite thing about writing or your favourite part of the writing process?

Episode Transcript

This week I have an Australian author of psychological fiction and her name is Kelli Hawkins. Her latest novel, The Miller Women, is out now and I have read it and I loved it. So let's go Without further ado. Let me introduce to you Kelli Hawkins. Kelli Hawkins is an Australian author who writes for both adults and children. She writes across genres, with three novels being psychological thrillers for adults, as well as writing middle grade fiction under the name of Kelli Ann Hawkins. Kelli lives in Newcastle with her two teenagers and when she's not writing, she's planning a holiday or dreaming of her next one and, of course, reading. Kelli's latest novel for adults is a psychological thriller, The Miller Women, which was released in April 2024. And here's the blurb.

When a teenage girl goes missing, Nicola Miller fears for her own daughter, not for Abby's mental health or safety, but that she might have had something to do with it. She worries her daughter is a killer, just like her. Nicola has never told the truth about what happened with Abby's father, but now, as the search for Kara continues, Nicola risks her secret coming to light. And she's not the only one with something to hide Her mother, Joyce, and her daughter also have secrets of their own; a stunning, captivating and yet unnerving exploration of how the sins of the fathers or, in this case, the mothers can echo down the generations.

The Miller Women is out now and, as I said, I have read The Miller Women. Actually, I did listen to the audio book and the narration is fantastic. So if you are a fan of audio books, I highly suggest and recommend the audiobook version. But it's an absolutely gripping novel. It will have you from the first sentence and I have. I just it was hard to put down or hard to stop listening. Really, I was finding more housework and jobs to do around the house so that I could just keep listening and get to the end. So it's a fantastic novel. So if you love psychological thrillers, I definitely recommend this one.

Okay, it's time to chat to Kelli. I have three great questions from you guys to ask her this week, so let's get on and chat with Kelli. Hello, Kelli, and welcome to the podcast. Hi, jodie, thanks for having me. It's great to have you here. Now we are going to get stuck straight into the questions. I have three wonderful questions from listeners to ask you. So question number one:

What is your advice on writing a great first line and a compelling first chapter to hook the reader?

0:04:45 - Kelli Hawkins

Yeah, that's a hard one. It's really important, I think, and honestly I don't know if I can give great advice, except I think maybe trust your gut with this one, because I think you know when you've done something good. But having said that, it can take a while while and I come back to my first line in my first chapter. Quite a lot, um it just I try and write the book in one. You know, like they say, not stop too often, don't go back and go back to the beginning or whatever. But I do often come back to the first page or first line just to see if I can tweak it, because it is really important and and if it's not right, yeah, you're gonna feel it. So for me it's just if I'm not doing, if I haven't done that right, I can.

I keep. I think it niggles at me and I'll keep coming and checking it. So I don't know, you do want to, you want to hook the reader in, and I think everyone knows that and I think everyone knows kind of what they want to do. But it doesn't always come easy. Other times it does, it comes really easy. I think it's luck of the draw and I think if it comes really easy. You know you're really on to something.

0:05:57 - Jodi Gibson

True, and I think what a lot of writers do is, in the first draft, they think they have to nail it. Yeah, I think you know. Know, you're probably working on it more as you look, and then you know how it ends.

0:06:09 - Kelli Hawkins

Yeah, I think sometimes, like I said, you can get lucky and almost the book follows the first line or the first chapter if you're really lucky. But if you're not, then yeah, I think I think you just have to remember to put it aside as much as you can and know that you can. You know you've always got time to fix it yeah, exactly great advice.

0:06:27 - Jodi Gibson

Okay, question number two:

What things do you do to actively build your audience or readership?

0:06:34 - Kelli Hawkins

Probably not as much as I should. Every author's answer, because it's really hard. You're trying to write, you're trying to live life and do a lot of things in your life. I've got day jobs and you know it's yeah, so actively. I probably don't do as much as I should, but I do things like this which I think are great. But I do things like this which I think are great and I do. Instagram is probably the main place where I post about things.

I find you can get bogged down in doing too many different social media accounts and it starts to be a real pain, unless you're a natural at it or unless you have more time on your hands than I do.

So, things like that are good. Writers' festivals are good. There's lots of things you can do and I think the advice that I've been given and the advice that I would give is to do what you feel comfortable doing. Like, don't, if you're not on Twitter or especially TikTok, don't go on there and suddenly start posting things, because it probably won't feel very authentic and people will be able to tell that anyway. So, I think, do what you can.

And, yeah, it is obviously important to build your readership and you want that. Obviously, you need readers and publishers do love it, but also mine and from what I've, a lot of writers aren't at you all the time to do that. It's more important to get the book to be good and to concentrate on that first up, I think, and then worry about readership and that after. And, yeah, like I said, maybe just try and choose things that you feel comfortable doing or that you enjoy doing. A lot of writers aren't extroverts. I know I'm not, um, some are, and it really helps if you are, obviously, but there's always little things you can do and there's things you can do within your comfort zone and I've always found publishers are pretty supportive of that. They don't make you do anything you're not comfortable doing, which is great which, yeah, that's fantastic.

0:08:36 - Jodi Gibson

And I think you've hit the nail on the head, like do something that you're comfortable doing, because then it's authentic, and and, of course, just write the book first and make sure that's good.

0:08:45 - Kelli Hawkins

I think that is the main thing absolutely okay.

0:08:49 - Jodi Gibson

Question number three:

What's your favourite thing about writing or your favourite part of the writing process?

0:08:57 - Kelli Hawkins

yeah, that's a hard one. I like different things we're talking about. I was talking about this with another writer um, not that long ago actually, and I think and it was because she was at the she was at probably my favorite stage, which is the beginning, which is the, the thinking that haven't even written anything yet. Stage is kind of my favorite stage, yeah, and you've got all the ideas and you spend, hopefully, a while. I like to spend a good amount of time just trying to think. You know your head's full of these new characters and what might happen with them. That, to me, is definitely the most fun stage. The most difficult stage is immediately after, really, when you actually have to write the book.

0:09:36 - Jodi Gibson

Have to get it from your head onto the page.

0:09:38 - Kelli Hawkins

Yeah, first drafts for me, oh my goodness, it's like everything sounds terrible. I just have to write it and hope that I'm non-spas, I think. And so probably other than that first stage, I do quite like editing. I don't mind it. A lot of writers hate structural editing and I can't say I love it, because it can be really difficult if you get big structural edits. But it can really make your book a lot better and it's quite I find it quite satisfying to take on other people's ideas that you know your editors or your publishers, and then see how much it helps, see the difference that it can make. So I kind of quite like that stage as well. Copy the copy, edit I'm not a big fan of.

I get, especially if you do three or four if you've got different editors, whatever. Yeah, oh my god, I can't read this book again. Yeah, yeah, that's the worst one by the time I'm.

So I'm just so over it. I don't want to read it and I'm not a big reader of my book, like I don't really. Once I've put it out there, I don't want to go back to it. It's like I'm not really one of those authors who would want to read it or listen to the audiobook or anything it's like. So probably the beginning is the most fun part, because that's where you really that's the part for me that I love about writing is the idea and the um and and the what could happen, and you know that anything could happen, so it's kind of the fun part.

0:11:02 - Jodi Gibson

Yeah, the imagining, yeah absolutely yeah, the imagining. Yeah, okay, yeah, I'm going to be really cheeky here. We only normally do three questions, but I'm going to throw a fourth one at you and this is for myself, really, because I always love to hear particularly authors within the crime or psychological thriller genre. I'd love to know whether you're a plotter or a pantser. So do you plot scenes out? Do you plot it from where to go, or do you just the first draft and see what happens?

0:11:32 - Kelli Hawkins

I'm more of a plotter than I used to be. I think Interesting when I first wrote my first book. Yeah, I just wrote it and it was a lot harder because you make more mistakes as more things to fix.

So I do a bit of both. I've plotted out, I think until now I've been on contract, so now I'm not. But when you're on contract I guess your editor and the publisher wants to see an outline, so you do have to come up with something. So I'm plotting in that way, but there's definitely room for change within that. Um, because I think too much plotting, I don't know. I think as you write things change. For me they do. It's kind of an organic thing where you don't always it doesn't always go the way you think, or the characters might change a bit as you write them and you think, oh, they're more like this than I thought they'd be, so that changes the plot yeah, they come to life, don't they?

Yeah, and they take a bit of a life of their own on in a way, because, yeah, until I start writing them, and that can change the plot because you don't your characters kind of help form the plot, so there's always a I kind of always know where I'm going as a beginning, there's an an end and there's certain characters. But a lot of stuff will change. But I do try and plot more because it just saves you a lot of time later for big edits if you go down three-quarters of the way and then you realise you've really, you know, written yourself into a hole. Yeah, it's not fun. It's not fun to get out of the hole, is it? No? No, so I'm a yeah, I'd say I'm in the middle. I'll hedge my bets and say yeah.

0:13:06 - Jodi Gibson

I think that's a good place to be, because I think you can still use your imagination and follow where the characters take you, but you've got that structure to work with as well.

0:13:14 - Kelli Hawkins

I do kind of know what will happen in the end, even if it's not exact. Yeah, it's just yeah something. How do you get?

0:13:21 - Jodi Gibson

there yeah.

0:13:26 - Kelli Hawkins

Sometimes, yeah, you, you know, I don't know how someone will be killed or whatever, or how? Yeah, I don't know you don't always know some big things, yeah fantastic, yeah brilliant.

0:13:33 - Jodi Gibson

Okay, thank you so much, Kelli. It's been a pleasure having you on the podcast and I wish you all the best with The Miller Women. I loved it, so I'm sure that everyone else will. It's just a fantastic book, so and thank you for coming.

0:13:46 - Kelli Hawkins

Thanks for having me on.