Nova Weetman on why she wrote
The Secrets We Share
Last
year my middle grade book, The Secrets We
Keep was published. At the time I thought it was a standalone novel, and
didn’t even consider writing a sequel.
It was Kristina Schulz, Children’s
Publisher at UQP, who first suggested it. I was surprised and didn’t at first
imagine how I could continue the story.
In
the first book protagonist Clem Timmins is reeling from the house fire that has
destroyed her world. She has just moved into a flat with her dad and has had to
start a new school. This book is all about Clem keeping secrets, and digging
for the truth.
The
new book starts about six months after the end of the first. Called The Secrets We Share, it begins as Clem
is preparing to start high school with her two best friends. She’s older, but
still feisty and still running to escape all the things she can’t quite deal
with.
Clem
was my way back into the world of the book. She opened the door and sucked me
straight in. She’s a character that I’ve come to care for very much. And once I
started thinking about Clem again, and where she was at, the story for the
sequel started to develop.
The
first draft was rusty and unpolished. I had story fragments but nothing
cohesive. Then I met a teenage boy on a hotel rooftop over summer. He told me
he was a rooftopper and that he had found ways to enter hotels and use their
swimming pools without anyone knowing he wasn’t a guest. He became my new
character, and he helped much of the action start to fall into place.
Clem’s
world is so connected to mine. Perhaps because I wrote the book in first
person, present tense, I always felt more involved in her story, than I did in
my other books. She’s also growing up with my daughter so if I need to
reference someone the same age Clem is, I don’t have to look far.
Now
that the sequel is out in the world, I honestly think I could keep writing Clem
stories forever. I’m not sure why I didn’t realise this at first. Maybe because
writing a sequel feels very foreign, and usually when I finish a book, I don’t
think about it, or the characters any more. But now I’m almost ready to start
jotting down a few ideas about Clem and what she could get up to when she turns
thirteen!
Nova Weetman is the writer of the Film Victoria short films Ripples
and Mr Wasinski’s Song (AWGIE nomination and winner Best Australian
Short at MIFF) and is also a TV writer and storyliner for Neighbours, Pixel
Pinkie, H20, Buzz Bumble, Wild But True and Fanshaw
and Crudnut.
Nova has written two middle-grade books in the Choose Your Own
Ever After series, and three young adult novels, including Everything Is
Changed, which was a 2017 CBCA Notable Book. Her middle grade novel, The
Secrets We Keep, was a 2017 CBCA Notable Book, shortlisted for the Readings
Children’s Prize and shortlisted for the ABIA Awards.