Fiction Friday | Readers Interview With Elaine Fraser

Welcome to our next readers interview with Elaine Fraser.

Today Elaine Fraser is in the hot seat and answering our questions.

If you were not an author, what would you like to be?

I think I’ll be a writer for the rest of my life, but I’d also like to go back to my teaching roots and develop more creative writing classes for beginner writers.

How do you figure out your characters’ personality?

I get to know my characters over months and years. Before I can write a book, I need to know who I’m writing about. A type of person will come to mind and I play around with names. Once I have the name figured out, I ask them questions. What’s the life issue you’re struggling with? What are your passions in life? Where did your story originate and what is the trajectory it will take? What are your character flaws/strengths and what complications will they cause?

Once I really know my character, I can begin to write.

If you were a butterfly, what colour would you be?

The blue morpho butterfly’s wings are bright blue, edged with black.
The vivid, iridescent blue colouring is stunning and reminds me of a beautiful satin dress I wore to my engagement party.

How do you choose names for characters in books?

They usually come to me as I daydream about the story I want to write. The names could be those of people I know, names of characters in books or movies that have struck me as interesting, or I may discover them after browsing through baby names books.

Sometimes, I pair the meaning of the names with the themes in the books. My Beautiful Lives Series is an example of this.

Mercy, Justice, Joy, Scarlett Love, and Grace were names chosen for their meaning and the thematic concerns of my books.

What did you learn while writing your last book that surprised you?

I’ve just finished writing the fifth book in my Beautiful Lives Series for YA readers. One of the main issues the protagonist deals with is anxiety. Her name is Joy and, while her outward demeanour appears to be joyful, there’s a real disconnect between her projected self and her inner self.

She suffers anxiety as a result of an absent father, stress from exams and study, body image issues, boyfriend issues, and teenage angst.

What surprised me was the empathy I felt for Joy as she went through each conflict and trial. It’s a long time since I was a teenager and almost ten years since I had a teenager in the house, but the memories of being a teenager and dealing with those issues, have stayed with me.

It reminded me of why I write for this age group. I want to send the message that despite the intensity of the emotions and the depth of the hurts that occur in your teens, you can get through. You can find strength in yourself, in faith, in friendship, in family and get through these years. You can have hope.

If someone was just starting out with their first novel, what advice would you give them?

Story is the primary driver of a great novel. Get your story down and work on the pretty writing later.

Spend a lot of time pre-writing. Find out who your characters are. Find out what drives them and how their past impacts their present.

Lisa Cron’s book Story Genius is a great help and will teach you how to frame your story using your character’s origin story. Characterisation, conflicts, and plot development will flow out of this.

Have you ever met a person in real life who is a doppelgänger (lookalike) for a character in your book/s?

I don’t have a doppelgänger as such, but in 2017, I had the opportunity to visit LA and met a few Instagrammer influencers who do volunteer work in Skid Row and in the Watts community in South LA. Scarlett Love, the protagonist in Scarlett Love, Book 4 in the Beautiful Lives Series, is an LA Instagrammer influencer with heart. Scarlett is a mishmash of the young women I met there. Young women who are amazingly privileged and yet give their time and resources to help others.

Which book that you’ve written would you like to see made into a movie?

The Solo Traveller, a women’s fiction novel, would make a good movie. (It hasn’t been published yet.) The storyline has two threads, one in the past and a contemporary one.

Laura is an Australian travel agent who works primarily with solo women travellers. She grew up idolising her grandparent’s marriage and, until she met Greg, had never met anyone who could live up to the legend of Joseph. She wants what her grandparents had, but soon finds that even the most perfect-seeming relationship has stress–especially when she’s attracted to Max, a walking stereotype who belongs on the cover of a North Face catalogue.

She’s at her grandmother’s funeral, and by the end of it, she will decide whether to stay with, or leave, her husband.

Anna, Laura’s grandmother was a British Land Girl in World War Two and had an enviable marriage with her Joseph. In between is another story, one she has never revealed to her family.

From World War Two to the present day, The Solo Traveller takes you on a trip around the world and into the secret struggles of two marriages.

Do you have a pet that keeps you company when you write?

Sadly, we lost our precious golden retriever, Bear earlier this year. He used to sit by my feet in my library and sleep in the patches of sunshine that puddled the carpet.

When visitors arrived, Mr Bear, his famous red blanky in his mouth, would be at the front door, tail wagging, inviting them in with a hug if they wanted.

Once they were settled, he’d leave them alone, until they were leaving, then he’d get up, get his blanky, and farewell them.

What do you like to eat or drink when you’re writing?

I have a never-ending cup of English Breakfast tea on my desk. Every hour or two, I get up and refill my cup to break up my writing time.

Can you tell us a little about your latest book or books and where to find you on the web?

Scarlett Love, book four in the Beautiful Lives Series is due to be out in Febuary 2021. The fifth, Finding Joy will be released soon after.

The books are set in Australia in the final year of high school. Each book focuses on a different protagonist at Coast Hills Grammar and the life issues they’re dealing with.

Here’s the blurb for Scarlett Love:

An LA fashion influencer with a secret mission, a girl who doesn’t speak, and an unlikely friendship.
Scarlett wants an adventure. When she agrees to go to Australia on a secret mission, she has no idea she’ll become the target of an online journalist.

Jaya wants to help Scarlett, but she hasn’t spoken for four years and has her own secrets.

When they join forces to expose a bullying gossip writer, will they find more in common than they ever imagined?

When their secrets threaten to thrust Jaya into the limelight, she is pushed to the edge. If she can’t be heard, then why be here at all?

Can Scarlett save Jaya and complete her mission?

If you enjoy stories with a spiritual edge and characters who wrestle with real-life issues, you’ll love the latest instalment in Elaine Fraser’s Beautiful Lives Series.
Life isn’t a polished essay. It’s a first draft and a pretty messy one at that.

For news about my books or information about where to buy them, head to my website at http://www.elainefraser.co

Or go to Amazon