Five Minutes With Bethan Roberts
Bethan Roberts is the author of five novels including My Policeman, the story of a 1950s policeman, his wife and his male lover, which was made into a film starring Rupert Everett and Harry Styles. She has been a tutor on the Creative Writing Programme for four years. Here she talks about her writing life.
When do you first remember wanting to be a writer? I don’t really remember making that decision. I couldn’t read before I got to school, and my first inkling of the power of fiction actually came from a school’s TV programme called ‘Watch’, which showed short claymation films of fairy tales with subtitles. It was ‘The Fisherman and his Wife’ and I remember suddenly understanding what speech marks were for, and how to use them, which I found very exciting! I think I was six.
Your first novel The Pools was published in 2007 explores how people’s lives unravel following the death of a teenager. It won a Jerwood/Arvon Young Writers’ Award. Can you tell us about the inspiration behind the story and your journey to publication? The novel was inspired by a true story of the murder of a teenage boy during the 1980s in the village next to the town where I grew up. I didn’t know the boy or his family, so I made up all the characters and most of the story. My path to publication began with doing a Creative Writing MA at Chichester University. I was working full time so it was great to be able to study part time, in the evenings. Doing a course helped me have confidence in my work and to get on with writing most of the novel – it gave me readers and deadlines. I was then lucky enough to win a Jerwood/Arvon Young Writer’s Apprenticeship, which meant the novelist Andrew Cowan mentored me through the process of finishing the novel. I got an agent fairly quickly but we had around 15 rejections from publishers – only one, Serpent’s Tail, said yes. But that was enough!
You’ve since written four more books. How has your writing process changed in that time? Not much! I seem to always begin with a person in a place with a problem and grow the story from there. First drafts are handwritten in my notebook. I just plunge in and begin writing scenes, knowing that a lot will have to be cut and everything will be rewritten. I’m not a planner but around a third of the way through I write a plan, just to make myself feel better. Inevitably that changes as I write more scenes. It’s a slow process but it seems to work for me.
Which of your books are you most proud of? I’m proud that I managed to write a novel about Elvis Presley and his mother called Graceland – that seemed such an outlandish and ambitious thing to do when I began. But once I’d started following this extraordinary boy and his mother around Tupelo and Memphis, I just couldn’t seem to stop. And of course I’m very proud of My Policeman and the way it has reached so many readers.
Your fourth novel My Policeman was made into a film. Tell us how that came about. Oh, blimey, where to start? The producer, Robbie Rogers, bought the film option in 2013 and his love for the book was obvious. It meant a lot to him personally as he read it when he was coming out – he was one of the very few professional football players to do so. I also met the screenwriter, Ron Nyswaner, who wrote the script for Philadelphia, early on the process – he came to meet me and I walked him all around Brighton, showing him the locations. At that point I was just grateful that someone was interested enough to buy the option! I hoped, of course, that the film would get made, but I knew this was very unlikely. My agent told me that only 1% of the novels that are optioned actually make it to the screen. So I tried to keep my expectations pretty low. Then, in early 2020, Robbie told me that Harry Styles was interested in playing the part of Tom. I’ve got to be honest, being a middle-aged bookish type I didn’t really appreciate what that meant. But then I googled Harry and I knew the film would get made because of his fame. And I literally ran down the road, laughing.
What influence did you have in the casting and making of the film? I had no official influence at all, but Robbie was kind enough to send me a couple of scripts for my comments.
And what was it like seeing the world that you had created on the big screen? Absolutely surreal, tremendously exciting and rather exposing.
You’ve taught on the Creative Writing Programme for a number of years. How does teaching creative writing impact your own creative process? One of the reasons I love teaching is because it helps me crystallise my own thoughts about writing, and it also (quite frequently!) challenges my conclusions.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given about writing? Follow your passions and don’t try to second-guess the market.
What’s your go-to book about the craft of writing? I love Andrew Cowan’s The Art of Writing Fiction.
You’re marooned on a desert island with the complete works of Shakespeare and a religious text of your choice. What fiction book do you want to have with you? And would you prefer a notebook and pen, or laptop to write with? The book is very difficult. Something slim and beautiful, or large and meaty? At the moment I am just in love with the work of Elizabeth Strout, so I’ll take anything by her. But the writing implement question is easy: pen and paper every time.
What are you working on at the moment? I’ve just finished a novel … but I don’t think I’m supposed to talk about it yet! I’ll just say that it’s a family saga about three generations of mothers and daughters set in the town where I was born, Abingdon, during the last half of the 20th century. And though it’s not about my experiences as such, it’s probably my most personal work.