In Episode 128 of So you want to be a writer: Discover if you can turn your short story into a novel and how to write when life is nuts. Tips for setting yourself up as a full-time writer. Your chance to win a graphic novel pack. Meet Katherine Johnson, author of The Better Son. Learn the number one tip for building your author platform, and much more.
Yesterday, I was followed by Allison Tait on Instagram. It was awesome! Valerie and Allison have the best podcast in the world. I love listening to them and have started listening from the beginning again. I wish they did a podcast every day. Banoffee pie and procrastipup are my two new favorite words. I started listening because I want to write a book and decided research would be the way to start. I am so glad I found these two. What a wealth of information on all aspects of writing and publishing. Keep up the fantastic work! Hugs from Boone, North Carolina! Rick
Katherine Johnson was born in Queensland and grew up alongside the fig-tree lined Brisbane River. At university, she combined her two loves ― writing and biology ― graduating with both Arts and Science degrees, with honours in marine biology.
Katherine then moved to Tasmania where, after more than a decade working as a science journalist for the CSIRO and other organisations, she began writing fiction: stories of love, loss and resilience set against wild landscapes.
Her first novel, Pescador’s Wake is set on the Southern Ocean, in South America and Tasmania.
Valerie Katherine, thank you so much for joining us today.
Katherine
Oh, it's lovely to be here, Valerie. Thank you for your interest.
Valerie I'm really excited about your new book, I have a thing for Tasmania as well. So, very, very keen to see what it's all about.
But, tell readers and listeners who haven't read the book yet what is it about?
Katherine
Tasmania is an amazing place. And, that's really what inspired the book to start with, the landscape of the cave country up in Northern Tasmania, around the area of Mole Creek. So, it's ancient — it's called Cast Country, this limestone country. In fact, the stone was formed between 400 and 500 million years ago, so it's just — it's just this ancient, ancient country and incredible landscape where you have sort of a beautiful green, thin film of pasture going across the top and underneath there are huge cabins and, in fact, 300 caves in the area.
When I first saw it just completely blew me away and inspired and made me think about this other world going on underneath dairy farms. Tasmania has lots of different incredible landscapes, and this is just one of them and one that I think, in terms of writing and in terms of literature, is just evocative for so many reasons.
Valerie Yes, and so this is about two brothers, isn't that right?
Katherine
That's right. That's right. And, so apart from being inspired by the landscape there's actually — there is a true story of two little boys up there who discover a cave called Marakoopa Cave, which is open to tourists now. But, the story goes they discover the cave and they've played around in it for a couple of years before they ever told anybody. And, so the combination of two little boys discovering this enormous underground world and keeping it a secret and the absolute incredible landscape that it is. That's where… as soon as I saw it and heard that story I hopped back in the car and thought, “There's a book that has to be written about this.”
Valerie Right, so it's inspired by a true story of two young brothers who discover this cave, but yours is a work of fiction, is that right?
Katherine
It's completely fiction. So, the only truth is that two little boys did find the cave up there, James and Harry Byard their names were. And, the family I think ended up having it as a tourist cave. But, this story is inspired by the idea that there were two boys finding a cave, but it's completely fiction.
Valerie And the premise of your book is that they discover this cave and one of them goes missing.
Katherine
That's right. So, when…
Valerie Duhn…duhn… duhn… already intrigued.
Katherine
I just thought what would make them keep a cave a secret? Why would they keep it a secret? And, what would happen if one of them didn't come out, and what would the other one do? Is it possible, if they were keeping it a secret, would they be afraid of something? Would they be afraid of their parents or what would motivate them to keep it a secret in the first place? And if something terrible happened what would the other one do, and what would be the effect of that on him and his family and the community and so forth?
Valerie And did all of these questions swirl around in your brain as you were in the car driving away? Or did it form over time?
Katherine
It certainly started right that moment. I actually get this… I really get this visceral response to an idea. I literally get goosebumps on my arms and I think, “I have to explore this more,” and the ideas sort of start coming. I really… I knew that this was going to be something that I'd be obsessed with for quite a while, which I have been.
So, it's been a six-year project.
Valerie Six years, seriously?
Katherine
It has — it has!
Valerie Really? Goodness.
Katherine
It has. Not just that, I mean I've been doing other work in that time.
Valerie Sure.
Katherine
But, it has… from the moment of the idea to now it's six years.
Valerie Wow. So, this is your second novel and your first novel was in 2009, Pescador's Wake.
Katherine
That's right.
Valerie I mean how soon after you wrote that novel did you think, “OK, I'm ready for the next one?” Was it actually during while you were writing the first manuscript? And did this idea form? What was the timeline?
Katherine
They do tend to overlap, so in fact there was another one in between, which is sort of on the back burner at the moment, which I'm sure will be resurrected at some point. It just wasn't quite the right second book.
So, this one came about after Pescador's, but it did overlap with the other one. And, then it's sort of overlapping with the next one as well, so there does tend to be a period of overlap, when one is being finished off and you have the idea for the next one. And, perhaps even as with this last one I've been editing it and trying to write the next one at the same time, which is… it's nice when there was a period where one is finished and you just have the one on your mind. I think that's…
Valerie Yes.
Katherine
That's much more comfortable.
Valerie So, you're also a science writer. What kind of work do you do with that?
Katherine
So, that's my training, yes, so I've got an honor's degree in science and a degree in journalism as well. So, I trained as a science writer and then I worked for university and for CSIRO for a long time, and then freelance writing. So, it's really mostly biological sciences. So, marine science… but I did some work for a forestry research organization as well, freelance. So, mostly biological science is my interest with the science writing.
Valerie When you were younger did you think, “I want to grow up and be a science writer…”? Was that the goal or were you interested in science and then you discovered writing later?
Katherine
I've always loved writing.
Valerie Right.
Katherine
So, as a kid I used to try and… I'd use writing as a bit of a creative release, I think. My mom is a visual artist, and writing seemed to be my way of being creative, but I also loved biology and nature. In fact when I finished school and was trying to decide what to do, I couldn't quite decide between them. So, I went and spoke to the dean of both faculties and they said, “Why don't you combine them?” Which is what I did.
Valerie Wow.
Katherine
And that was great, it was a great thing to do.
Valerie When did the interest in fiction writing kick in?
Katherine
So, it was when I was working at CSIRO. So, I had written factual information about deep sea fishing and fisheries science and overfishing and so on. And I knew that there was a human story behind that story as well. So, that's where the idea for Pescador's Wake came from.
So, I love the non-fiction writing. But, there's something very liberating about writing fiction that draws me in as well. So, that's what I'm devoting myself to at the moment, just the freedom of writing fictional stories. But, I do always manage to weave in a bit of science, because I think it's really interesting.
Valerie You talk about the freedom of writing fiction, what is that like when you're so used to, obviously, being a science journalist you have to get your facts right and you have to be really clear and concise and accurate in the way you express whatever it is that you're writing about.
So, after so many years of that kind of rigour, what did it feel like that you could literally make anything up?
Katherine
It's true, but I guess the stories that I've written so far do have — I mean certainly the fishery is one, had a lot of research in it. And, I had it checked by somebody who was an expert in the field. And the cave one too.
My husband and I actually joined a caving group to do the research for the story.
Valerie Really?!
Katherine
We did. And, we went underground and really had, you know, had the experience. The experience emotionally of being underground and turning off the lights and seeing what you can hear and what you can see, of course, which is nothing. And, but also getting them to check the facts and making sure that the… because the main character in the story is an entomologist. So, he is interested in cave fauna.
So, that, you know, there's a research component as well in the fiction that I write. But, it's very liberating to be able to talk about characters and their feelings and their gut response to things and their loves and their losses and all of that sort of stuff.
Valerie So are you now concentrating on fiction full time or are you combining both?
Katherine
At the moment I'm totally doing just fiction. I'm, in fact, doing a PhD at the University of Tasmania for my next book. So, completely fiction-oriented. But, I will pick up science writing again in the future in some capacity I'm sure. But, at the moment it's fiction.
Valerie So, tell us when you were formulating this story, obviously, you had that reaction, you got goosebumps, you thought that, “This is it,” or, “There's going to be something in this…” what do you then do to actually map out the story? Do you map it out? Or do you just let it flow and see what happens? Or did you have to know happened before you could get there?
Katherine
I'm definitely a little bit more of a follow your nose kind of writer, which I know…
Valerie Really?
Katherine
I am. And, I know that other people aren't. And, in fact, I've heard it described as you're either a plotter or a pantser.
Valerie Yes.
Katherine
And, ‘pantser' being by the seat of your pants. And I do a bit of both. And I find that I need to have a general idea of the shape of the story — what I want to feel will happen, how it will resolve and the general shape of it and the sort of character that you're dealing with and so forth. But, I really find it an incredible process in that the writing, just the process of writing seems to just spark off so many ideas and so many — it's like putting a puzzle together. It only seems to be when you start to put those pieces in place do you see the connections and do other ideas spark.
I think if I completely plotted it out in great deal to start with I'd miss all sorts of opportunities that would arise along the way.
But, having said that the way that I do it sometimes can present problems in that you can find that you have gone down a road that perhaps doesn't work out as you'd hoped and you have to backtrack or you have to really — this book has had a lot of reworking. In fact, it started off in first person and it's turned to third person, which is quite a bit change when you've written the whole book.
Valerie Yeah, the entire book.
Katherine
It really is. And, even the character that I had, had quite a makeover after I had initial lots of people read the book and respond to him.
So, I think the process of writing as you go… I enjoy it because it's an adventure for the writer as well. You don't know where it's going to end up and you therefore are also excited about where the journey is going to take you. So, I think that's a really nice part of it.
There's a downside, I think, and the downside is just that you might end up reworking more…
Valerie An entire book.
Katherine
… at the end. Yeah.
Valerie Take me back to before Pescador's Wake. Actually, just give us a couple sentence summary on the premise of that book first.
Katherine
So that one is set on the Southern Ocean, and it's also set in South American in Uruguay and in Tasmania, and it's about a deep sea fishery, the Patagonia toothfish fishery. At that time there was a huge illegal fishery operating, because people in their own countries were having to go further afield to catch fish. So, an Australian patrol vessel pursues an Uruguayan vessel and it's the story of the men onboard both boats and their families back onshore.
Valerie Before that you were doing science journalism and something inspired you to write this story. What did you then do on a practical level to make that happen? Because especially when you're so used to writing in such a structured way, did you just start freewriting? Did you do exercises? Did you just find it came really naturally to you? How did it happen?
Katherine
So, I really literally started chapter one.
Valerie That's very linear.
Katherine
And I can't recall now whether chapter one remained chapter one or not, but I do… I did start with the character and with a beginning and launched into it that way. It's a while ago now, actually, that book. So, I'm having to wrack my brain a little bit to remember the details of it. But, I had done a lot of research already. So, it wasn't as if I was going in cold, although I do find sometimes with the research — I think you need to do enough research to launch you off. And I do sometimes then find that you'll discover gaps along the way. And sometimes I will literally just leave a gap and flag it to myself that I have to come back and fill that in, rather than lose the momentum of the writing process driving you forward.
But, I had done the research and I literally started. I did just start. I did join… I did do a novel writing course that the Tasmania Writers' Centre ran. But, that was for my next manuscript, actually… just because I felt like it would be good to hone the craft and to learn more about the… in journalism you learn a particular way of writing and I had done feature writing, which is more creative by its nature.
But, I was… I felt that perhaps I was missing something by not doing some kind of course and that was a structured one year course. And, it provided a workshop environment, so we would critique each other's work. So, that was quite a valuable experience as well.
Valerie So there's been much discussion these days about Tasmania Noir.
Katherine
Right.
Valerie Especially following The Kettering Incident, which was, of course, the mini-series that was recently on television set entirely in Tasmania and really plays a lot on the sense of place and… it drew on quite a bleak landscape and a lot of, you know, hidden mysteries kind of thing.
Is that something that you have noticed? Or something that you are drawn to?
Katherine
I suppose that does exist, and the way that the cave story has evolved, and just the landscape that it's come out of lends itself to that, I think. Mole Creek, the area where these caves are has a backdrop of the great Western Tiers, which are these amazing cathedral-like rocks, and that whole alpine landscape. When you get up onto the ridges and the plateaus and so forth, it's quite a hard landscape in that it's battered and the trees are small and the Alpine vegetation is short and sort of weathered, and it's cold and so forth.
I think there's a harshness there, that lends itself to that. And, I suppose the fact that I was inspired by caves — caves clearly are dark landscapes.
Valerie Yes.
Katherine
And seem to evoke ideas of underworlds and secrets and hidden stories and a dark side to an otherwise very bright green dairy landscape, which is a lovely landscape. My husband had family actually from that area and I'm a little concerned that I might be portraying it as a darker place than it really is.
Valerie So when you are writing, in the throes of writing and you're really getting stuck into the story, what's your typical day like? Do you try and achieve a certain number of words. Or, do you have a set routine you follow? Tell us about your writing process really, your writing day.
Katherine
So, I do write every day, not so much on weekends, although I'll often squeeze in a little bit here and there. But, typically — I do have children, they're now both school-aged. So, my days tend to be once they're at school I sit down and I write like a maniac until it's time to launch into taking them off to whatever activities they're involved in and so forth afterwards.
Valerie Right.
Katherine
But, the day really is — I often reread the chapter that I wrote the previous day, or when I was last working on that chapter, if I'm working — let's say I'm working on chapter four, I'll read chapter three, even if I'm just revising chapter four rather than writing chapter four and just get myself back in the flow of the story.
But, I also discovered that I'm probably a bit of a weaver when it comes to writing, so I do back and forth, back and forth a bit to pick up, because if I'm following my nose I'll have an idea that will — it might actually impact on something further along in the store or back earlier in the story. And so I tend to have to go back and rework a little bit before I can go forward again.
Valerie So you do that as you go along?
Katherine
I do tend to do that as I go along.
Valerie And so do you have certain perimeters like, “I'm going to do this for four hours…”? Or certain targets, like, “I'm going to achieve 1,000 words…” or 2,000 words or something like that?
Katherine
I do keep an eye on the word count. I do like to sort of think, “I wonder if I can get to 87,000 today, rather than 86,000…” but, that's not my primary goal. It's normally to finish a thought process really. So, often it's to the end of a chapter, it's to have some kind of resolution in my thinking so that whatever I've been carrying in my head for that particular thought process, I need to get to the end of that before I can leave it.
So, it's more about that than it is about a word count, for me, because I don't want to lose that thought, really, or the elements of that thought that I've had in that day.
Valerie Why do you think it took six years?
Katherine
I do wonder too with this one, because the one that I'm writing next I think won't be like that. And, I'm hoping that others won't be as well. A friend of mine said, “If this is the birth… you've had the 24 hour labour, plus the this and the that…” it's had so many… it's been a bit of a protracted birth, in a way.
Valerie Yeah.
Katherine
And I think it's just that I started off… the book started off with a character who was deeply flawed really from his experience as a child. It used to be called Kubla, The Story, and it's now called The Better Son, because it's about the dynamic between the brothers and their relationship with their father, in particular actually, and the competition between them, because the one is favoured by the father, really, is what happens.
And the boy, the surviving boy revisits the cave as an adult and he's such a flawed character from what has happened when he was a child that when I first wrote this book he was understandably flawed, but it made it a little bit difficult, I think, to sympathize with him, because he was — you just didn't care about him as much as you might because of all of his flaws. He was just a little bit too far down that line.
So… I needed to make a character… change his character to one that you would really care about and show why he is the way he is.
And that meant not just changing his character, and in fact that's why I changed it from first to third person, because it needed to be… when it was first person and he was like that, you were too… he was a little bit painful.
Valerie Yes.
Katherine
And also because the story used to start off with him as an adult and then going back and working his way through it all. You didn't really have a sense of why he had become the way he did. So, I had to not just change him, but I had to restructure.
Valerie Wow.
Katherine
So rather than have a story where he goes back as an adult and goes through the cave, as he does have lots of flashbacks to his past, it became a story where I told the past, a more linear story I guess. I told the past in part one and I told the present in part two. And, that had lots of advantages in that it quickened the pace of his journey through the cave as an adult and it allowed you, I think, a better insight into their world as children. And it allowed you to see why he becomes the character that he is.
So, yes, it worked — it just required a lot of thinking and a lot of rethinking to get it right. And, yes…
Valerie Wow. What's next for you? What are you working on now? Is it also set in Tasmania?
Katherine
No, it's not, actually. No, it's not. It's Australian, but also it's set overseas. But, it's a little too early to talk about really because it's in that formation process. But, yes, I'd like to talk about that down the track, but it's still… as this one has, I'm sure it will evolve a lot from where it is. If I tell you what it's about now in six months' time it will be a little different.
Valerie On a practical level can you share with us if you use any particular apps or tools with your writing or do you use just plain old Word?
Katherine
I use Word. I use Word, although for the one I'm doing for my PhD it's heavily research-focused as well, and more so in fact than the others have been. And so I'm using EndNote, and that's particularly because I'm doing it as a PhD and I have to have a thesis that goes along with it. So, my research has to be very rigorous.
But, having said that, it's a really useful way of keeping a library of your sources.
Valerie Yep.
Katherine
And, you know, even if you just use it for that purpose and you can put research notes into it and so forth, it's a really valuable way to track your sources and I would use it again. So, I think that's a fantastic thing. Then I use — I'm sure lots of people do, I put comments to myself in the document all over the place to come back and fill something in or research something more deeply.
Valerie Yes. What's your advice for aspiring writers who hope to be in a position where you are one day and they've got this burning story that is giving them goosebumps, but they hear stories that it can be hard to get published or they're not sure how to take their story to the end. What's your advice to them?
Katherine
I think it is a really hard game. Even though you have one book published doesn't mean that the second one is guaranteed at being published, or the third one.
I think you have to love doing it. And, you have to be driven by — in fact I don't know what drives the process, really. I think there seems to be — I feel a need to do it. And I really enjoy doing it, most of the time I really enjoy doing it. Not that there aren't frustrations, there are certainly frustrations and there are things that… there are periods of time too where it's very… you know, it's quite an intense thing. But, I think it's — you have to really enjoy the process.
And I think you just have to be really, really — you have to believe in yourself. And you have to probably find another writer who you can share work with, somebody's whose opinion you respect and that you can give each other feedback and support, because I think… in fact both of these books I was very fortunate to win Varuna Manuscript Development Awards for, HarperCollins Awards, in fact. So, the first book is a HarperCollins book. The second one is actually a Ventura book.
But, those awards enabled me to work with an editor and also there were four other writers, so we all stayed in-house at Varuna for ten days. And that sort of community of writers and taking yourself seriously as a writer, and feeling like you are being taken seriously as a writer, was so valuable. And, I've kept in touch with people from that, one person in particular. And we swap work and it's just… it's just a great way of — because there are times when you certainly need to buoy each other up and keep going.
So, I think being really tenacious and never ever giving up, if that's what you want to be doing is part of the process. And I think it's part of the process for so many writers. And it's just… I think it's just the way it is, unless you're incredibly lucky.
Valerie What was the most challenging thing about this book, writing this book obviously?
Katherine
Probably the fact that it did take quite a long time. I think what's challenging — so, for me, the feedback that I had in terms of perhaps the character needed to be a more sympathetic character. When you first hear that feedback you are a little confronted, I think, because of what it means and what you have to change. Or perhaps, “Should this be third person or first person?” Trying to work out what your instincts are telling you is right, because that's important too. You don't want to write by committee and find yourself chopping and changing all over the place and write for no one in the end, really. It needs to ring true to you, if you're being given feedback by somebody, you need to feel that sits well with you, maybe sit with it for a little while and see whether or not that's what you think would make a better book.
And I think the best thing to do, actually, is to sit it aside for a while and come back, because it's… you really get too close to see it with fresh eyes if you don't take a break from it from time to time.
Valerie What was the most rewarding thing about the process?
Katherine
I haven't actually thought about an answer for that question. I think it's…
Valerie You can't even say that you're holding it in your hands, because you haven't held it in your hands, have you?
Katherine
To be honest I'm nervous about seeing it, because you become so familiar with every sentence in the book. And the idea of opening it and — I mean it will be wonderful to have it in my hand and to be able to see — I suppose that's probably the most rewarding thing.
In fact, what's really rewarding — I've had a couple of early — lots of feedback on the book, which has been lovely and people have enjoyed reading it. And that actually is the most rewarding part, because that's why you're doing it, because you've got a story that you want to share and then suddenly these characters that you've invented become real to somebody else and suddenly you're having a conversation, perhaps, about it, or somebody else is telling you their impression of Kip in this case. Then they become real, and actually that is the most rewarding thing. I remember that from the first book as well. Suddenly talking about these characters as if they're real, they come alive and there's something really magical about that as a writer, and very rewarding.
Valerie Wonderful. And on that note, I can't wait to read it as well. Thank you so much for spending the time chatting to us today.
Katherine
Oh, it's my pleasure. It's lovely to be able to be at this point and talking about the book. So thanks, Valerie.
In Episode 128 of So you want to be a writer: Discover if you can turn your short story into a novel and how to write when life is nuts. Tips for setting yourself up as a full-time writer. Your chance to win a graphic novel pack. Meet Katherine Johnson, author of The Better Son. Learn the number one tip for building your author platform, and much more.
Katherine Johnson was born in Queensland and grew up alongside the fig-tree lined Brisbane River. At university, she combined her two loves ― writing and biology ― graduating with both Arts and Science degrees, with honours in marine biology.
