Thanks for being interviewed to celebrate the launch of the monthly A Thousand Words newsletter Lili! And congratulations on the upcoming release of “A Pocketful of Eyes”. I couldn’t put it down, it sent me right back to the days that I knocked on walls and dreamt of being a girl detective!
So on that note did you, like your character Bee, dream of being a girl detective when you were younger and if so which one?
I was a big Trixie Belden fan. I read Nancy Drew, but never really got on board. Trixie was exactly how I liked my girl-characters in books – sassy and clever and brave but also a bit flawed and impatient. I tried to find a few local mysteries to solve, but the Mystery of Where Mum Left Her Keys just never really hooked me in.
Bee’s fascination with being a girl detective started when she was much younger, and a lot of mystery books are aimed at a fairly young audience yet I think that secondary students would feel totally at home with a copy of this in hand. Was the age of your readers or characters something that stood out to you when you were writing?
It’s interesting that there’s plenty of mystery books for those middle-grade readers, and a ridiculous amount of crime for adults (and on TV, too), but virtually nothing for teenagers. That was kind of what started the whole process for me. So it’s definitely a book for teenagers – teens are just more interesting and intense than any other age group (and they have a tendency to do entertainingly inappropriate things, like make out with each other on the back of a stuffed tiger).
There are so many misdirections and clues that are dangled tantalisingly out of reach for the reader until they all come together at the end of the book. How did you keep track of everything?
Was it a different process to write a mystery novel than some of your earlier books?
I write in Scrivener, which is a word processor designed for authors. That was a massive help in keeping everything organised. But I did fall into the initial trap of setting up all these interesting clues at the beginning of the book, and having no idea how some of them were going to pay off. I regretted that later on. I’ve always been a planner, but writing a mystery novel requires a much more focussed kind of planning. There’re lots of threads you have to keep track of, and if you drop one, you’re in trouble.
Although the situation that your characters find themselves in is very different in this book to say, “Pink”, it is still a very character driven novel. Each of the characters have such strong personality traits and quirks. Toby, the love interest, is particularly quirky with his fascination and knowledge of animal mating habits.
How did Toby come about, and how did you research him?
When I first started to think about the book, Toby was the main character. But it was Bee’s story in the end, and I wanted to let her tell it. But I do love Toby. The animal mating thing came about because my dad loaned me a book about snails, where I learnt that Patricia Highsmith used to carry snails in her bra on international flights. Things just kind of naturally developed from there. The internet is a wonderful research tool.
The crime takes place in the Museum of Natural history, and Toby and Bee meet while working in the taxidermy department. Why did you choose this particular setting? Did you spend a lot of time at the museum to get a feel for it?
I have a friend who works at Melbourne Museum, and she’s always full of interesting stories. It seemed like the perfect place for a mystery novel. I spent a day (with the real work experience kids) behind the scenes at the Museum, and met the Conservators and Preparators and heard all their stories (many of which I appropriated for the book).
Did you have to stuff any animals?
No, but I did meet the very famous Sam the Koala, who was… in the process of being prepared for display (ie. Inside-out and covered in salt).
Will we see Bee again?
I’ve got no plans for another Bee book at the moment, but you never know! She was heaps of fun to write, and I can’t possibly imagine that she’s going to hang up her magnifying glass just because she’s going into Year 12…
Read more about Lili and what she’s working on now over at her blog.
