Patrice Lawrence was born in Brighton, brought up in an Italian-Trinidadian family in mid-Sussex and lives in East London with her daughter, partner and Stormageddon, the tabby. Patrice's debut YA [Young Adult] novel, Orangeboy, was shortlisted for the Costa Children’s Award in 2016 and won Waterstone's Children's Book Prize for Older Fiction and The Bookseller YA Book Prize (both 2017). Indigo Donut, Patrice's second novel, also met with great reviews, and was shortlisted for the YA Book Prize in 2018.
Image credit: Sheila Averbuch
Where does the seed of a story come from? It comes from random places, actually. I hear lots of conversations, I spend a lot of time thinking What if? With Orangeboy, it was an accident. I'd gone on a writing course and
I was going to write something completely different: it was a crime-writing course. I had no anticipation that I'd be writing about a young man of sixteen – it did not cross my mind whatsoever. And on this particular course, the prompt that I pulled out of the hat was: 'He woke up dreaming of yellow'. All I could think of was those tokens that you get in fairgrounds. But also mustard, because I'd taken my daughter to Hyde Park Winter Wonderland and everything was so expensive, so at one point we got a hot dog and shared it between the two of us, so I thought about mustard. Also, in London at that time, there were lots of young people involved in knife incidents, and I've always wondered what would make a really lovely young person change, and pick up a knife. Whether to protect himself or, if he had it, would he hurt someone? So, lots of things came together. When I got the prompt, it was utter free writing. I had no idea where it'd come from. I just wrote that scene in the fairground, like there's this girl with a hot dog, and I carried on free writing (because I'd paid for my Arvon course!), and suddenly had this brother called Andre... and that was it really.
In your writing so far, what are you most proud of? I'm proud to have actually finished writing books (laughs), because it is slightly hard to keep going. This will sound a bit weird, but with Indigo Donut, I had to write a teenage sex scene: I'm really proud of that! (laughs) That book was quite hard because it's sort of, but not quite a 'romance' – and I'm the most unromantic person in the world – and a lot of that stuff was a real challenge to me. So I'm really proud I finished that one, and it's come out well.
Both books have been read on Audible by Ben Bailey Smith [aka 'Doc Brown'], and for Indigo Donut, listening to some of it, I thought Bloody hell, I wrote that? (laughs)... and what I really liked was the character Austin, and he is made for Ben Bailey Smith. And some of the dialogue is just quite funny. At the time you're writing, you think it's alright, but then when you hear a comedian say those lines, you think I'm really proud of that!
After the huge success of your first novel [Orangeboy], did you get
second-book wobbles at all? I was terrified. I was utterly terrified, yes. Luckily I'd started Indigo Donut before Orangeboy was submitted, so I had a paragraph of it, and so we submitted a paragraph along with Orangeboy, so once Orangeboy was bought, then I thought I have to write this, and I have to commit to it. So I wasn't fishing around for ideas: it was there, and I had to do it. But I was so terrified.
I came back from Hay Festival after I got the YA Book Prize (2017), and the next day, just to get my head in gear – I'd taken it off work – and I was standing in my allotment in Tottenham contemplating my courgette plants, but even then I was having a phone call with my editor about Indigo Donut and all my wobbles and the things I didn't think were working... And that was about the first of June, and it was supposed to be at the printers (laughs) at that point, because it was being published by the third of July. So yes, I had utter wobbles with it, I really did.
As soon as I heard the title 'Indigo Donut', I thought I've got to read that.
Where did that come from? The title came first, actually. It was a brain dump. I've no idea why those two words came together. I wanted a girl called 'Indigo', and I worked out she'd have six brothers and sisters and I'd use the colours of the rainbow. Also many years ago I was employed by an organisation that worked with families involved in child protection and I remember thinking about how families name children, and how families separate, and how hard it is to come together, and find out who you are. 'Donut' – who knows? (laughs)... and it took a while to work out what I meant by it. I knew it was an emptiness. I was probably eating a doughnut at the time, and thought Ooh, this is metaphorical (laughs).
What drives you to write? I think it is very much making sense of my world. I've always grown up in very unusual circumstances. From four months to four years of age, I was privately fostered. My mum was the second youngest of twelve or thirteen and she had to come from Trinidad. Well, she didn't have to come, but Trinidad was too small for her (laughs)... so she came and trained to be a psychiatric nurse. My father, from Guyana, also came to train as a psychiatric nurse. They met, still young, baby on the way, which in the mid-sixties, you can imagine – baby, unmarried, black parents – and they split up before I was born.
So my mum had choices: she could have had an illegal abortion; she could've sent me to one of the myriad aunties from Trinidad to be looked after; I could've been adopted; or somebody else could look after me while she carried on training. And, that's what happened. So I was four, and was brought up in a white working class family in Whitehawk in Brighton: I was really loved, taught how to read, joined Whitehawk Library when I was really young. When I was about four, my foster-mum Auntie Phyllis said I had to go back and live with my mum because I was getting too attached to that family, and I needed to start school. By that time, my mum had met my step-dad Angelo and we eventually moved into a cul-de-sac in Haywards Heath. Not only were we the only multi-ethnic family, but my mum and Angelo weren't married. I had no words to describe that relationship because everyone else I knew was married. I once wrote that my mum slept with the housekeeper! I'm surprised social services didn't come. When you're little, you can't really make sense of these adult things... so I think that's the sort of thing I used to write. Also, never seeing yourself in books, because a lot of the books that I ended up reading were kind of stuck in Edwardian times: Mary Poppins, the Blytons and the Nesbits, and the Ransomes, and Wind in the Willows (which I love).
Somebody described being a writer as having twenty browser tabs open in your head at the same time, and the only way you can close them down sometimes is by writing things, so you're like a constant What if? What if?...
So I think writing helps me make sense, and keeps me sane.
How does a good day of writing look on the page? Because I've worked full time, and I've got my allotment, I'm not that disciplined, which I need to change! It depends, but it hasn't been a routine. For the new book, I did try and get up early and do about a thousand words a day, and that worked for about five days (laughs)... but a good day is when I problem solve. How do I get that character from here to there? How do I develop that aspect of that character? And I do actually do spider-grams, and I colour-code it, and I do a brain dump, even of the most improbable things that could happen... and when I think Aaahh!, that's it.
It was interesting with Orangeboy because I had no plan, and didn't expect to write it, and it took a while to join the dots. It seemed obvious that Andre would be involved, but I didn't see that at the time, and a while to put all the elements I've got together. So those moments when you give that credible plot point, or to get that character to where you need them, that's a really successful day. It makes it quite organic, when it happens, because you're not forcing it.
What about plotting? I do some basics. I do quite often write my last scene early on, so I know where my characters are going, and I know where they end up. Orangeboy was completely unexpected, but I was more organised for Indigo Donut. I knew there were certain scenes that I did want in certain places. It got reviewed on Resonance Radio and they described it as a 'love song to London'. So I wanted a scene in Covent Garden, and a scene in Camden, and I wanted a scene in the Horniman Museum in southeast London. I did not know what I wanted in the Horniman, so on a really hot summer's day, I dragged my poor daughter around – and then we saw this mask... and we looked at each other! So a lot of the stuff that's in that scene is what happened to me and Josephine at the Horniman on that day. But I knew I wanted a climactic scene there. And I did know I wanted a sex scene. And I did want a scene involving music. And I did want a lot of tenderness in it as well. So I wanted to try some basic plotting: so by the end of act one... Where do I want to be? What's the point of conflict here? What would be the turnaround point? What sort of resolution will there be? And it kind of changed: the thing that Indigo discovers came relatively late. It's that process of how do I get to that bit? Even if it's relatively late... I think it's always there, you just have to find it.
If you're writing your first draft, do you have a reader in mind? I think of my daughter, even though she doesn't read any of my stuff (laughs)... but I can always see her critiquing eye. I've also got quite a hard-core writing group. I don't write for them, but they do help me up my game, because they are good at picking up on things. Nominally, it would be more my daughter, but, no, it's too much pressure to have a reader in mind.
I think it's interesting the difference between writing a first book, and writing books when you've got editors. With Indigo Donut, and also with my next book, what I aim to do is give my editors as polished a version as possible. So I do have Emma, my editor, in mind when I'm writing things. Currently, I'm nowhere near a first draft but what I've done is try to find the story by just writing individual scenes and see where they will take me, so I know what the characters are, I know what their situations are, and I think I know what the themes are. I even said to my daughter at one point, 'Can you just give me a writing prompt, and I'll try and work out who the characters are, and write it...'
So she gave me something like: 'OK, you're on a council estate, it's twilight and it's raining, and it's in a football cage'. So I just put the two characters there, and free wrote.
And is that scene anywhere in the book now? It's written. Whether it will stay in, I don't know. But I know what it signifies though. I know those two characters will have something.
Can you say anything more about this third novel? Yes. What's it like for two young people who have grown up in a very closed, conservative religion? And if the family splits up, so the dad stays there, and you and your mum move out, and all your community and everything you've done has been tied to that religion, what's it like if you're 13 and you're discovering Harry Potter for the first time? Or if you're a 17-year-old woman and you're suddenly discovering boys and your desirability? So that I'm exploring as a story. Also a sense of the gentrification in London, so if you're that mother, you're going to be stuck in this tiny flat – if you want to stay in London – with two teenage kids. What's that like?
Are you a perfectionist? In my usual life, I'm not a perfectionist, but in my writing, I think I am. With my editor, Emma, we are looking at the commas, we are looking at the joining together. That's when I was standing in my allotment that time, and worried about certain sentences. My writing group is like that, too. In the early stages, it was about: Can you help me with the plot?; Does this work?; Is this character credible?; Does this scene make sense? Now they'll pick me up on grammatical stuff, as well, or one adverb too many...
Is there anything you've found particularly difficult?
Indigo Donut was quite tough because I couldn't write the first scene. I started it in so many different places. The publishers wanted something that started in a similar way to Orangeboy, and up until that day in June, we were writing and rewriting... I took it in to work to check out with my colleagues (laughs), so I really struggled with that. But, yes, we did that opening scene last. Before that, it started with the kitchen scene, and before that, it started in the school. And I think they were absolutely right, it needed to change, but I really struggled. Beginnings I'm usually fine with, and ends – but everything else is about how you sustain that tension throughout.
Is there anything you find easy? Dialogue.
That shows... Yeah (laughs). I just love it. I hear it in my head. I think it is about twenty years of London buses, it is stuck in your head, and listening to people. It's also one of those things of not being from London, so you don't take it for granted: you can listen to it with an outsider's ear. And it makes you smile. A lot of Londoners speak quite loud, so you do hear this conversation (laughs).
Who do you most admire as a writer? I loved Toni Morrison. That was like a new voice to me, and I found her by accident. I picked up a book in WHSmiths in Brighton, and that took me to a completely new world. I've always loved sci-fi, because I've always loved people who build worlds really well. My dad was really into Isaac Asimov, so I used to read loads of him when I was younger. Stephen King, just because of his storytelling, and he's so prolific. I've not read any of his for years, but I went through that period in my twenties when everybody does: so everything from It to Different Seasons [with 'Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption' and 'The Body'], so I loved his books. I love China Miéville books: The City & The City and Perdido Street Station are absolutely amazing. And a couple of YA books I've read recently: Out of Heart by Irfan Master, which is just so good, brilliantly written, and William Sutcliffe's We See Everything, which is in a way transposing the Gaza Strip to London, like an alternative London. It's quite a political book, and wonderfully written.
When did you know you were a writer? Even now it's sometimes hard to say I'm a writer, and I'm still getting used to saying it. I've always written things, but even after going into Waterstones and seeing your books there has still taken a while to say that I'm a writer. So, getting there!
I've been writing things ever since I was little... there's reams of stuff in boxes at home, from when I was small. When I was of primary school age, I used to write quite a lot of poems, but mainly they were poems about things that had happened in our house. My step-dad's Italian and we used to have one of these old-school coffee percolators that you'd put on the stove – and one did explode everywhere... that was a poem! Another time we were in Italy and this massive worm the size of a snake ended up on my mum's foot, she screamed... and that was a poem (laughs). So there were lots of poems. I think it was a way of articulating my life. And later came short stories which l really loved writing anyway – it took a while to hone that skill – but I did nothing full length, like a book, until really recently. Not for want of trying!
What's really helped you as a writer? One was definitely my writing/critique group: they really stopped me embarrassing myself! But also, all those things you read in other people's work that you know they could improve: from using different words for 'said', to points of view... you could read it online, but when you critique other people's work, it's easier to see. You discover that's why I should keep to one point of view, that's why I don't need all those adjectives, that's the way you can experiment with voice.
Interesting with Orangeboy, I never knew that I had that voice at all. Orangeboy was originally a book of 75,000 words, written in the third person, and my critique group was saying that Marlon just sounds like you, Patrice. Jenny Downham [Before I Die], who was an actor before she became a writer, said, 'Why don't you just try and write a little bit in first person. See it through Marlon's eyes. What would he see? And think of his voice describing it.' It was like Oh! And so that's what I say to people quite often now, when I'm doing my day job, I'll say, 'If you don't know where you're going with your book, you don't have to write it in order, just write the bits you want to (laughs)... and by the end, you know where you're going!' If you're stuck with character, just do a little bit in first person: how would they describe it, what would their voice be... if they were talking to you, how would they say that? And then get into the character that way. That's giving people permission to use their own voice, I think.
Can you tell me more about your own voice? It took me a long time to find my voice, to know what and who I want to write about and how I want to tell those stories. I want to write about the wildness and weirdness of London, the multiple identities that young people must assume to navigate their world, and the emotional pull of music. There are still so many stories to be told!
But what's so important about voice? I did an exercise once with some Year 7 pupils [first year in secondary school] in a library. I couldn't do too much of Orangeboy, because I tried to put on the audio and it was Ben Bailey Smith talking about ecstasy, so I had to turn it off (laughs)... but we did this character hack. We did something around names first, about how we get named. We had to name a character and think about why you had that name, and tell the story of that name; then you had to dress them. I talked about how you can describe character through dress, so even if it's school uniform: Who rolls up their sleeves? Who doesn't? Whose skirt is short? What's that saying about them? And then we did something about describing something in a voice, and then I did read an extract from Orangeboy. And what was really interesting was that particularly the young men – and the young black men in there – suddenly thought, Oh, my voice IS relevant, because all your curriculum is telling you it isn't, because it's a very particular type of curriculum that we have. So they were really keen to read their pieces! I think people need to be really confident in their voice and think it matters. In YA, you've really got that opportunity.
Music plays a key part in your novels. Do you listen to music while you're writing? Yes, sometimes. I quite often listen to BBC Radio 6 music. But then only certain moods for certain scenes. Different songs can really affect me, so if I want a really sad scene, I listen to 'Into my Arms' by Nick Cave, which just makes me cry every time, or 'Fire and Rain' by James Taylor. With Indigo Donut, for the loved-up, romantic scenes, I really had to listen to music then! Another one is 'Sense' by the Lightning Seeds, which is really upbeat. And there are some other upbeat, loved-up songs that I listen to, like Erasure's 'A Little Respect'. I think because I do a lot of writing and scribbling, I suppose I'm just used to having noise around me anyway. I do probably edit better in silence.
Do you ever surprise yourself in your writing? Yes! Because I think mostly I don't know where I'm going. A lot of Orangeboy surprised me because I didn't know I had that story in there. Listening to Indigo Donut again surprised me, because I thought, This is alright. It's really alright. And the fact that I could write about when two young people come together like that; and it really did surprise me, because I think that's not my natural territory in any way. I still feel a bit weird when people say my books are good. It just feels odd.
And I surprised myself that I still want to write after forty-odd years of writing bits and pieces, and I still feel passionate about it, and want to do it. My mum always used to call me a butterfly: 'You collect stuff, then you do something else, and then something else.' And actually this has been the one thing [that I've stuck at]. I also surprised myself that I really enjoy talking to young people. I really didn't think that. I thought they'd terrify the hell out of me (laughs)... I've got a school event tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to it, I really am. That has really surprised me... and I feel quite confident doing it. I ad lib a little bit, and make them laugh, and just enjoy it. I don't feel scared when I go out in front of them.
Have you ever thought of your writing as a legacy? No, because I've only got the two books out there at the moment (laughs)... but, one of the issues for me was that, even though I wrote, I rarely had black characters in any of my stories, because you just never saw it. And you just thought publishers would never buy it. Not that I didn't have anything worth writing about, you just never saw it, like an unspoken thing. And then, in the last few weeks of 1999, and I'd just had a two-week-old baby, I was sitting in front of the telly and Malorie Blackman's Pig Heart Boy came on starring a black British family! So that gave me that confidence, and part of what we try to do is to give other people that confidence – to people who don't think they could be writers, or that they should write about things that they want to. Hopefully that is part of that legacy.
It's interesting because when Orangeboy went out for submission, only one editor in one publishing company took it, so nobody else was interested. One publishing company invited us in, but first said, no, they wouldn't buy it – and, if they did, it would need lots of changes. But Hachette wanted it straight away, they said, 'We're going to sell it to Waterstones', and they'll do this and they'll do that, there were nice biscuits, nice juice (laughs)... I talked to Emma recently, and it was her first ever acquisition, and she went in (and it's not the teen fantasy, or teen romance) so to be able to sell that to the acquisitions team, and get that bought, was a really big deal. She said she had such faith in it, and she felt that it's important to have diverse voices.
And a year later, she said, 'We are exactly where I told the acquisitions team we would be: entering Orangeboy for prizes, entering it for festivals.' The fact that that's happened shows there are people who will take a risk, and it can work. I think that is actually the legacy: this was such a risk, in a way, because it was not a natural. It wasn't an empowerment tale of women... So Hachette took the risk, and you think, Yeah, good on you (laughs)... It's also meant that they've got a much more diverse list of authors today.
Link to Patrice's website: The Lawrence Line
Patrice's agent: Caroline Sheldon Literary Agent
Publisher: Hachette Children's Group