The Talk of the Town

I don’t think the word ‘idol’ is the best word to use when describing people we admire, especially if we don’t know them. Despite holding no religious faith myself, I question why people use the word interchangeably with ‘inspiration’ and ‘role model’ because it feels dramatic and, perhaps, overwhelming. However, I feel strongly enough about these writers that I suppose I couldn’t protest if someone were to call my admiration religious. In the run-up to my novel’s completion, I felt it apt to discuss some people whose work and attitudes towards it I admire. This is because it will help you to get to know me as an author, and I might explain to you how I have let their work influence my own. I will try not to fangirl, and will speak as intelligently as someone can if they’ve woken up at 4am to stock shelves and punctuated the rest of their day with episodes of ‘Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps’ (Sheridan Smith is the one true idol).

The two writers under my blog’s humble spotlight this month are Abi Morgan (screenwriter) and Suzanne Collins (novelist, primarily). These incredible women have been dubbed ‘The Talk of the Town’ in my title as there is currently a lot of buzz surrounding their work. Morgan has recently released a star-studded miniseries on Netflix called ‘Eric’ that spent a while at number one on the site’s charts. Collins has just announced the latest installments in her cultural bombshell of a franchise ‘The Hunger Games’, not to mention that this is following the success of a film adaptation of the previous one at the end of 2023.

Abi Morgan has won Emmys and BAFTAs for her screenplays. You may know her for writing The Hour, Suffragette, The Iron Lady, and The Split. She is the mistress of the miniseries, as well as a champion of biopics. She has worked with stars like Meryl Streep, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Helena Bonham-Carter.

As I’ve established, Morgan is an expert at writing short shows. She has a story in mind, edits it meticulously, and releases a series that is both easy to watch and incredibly fulfilling. Her most recent is Eric, the aforementioned Netflix series. In six episodes, it has hooked audiences worldwide. I got my mother to watch it, and my boyfriend seems interested since he hasn’t told me to shut up about it… yet.  A family friend of said boyfriend recently said that Eric was the best thing he’d seen on Netflix in years, and that was all the icebreaking I needed to let my stream of words come gushing out. I proudly held up my copy of ‘This is not a Pity Memoir’, Morgan’s book that I was reading at the time, and off I went. Eric is also significant as it demonstrates Morgan’s ability to write about fatherhood as a central struggle, when her most famous works like Suffragette and The Split are centered around women. She has always shown versatility when it comes to her subject matter, but every writer excels with their personal experience, so it is impressive to see how successful Eric was.

Speaking of her memoir, I must commend Abi for her strength. She met deadlines in the face of unimaginable adversity. For those of you who are unfamiliar, her husband struggled with MS and, amidst a drug trial, eventually had to battle encephalitis. This illness put him in a coma which he emerged from convinced that Abi Morgan was not, in fact, Abi Morgan, due to a syndrome called Cotard’s Delusion. As her ‘internal editor’ says in the book, she hardly needed another reminder of mortality when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The couple are alive and well but she didn’t wait for this to happen to regain her work ethic. In fact, a lot of The Split was written during this period. I can only dream of such discipline. I also find it so exciting that the memoir mentions her husband enjoying the work of Benedict Cumberbatch and Tim Minchin, two people involved in Eric.

There is a reason I have allowed a screenwriter to have this much impact on my novel-writing, and it is simple: she crafts impeccable narratives. Her memoir seems to sum up why this is, as she mentions a persistent ‘internal editor’ that affects the ways she watches films as well as the way she lives her life. She thinks about how she’d write real events. Some may think this a blessing, others a curse, but it’s definitely an indication of a sharp mind, a mind that is helpful to her job.

‘The Split’, a show she created, may be my favourite TV series. Embarrassingly, I wouldn’t have given it a look if I didn’t have the same lingering crush on Mathew Baynton that lives in the mind of anyone who grew up on Horrible Histories, but what I truly fell for was the captivating narrative. I remember coming home from a long day to watch the final episode with a glass of wine (to be like the older women with marital problems, obviously) and a box of tissues (ready to cry on behalf of the Defoe sisters and their clients). It is full of feminism, family values, love, and perseverance, all things that everyone should deem important. The Split is just one of the many pieces by Abi Morgan to feature women’s stories so prominently, so I feel her body of work is something I can connect with easily. The main thing I find impressive about the series, though, is that it does so much in such little time. With great integrity, Morgan stated that she would not make another series as she has told her story, and that couldn’t be more true. Three series, 18 episodes, 16 hours, she has scrupulously edited a story so rich with characters and feelings into a near-flawless product, with detailed subplots to accompany the primary journey. There has since been announced a two-part special to show us where the characters are further down the line, and a spin-off with different characters. This is a clever way of giving people content they know and love without stretching the story Morgan crafted beyond believability.

Now, for Suzanne Collins. I’m sure everyone with a pulse is aware of the phenomenon that is ‘The Hunger Games’. Even those without a pulse, should vampires exist. Growing up with the films being released, the ‘Mockingjay’ poster was probably the longest-lasting wall decoration I owned. Many children and teenagers were introduced to political themes through the series. I know it’s easy to disregard things that are popular, people loving the rush they get from commenting along the lines of ‘I just never understood the obsession’, but I believe that Collins’ series has earned respect among many more people than your average popular franchise. This is for good reason. I consider ‘The Hunger Games’ to be a modern classic. Isn’t it the dream to have your books considered classics? I’m hopeful my upcoming novel will be talked about in many book clubs, but as I grow I aspire to create something as hard-hitting and widely impactful as The Hunger Games.

Collins began as a children’s television writer. It took her until The Hunger Games to truly take off, but I think it’s incredible that one person can write effectively for different age groups.

The Hunger Games series was aimed at young adults. It isn’t often that YA fiction is taken so seriously. While it’s true the media did turn the characters’ mild emotional conflict into a love triangle that appeared to be the main selling point of the series, most people still read the books and agreed that they are much more complex. As I work on this romantic young-adult story, I find myself worrying whether I’ll be taken seriously, if people I admire will give my book a chance, and whether I can still be called ‘a good author’. Suzanne Collins proved to the world that something can be accessible and appealing for young people and still be noteworthy, and I want to do this too.

Speaking of earning respect, I truly doubted Collins’ ability to pull off an origin story for her despicable main villain. She proved me wrong, as the story was so rich I could understand every turn of it.

Though Collins tends to be known for her world building, her character work is what inspires me more. When I read a book in first-person, I want to read about someone with a unique view of the world, their perspective adding something to what we would otherwise be told. They could be obviously wrong, not notice patterns we notice, or add a layer of uncertainty. They might also see good in characters we could otherwise hate. Katniss Everdeen, the protagonist of the three main Hunger Games books, was more than just a role model for every young girl of the 2000s. Her perspective in the books is the main reason I like them so much. This may sound like an exaggeration, but there’s a scene towards the end of the third book in which she considers ending her life and I was right there with her (as in I understood it, not that I was too). Her perspective was so convincingly written that I perfectly understood her dark decision. Collins recently announced the release of yet another prequel, this time surrounding Haymitch Abernathy, a character that is already one of the most compelling in the main series, and I have no doubt I’ll come to like him even more than I do now.

When discussing Abi Morgan, I talked about her integrity. It would be wrong to leave out the topic when discussing Suzanne Collins. She famously said she wouldn’t write more Hunger Games until she had something to say, then released an equally impressive prequel ten years after the main series ended. Though some may say it was easy for her to stick to her integrity as the series got her more than enough money, I believe it’s admirable as it was just as easy to get even more rich even quicker. I believe she made the right decision because she cares about her art, and it’s evident in its consistent quality. I have an unwavering trust in her to put out the highest quality of stories. I hope the new book lives up to my expectations!

Another quality she shares with Morgan is the strength of her writing when it comes to women. She is more than capable of writing complex male characters like Peeta, Haymitch, and Coriolanus, but her female protagonist holds power over audiences to this day. As I’ve touched on, Katniss Everdeen was a role model for young girls at the time, and continues to be heralded as a memorable protagonist. Though there was a rise in strong female protagonists with Divergent and other dystopian fiction rising to prominence alongside it, The Hunger Games holds one of the best examples. Katniss is complicated. She is angry, she is strongly influenced by her parents, she would die for her sister, she shouts at her cat, she falls in love. She is, very clearly, a teenage girl, but she is also one of the strongest and smartest heroes out there. It was amazing to see a turbulent teenage girl open her eyes to a dangerous and unjust world as I was going through the same thing, though on a smaller scale. It is always going to matter that everyone, young and old, male and female, managed to respect, adore, and even look up to a teenage girl.

Eric can be found on Netflix and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes can be purchased online or on DVD. I urge you to give them a look, or watch/read the rest of their bodies of work!

Thank you for reading all of that fanatical gushing, it is now time for some hard-earned self promotion. I am proud to announce that the next few months’ posts will be returning to the topic of my novel in much more detail than anything I have shared already. Don’t get too excited, there’ll be no spoilers or even a synopsis but I’ll discuss aims, intentions, and progress. I’ve set some personal deadlines, and two large ones fall in early September and November, so there’ll be a lot for me to discuss and reflect on soon. This is an invitation for you all to share my joy, be excited and inspired, and learn even more about who I am as a writer. I hope you’ll stay tuned!