Coffee Break with Dorothy Koomson: Beach Hut 512 - A Short Story

Sunday Times Bestselling author, Dorothy Koomson, is joining me for a 'Coffee Break' to talk about her new short story, 'Beach Hut 512'.

Dorothy reveals how a simple walk along the beach sparked the idea for this tightly-crafted mystery that explores what happens when a woman named Sims finds her sanctuary violated in the most horrific way.

Buy Beach Hut 512

When vandals destroy beach hut 512 on Brighton’s iconic seafront, they reveal a dead body that has apparently lain undisturbed for two months. But according to the hut’s owner, Sims, its locks rusted shut three months ago and she hasn’t had access to it since. So how could the man have got in, and why is there no evidence of the murderer?

Sims has spent the past three years recovering from the trauma of being targeted by a serial killer and narrowly escaping with her life. But this grim discovery feels like too much of a coincidence: could the person who put the body in her hut be the same man who wants her dead? In a desperate race against time, can she uncover the truth behind beach hut 512 before a murderer with a chilling obsession strikes again?

Follow Dorothy Koomson

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Conversation Coffee Break with your host, nadine Matheson. As always, I hope that you're well and I hope that you're enjoying your week. Today I'm taking a coffee break with Sunday Times best-selling author, dorothy Coombson, and we're talking about her brand new short story, beach Hut 512, which is available for you to purchase now. But before we start our coffee break, I'm also going to remind you about Dorothy's latest book, which is called Give Him To Me, and I recommend that you get it. It's very good, classic Dorothy Coombson, full of twists. She's great. Oh, and one more thing Dorothy Coombson also has a podcast called the Dorothy Edit, so give her a follow. Follow. The links to her podcast and to all her books and her short story is in my show notes. And I've just remembered one more thing, sorry.

Speaker 1: 0:52

As well as listening to the conversation coffee break, you can also watch the conversation coffee breaks on YouTube. Again, go down to the show notes and click on the link and you can watch Dorothy and I in full conversation enjoying our coffee break. Now, normally I would say sit back or go for a walk, but instead grab a cup of coffee or tea and enjoy your break. Dorothy Coombs, and welcome to the conversation coffee break. Hello, nice to see you, lovely to see you too, right? My first question is well, actually it's. Can you simply can you tell the listeners about Beach Hut 512?

Speaker 2: 1:31

Well, beach Hut 512 is a short story, so it's like 20,000 words, but it's a story of a woman called Sims who has had some not great stuff happen to her in her past and now she's kind of like on an even keel. She moved away from Brighton and then she came back and she bought a beach hut and it's one of those beautiful, iconic beach huts on the Brighton seafront and she goes. The book starts with her on a date, a very bad date, and she goes back and discovers that some of the beach huts have been vandalized, and hers is the latest one to be vandalized. And when she goes down to the seafront, there's all these people there with the police and she discovers that not only has her beach hut been vandalised, there's a dead body in it, and so she is now in this awful situation of wondering who the dead body is, who put it there, because there's no sign of the person who put the body there and why and is she being targeted?

Speaker 1: 2:46

right. So my next question to you is what came to you first? Was it the character, a specific scene, the overall premise or something completely different?

Speaker 2: 2:55

it was the overall premise, I'd say because, um, as you know, as most people know, because I talk about it all the time, I live in Brighton. No, you don't, it's all about Brighton for me. So I remember walking along the seafront one time because I love to walk down the beach from where I live into the centre of Brighton, and I was passing all the beach huts and I was thinking I wonder what would happen if there was a dead body in one of those. So obviously that's how writers think. So that sort of came up. I came up with the idea of there being a dead body inside of a beach hut, like the ultimate locked room mystery, because you don't know how it got there or who put it there or who the person actually is would you ever write a book not set in brighton?

Speaker 2: 3:56

my earlier books because I didn't live in brighton. I I didn't write about it. I used to. I used to write a lot about Leeds and um, because I lived in London years ago when I was first started, when I was reading, just a reader, I wasn't a published author. I'd read all these fantastic books, um, and but they're all set in London and I mean I knew London and I knew the places they were talking about because I'm from London, but I used to always think the UK is so much more than London, so when I get published I am going to set my books outside of London. And so it became Leeds my first few books. And then I went to Australia and I came back from Australia and I moved to Brighton. So I thought, ok, I'll set up in Brighton because I'm here now.

Speaker 1: 4:49

How do you feel about short stories? Because I've had to work hard on myself to get used to writing short stories. I always find them as a really big challenge and this year I said to myself you know what, nadine, if someone says to you, oh, will you write, you write a short story for us. Don't say no, unless there's for some reason like you just simply can't do it because of time. Like don't say no. So I wrote. I wrote two short stories for anthologies this year because I'm trying to push myself. So how do you feel about them?

Speaker 2: 5:19

I think they're great and this is what I mean. When I first started writing when I was very young, I used to write short stories a lot. I used to write sort of like 2000 word stories. I've got loads of them all over the place. But I think writers, especially writers of novels, should write short stories. They are something to do, even if it's not going to go anywhere. They are something to do that will absolutely hone your writing.

Speaker 2: 5:47

It's such a challenge to have to fit into a really short space of time a whole plot. So you get the character development, you get the plots, you get a plot twist. If you're writing crime, you get the story, you get people involved in the lives of the characters. It's really difficult and I mean, you know me, I love challenging myself. So for me it's a really fab thing to do. I love, I love doing them. I love writing short stories.

Speaker 2: 6:19

I mean I always overwrite. Even my novels I overwrite. So you know, one novel I had to cut 50,000 words from, and this one, yeah, and and. But I can be ruthless. For me, editing is the best part of it. So I, I can be absolutely ruthless. I mean sometimes I do sit there, go. Oh, my god, I'm. I'm cutting out something that I thought I was going to win an award for, but if it's's going to flop forward, it's got to go. This one Beach Hut 512, I think I started off. When I finished it, it was around 35,000 to 40,000 words, so I had to ruthlessly cut everything out that wasn't necessary. It's a better story for it. It always is a better story for ruthlessly removing all the stuff that's extraneous, the stuff that you know. It's very nice.

Speaker 1: 7:09

I call it the noise.

Speaker 2: 7:10

Get rid of the noise in there, absolutely. Yeah, it's very nice stuff, but it's not moving the story along. So I think, if you want to hone your skills as a writer, put down the machine and start to concentrate on writing short stories instead, because that will absolutely help to focus your mind what machine are you talking about? Well, let's not go there, shall we? Let's have a nice little chat.

Speaker 1: 7:40

I know she's talking about. We'll have a nice little chat. So, dorothy, which character surprised you the most whilst writing this book? Well, writing this short story, I should say.

Speaker 2: 7:49

I think the character that I can't tell you exactly who it is, but it's one of the people she goes on a date with, because at the start of the novel she's been internet dating, so she's been dating lots of different men and one of the characters who she goes on a date with. He kind of surprised me a bit.

Speaker 1: 8:10

OK, what's the most random fact you now know because of Beach Hut 512?

Speaker 2: 8:18

That there are tunnels leading from the sea up to the houses on Hove seafront underneath the beach huts. Um, I, when I was researching how you would get a body in and out of the of the um, out of the beach hut that's not a spoiler, by the way when I was researching how that would happen there are actually tunnels that used that so that people could get to the seafront without leave, without going over ground and um.

Speaker 1: 8:51

So yes, that is such a good random fact to know. It's great, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 8:57

I don't know if they're still there. I don't know if they're blocked off or anything but yeah, but they are.

Speaker 1: 9:02

This is my favourite question, like on the coffee break, questions like the random fact, because every random fact I've heard so far, I'm like, oh my God, and it's never just. I said I did this to say, Cosby, I thought you were just going to give me geography and it wasn't geography. Okay. What's the short story harder or easier to write than your last book, and why?

Speaker 2: 9:26

Every book's hard, I have to say every book, because I put so much into it. I put all of myself into it. You know, I, I want, I want everything I write to be better than the last thing I've written. And to do that you have to really, sort of like, put everything into it. You have to put your heart and soul into it. And I think it's really obvious for readers if you haven't tried, you know, with the book, they might not like it.

Speaker 2: 9:52

But I, I know, when I've finished the book there's nothing I could have done to change. You know how, yeah, the book was written, because I know that I've put every single thing into it. Um, so it was harder than Beach Hut 512, was harder than, um, give Him To Me, because I wrote it after Give Him To Me, but it's not as hard as the Quiet Girls, because the Quiet Girls, which is what I wrote after Beach Hut 512. Again, I'm challenging myself, trying really hard. So, yeah, every book gets harder. So it was harder than all the previous books that have come before it.

Speaker 1: 10:37

Did it feel like a bit of a I can't remember what it's called in the restaurant they give you like the palate cleanser before the next meal. Does your short story feel like that in the process.

Speaker 2: 10:49

Do you know what? When I wrote my short story it's slightly longer than the Beach Hut 512, the baking detective slice slice baby when I wrote that one, which I self-published, that absolutely felt like a palate cleanser because no one I had no one who was going to tell me what to do. I didn't have any expectations. I just wrote it in secret and it was a really nice thing to do for myself because no one was expecting anything from it. So writing Beach Hut 512 was absolutely like work, like writing a book for um, because I was writing it for somebody. I was writing it for the Amazon original stories series, so, um, and I knew they expected a certain type of novel, whereas when I wrote my other short story, um book, I just no one was expecting anything.

Speaker 2: 11:45

I could just be completely wild and it could be completely different style of writing because I was writing as somebody else. So in a way, for readers, I think it's going to be a palate cleanser, something quick to kind of get into and a moose boosh, as they say. That's it. Yes, it's like a little moose boosh for them too, before they go on to a longer novel. But absolutely, I mean I loved writing it. It was really good fun writing it and really good fun creating the character of sims how do you find the self-publishing process because you've been traditionally published since?

Speaker 1: 12:25

well, since the beginning, yeah. And then to have you know this long career right of being traditionally published in this little oh, let's have a little trip and the self-publishing road and come back it was.

Speaker 2: 12:37

It was, it was a bit different. It's very different because, you know, I'm good cause, like you say, I've been 20 odd years of being published one way, um, and having people to bounce ideas off and to say to you that doesn't work or this does work, um, and then to to not have that in the same way. I mean, I got it professionally edited, I got it professionally proofread, um, I did the cover myself because I quite liked the idea of doing the cover myself. So it's my photo on the front and it's a bit crazy. It's a picture of a cake with a meat cleaver and a fork.

Speaker 2: 13:20

So I didn't have anybody design it for me. But if I was going to do, I would absolutely pay someone to design the cover for me and I might do, I might reformat it and and get someone to um sort of design the cover for me, as I you know, because I always believe in paying people for the work that they do, um, so, yeah, it's really enjoyable actually, because I always believe in paying people for the work that they do. So, yeah, it's really enjoyable actually, because I'm a bit of a control freak. I don't know if I've admitted that before, but I'm a bit of a control freak, so it was nice being in control of all those things rather than other people.

Speaker 1: 14:01

Before I go on to the next question in our coffee break. You know your book, with the recent one, so you know every smile you fake and then give them to me. And then we got the quiet girls and we've got dr kez coming back. Did you ever plan for that to happen when you wrote every smile she faked because she's now. We got three books in.

Speaker 2: 14:24

We know that you know, I was always like I'm not doing sequels.

Speaker 2: 14:28

Yeah, I was always never a never a sequel person and then I did um, the sequel to the ice cream girls, and I will definitely not do the secret after a sequel. After I did um all my lies are true because I was like that was so hard and then so I wrote Every Spidey Fake and I finished that and I really enjoyed writing about Kez. She was like a really strong character and then I came to give him to me and I had the idea about a girl who witnessed her father killing her mother, her abusive father killing her mother, and when she's a grown-up she comes back for him because he doesn't go to prison, he gets away with it, basically because he's powerful and connected, and what I needed was to have somebody on the outside of it telling us the whole psychology of why she would be doing that and trying to stop her, because you know she's not doing something great she's not.

Speaker 2: 15:34

I. I can understand why she was doing what she did, but she's not doing something great. It's not a good thing, no, so I um, so I needed an outside character. I thought you know what. Look who's here Kez the profiler and therapist who would be set up the world?

Speaker 1: 15:49

is there able?

Speaker 2: 15:50

to yeah, so it wasn't like a intentional thing to bring her back. And then I got to the end of Give Her To Me and I was like I am so writing about Kez again because I love her you've got to bond with her it was really hard, though, writing the quiet girls.

Speaker 2: 16:10

Um, I think also after writing beach hut 512, it was harder to go back to a longer novel. I mean, the whole thing beach hut 512 was, I knew, when I had the idea of all what I said a dead body in this locked room um, that I it wouldn't make a full, full-length novel. It would. It would only make a, a short story. So when I was asked to write this short story, I was like, oh, that's the perfect idea, and it was. It was a wonderful experience writing it and everyone, everyone involved was so wonderful and really, really nice. I mean, I've been very fortunate in my publishing journey. I've had mostly, like you know, 99% of people I've worked with have been really nice. Um so, and then I had to write a full-length novel again. I'm like, really, do you really want 100,000 words from me really?

Speaker 1: 17:08

could it just be 20,000? Let's just be done with it. 20's good, we don't need a hundred thousand words.

Speaker 2: 17:13

Maybe 25 at a push, maybe 30 maybe 30, I could give you 30, I could give you 40, unedited, you know. So, um, yeah, so it was actually quite hard going back to long form, as it were. But I mean, the story was there, it's just like, okay, so I can't end it here, then I have to do more there's some stories that just they, just they were.

Speaker 1: 17:40

There's always like a continuation. They don't just end like you, just someone's, like they always ask me about tenly, and they're like, oh, um, you know, will this be the last one? I'm like no, because I know in my head already. I know there are more stories, not just for her, but for the team. Like you haven't discovered everything you need to know about them, and if I still feel that way, then you'll get, you'll keep getting more absolutely that's it, and so, um yeah, so, um, hopefully I'll have another idea for the cares, or maybe not, you know, I could.

Speaker 2: 18:13

It's quite good for me because and for most writers, I think because you can always step out and write something else and then come back to it. Um, yeah, but I do like write about cares. I do because she's so messed up but she's got such a good moral centre. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:33

Okay, all right, so back to Beach Hut 512. Without giving away any spoilers, did Beach Hut 512 end the way you originally planned, or did it surprise you too?

Speaker 2: 18:44

It did and it didn't because there was a couple of twists towards the end which I thought was sorted, and then, as I started writing, it's like no, that's not going to work. That's, that is just not going to work. So I had to sort of like work around the new things that had changed in the beginning of the book, um, and sort of like change it. So it was plausible and it was possible. So, yeah, a couple of times I mean I'm very fortunate I have my husband, who is very good at sort of bouncing ideas off him, and he's sort of like he'll say, oh, yeah, but that wouldn't work, or maybe you could think about this, and I'll go okay, yeah, so I can go down that route and I will then, um, find a way to to do that. Um, not necessarily how he says it, but just I mean he kind of gives me the kernel of an idea in my head um, how do I go?

Speaker 1: 19:41

no, I was gonna ask how important is it, you think, for writers all, all writers, regardless of whatever stage you are in your career how important is it to have like a tribe around you people you can bounce ideas off or just have a random rant to because you haven't got a chapter to work? Well for me, it's been.

Speaker 2: 20:01

It's been a weird sort of like hybrid working process, because when I wrote my first two books, I had another agent who I didn't talk to about anything, about the plot or anything, um. And then I wrote my third book and got my new agent and I didn't really talk to him about that at the beginning, but as time went on, because when I what I do is I'd write my way into down an alley that I couldn't get out of and I'd be like, yeah, or I'd write something and I'd think, oh, actually would that work? Would somebody really do that? So I'd bring him up and I'd say to him so what do you think would this work? Or might be my editor and say, would you think that would work? And inevitably they go it wouldn't. So I had to find a new way of doing it.

Speaker 1: 20:53

You need that, though, don't you? I don't know. That's why I asked them.

Speaker 2: 21:02

So I wasn't married at that point. So that's the thing I wasn't with my husband at that point. I wasn't married at that point. So that's the. That's the thing. I wasn't with my husband at that point. Um, although I knew him he's my, we've been friends for a long time, um, so when we got married, even when we got married, it was only every, every so often I would sort of say to him oh, what do you think about this? Um, um. But in more recent times it is kind of just easier to, although you know, I used to wake him up in the night and ask him questions. He wasn't that up for that, really, apparently I don't know why.

Speaker 1: 21:33

No, why would he be Disturbing his sleep?

Speaker 2: 21:39

But for me, recently I have been talking more to some writer friends about stuff that I want to do and stuff you know. I want to try new things. I think it's really important for people to find a system that works for them. One of the advice I give to people whenever I do a keynote speech or if I'm asked to talk to people about the start of their career, I always say find a group of people around you who will support you and you can be a support for them. I think it's really important. I think you need people around you who are going to be honest with you, but in a kind way.

Speaker 2: 22:21

Your mum, your dad, your aunts, your, your uncles, your friends. They're not your, they're not your um, people who are supposed to be your writing group, your support jobs, I mean, unless they are writers themselves, but even then they're meant to like everything you do, right, you know. They're meant to love you and care about you and want to say that everything you do is brilliant. What you need is people who will be honest with you, but in a good way, in a positive way, and who will sort of like will be your champions, because that's what your family and your friends are for there to be your champions. But your writing friends are the ones who went to share all the the drudge and the awful bits, yeah, and who will say to you do you know what I mean? This is what my agent and my editor do for me. That's the most important job. They will say to me I really like that, but it's not the best. It's not. You can do better, and that's what you need from a writer's group. You need someone's going to say you can do better than this. Or you can say that's the most amazing thing, or I could completely see your heart in that. That's what you need for a writer's group, so, and you need to find people who can do that for it.

Speaker 2: 23:36

Yeah, it's difficult, though, and you can you will have a lot of false starts and you will have a lot of people who will pretend to be your friend and who will, but will secretly be seething with jealousy and I know I shouldn't say that and we're not supposed to say that, and everyone's meant to be oh yeah, you know, I see all the time. Oh yeah, this community, this writing community, they're all so supportive, yeah, to a point, but there are people in there who aren't, you know, who aren't. Don't. Have your best interests at heart, and I want to be honest about that, because I don't want people to sort of like, be open with everybody and then discover that half of those people are actually really jealous of you or or leading you down a wrong path. I think you've got to be um shrewd and be careful and find people who are like you and who you can trust. You know, and so you can say stuff to them and you won't hear it back from you. Hear it back from somebody else later on that.

Speaker 2: 24:37

Oh yes, I said this and it's a completely different version of what you actually meant. So yeah, I think it's important to have surround yourself with people who are supportive and writer friends and creative friends as well. My husband said to me the other day that he was listening to somebody on the radio and I can't remember who it was. He did tell me who it was, but the person said it's really important as you go through life to have friends who are just your friends, who want nothing from you who you can't do anything for and they can't do anything for you, so that there is nothing transactional about your friendship at all, and I think that's really important.

Speaker 2: 25:24

And so they're the ones you need to separate out from your, your work life, because they can't get you a review, they can't get you a meeting with an agent, you know. So they, the only reason why they are your friends is because they like you, and that's, and that's what I think is really important. So you know you separate them out from your work, your writer friends, who are your friends I'm not saying they're not your friends, they're real friends but there is always something transactional about your relationship and you have to be honest about that in your own head, if not out loud.

Speaker 1: 25:57

I was going to say sometimes it's about being intentional with the people you have around you. The same intention and thought you put into your writing. You kind of have to apply that to creating that tribe of people you choose wisely. Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 26:16

Yes, absolutely yes, that's absolutely true. You have to be intentional about it, because you and I'm speaking from past experience you, you don't, you don't realize that not everybody is on your side. You know and it's, and I know I shouldn't be saying this and I'm probably going to get um, people are going to try and cancel me, but literally don't mind.

Speaker 2: 26:37

Um, 20 years yeah but yeah, there are people you know and it can be really hard to watch somebody get something that you want you know, but if you like that person then you don't mind. I mean, I I have no problem with saying congratulations to people who get things that I don't necessarily get, opportunities that I don't necessarily get. I have no problem with that because I like people and I like to see people do well. But lots of people aren't like me and they don't feel like that at all. So you know they will sit there seething and feeling like they're being wronged in some way, and you've just got to be aware that that is around you.

Speaker 2: 27:28

And some people are really energy suckers who will, you know, will constantly have this low level negativity that kind of permeates everything you do with them, especially with writing and especially with the publishing industry. The way it is, it's really easy to get into this negative mentality but not do anything positive. Like you know, you doing your podcasts, you absolutely put everything, you put something negative, positive back into a world that is surrounded by a lot of negativity at the moment. And that's important, I think, to sort of like to surround yourself with people who are, who are realistic about the publishing world and the world around us, but are also very intentionally positive.

Speaker 1: 28:18

Yeah, it can be so easy and I mean it from experience to get sucked into all these the negativity that may go on in different groups or just you know different encounters and you have. You have to make a really conscious effort to move yourself away from that and focus on, focus on the things you need to do and also the positive side, yeah, but don't get me wrong I love a bit of negativity, I love to wallow.

Speaker 1: 28:46

But you know what, Sometimes you can use it. Sometimes you use it as like it's a bit of a boost. It's like it's an injection of adrenaline. It's like, okay, this is what I need to do. It can show you where you need to probably pivot. Yes, absolutely to do.

Speaker 2: 29:00

It could show you where you need to probably pivot yes, absolutely in your life. Absolutely. I mean I'm not saying you don't be negative, I mean good luck to me. I love a bit of negativity, but I also know that the world isn't always like that. And, yeah, there is good bits of publishing, there is good bits of the world and um, and I don't want to spend my life feeling unhappy yeah, I agree with you right.

Speaker 1: 29:27

So, dorothy, did you ever hit the wall when writing Beach Hut 512, and how did you get past it if you did?

Speaker 2: 29:36

well, this is something I probably shouldn't confess. I left it so late that when I hit the wall I was like, don't care, you've got to keep going. So I had no time. I was like, yeah, I can't do this.

Speaker 1: 29:56

Yeah, you can, you're going to have to this is how you got past the wall by just like shit the deadline's tomorrow I need to write the book.

Speaker 2: 30:06

That's not necessarily tomorrow but, yeah, the deadline's here. You've got no more time, you know. You know how you've spent time walking around, going oh yes, walking on the beach, and I'm gonna have a good time in my life and you know I'm gonna sit here, I'll go scroll from social media and I'm gonna write a couple of emails and I'm going to watch telly. You remember that?

Speaker 1: 30:29

yeah, now you're paying for it it's such a parent thing I can do like my mum. I'm having a flashback to being like 18. All that time you spent watching east, it could have been spent doing your homework. Yeah, that's how I've lived my whole life actually. So, dorothy, what are you working on next?

Speaker 2: 30:58

I'm working on relaxing. Yeah you should. My next book doesn't have to be in for another six. Yeah you should. The next book doesn't have to be in for another six, seven, eight months. And if you believe that, you'll believe anything, which?

Speaker 1: 31:11

is what I was going to ask. Are you able to do that? Because I've been in this, because you know, I was off for a few weeks, like recovering from my procedure, and then I was getting like like and I knew I had to rest, so there's no point, you know, forcing myself in front of a computer, in front of my laptop, but I'm getting like antsy and also I don't have nothing technically to deliver because I'm waiting for edits. I'm not even writing anything new until September, really. So I have space, but I'm like antsy, like I feel like I need to be doing something. Yeah, how easy is it for you to rest in between books and projects?

Speaker 2: 31:49

it's not at all. I don't, I don't, I literally don't. You know, as I said, if you believe in me, I'm gonna relax. Good luck. You, I don't, I don't. I must be very good, very good at making things up. Maybe you, you are, maybe you are.

Speaker 2: 32:03

No, I am. I've got a couple of things that I can't tell you about which I'm working on, and I was actually thinking maybe I should write a Christmas story. It's a bit late in the year now to write a Christmas story, but I might write a Christmas story because you know why not? Exactly, I quite like Christmas films and and books, me too. I do love a Christmas movie and I do like a Christmas book, so I might write one well, I watched so many like during my period of recovery.

Speaker 1: 32:33

I just basically watched movies 24 because that's all my brain could take and. I was like I can write a rom-com I love those movies with four things.

Speaker 2: 32:41

Yes.

Speaker 1: 32:44

I could do that. It's the same plot.

Speaker 2: 32:47

I could do it, but you know what you know what, indeed, it might look like.

Speaker 1: 32:52

It's the same plot, but it's not oh no, it's not a pumpkin, it's an apple orchid but it's so interested and it's so involved and you have to get certain things just right.

Speaker 2: 33:07

I think this is what, way back when, people used to think it was really easy to write Mills and Boons, oh, I can do Mills and Boons. And then you get the guidelines from it. And it is so difficult. You have to stick to so much stuff, you have to hit so many certain milestones and so many certain things, and it's actually not as easy as we think it is.

Speaker 1: 33:29

It's just how I feel about commercial fiction in general, though, that there's this misconception that, out of anything you know, in comparison to literary, it's just easy. You just sit down over over the weekend, you knock out 80, 000, 100 000 words of this thriller or this romance and bobs your uncle you're done, but it's not it's not, and then you know if you try and pretend it is.

Speaker 2: 33:52

But you know and most of the time your editor will disabuse you of anything like that that you know they'll make you realize that no, it's not that easy and it's not that simple to knock things out, because everything I mean in plot driven books like, um, commercial popular fiction, is it really is so easy to see where readers will go. Well, that doesn't make sense or that wouldn't happen. And you have to. You have to kind of try and work out all eventualities. Really, you have to work out what will work and what won't work. It's really difficult, it's absolutely difficult.

Speaker 1: 34:36

It's not easy, okay. So what message or feeling do you hope readers take away from Beach Hut?

Speaker 2: 34:42

512? Well, I think, yeah, nothing is what it looks like. You know, you could be walking past a beach hut. There could be a dead body in there, not really. That's not really the message. I don't know.

Speaker 1: 35:02

That's not the message.

Speaker 2: 35:02

That's not really the message. I don't know.

Speaker 2: 35:04

I think, that's a feeling. I hope their booshes are amused. I should say I suppose I hope they're entertained. I hope they find it, you know, funny and entertaining and a bit scary as well, because there are little bits of it that are quite scary. Um, but I don't know, maybe recognize something about the group chats, because there's a whole group chat thread through throughout the the book. Um, you know the whatsapp groups and the group chats that you have for your neighborhood. Um, you've recognized some of the people on there. I just hope, I hope people enjoy it.

Speaker 1: 35:42

That's what I think, that's what I want people to enjoy and finally, to end our coffee break, which book, film show or video game do you recommend? Doesn't need to be all of them, you could just pick like one oh no, this is a difficult one.

Speaker 2: 35:56

Um, I'm just reading at the moment I'm reading what Happens in the Dark by Keir Abdullah, so I would recommend picking that up absolutely.

Speaker 1: 36:14

Great, and she was on our coffee break last week, so, oh cool, that was good.

Speaker 2: 36:20

So that just leaves me to say, dorothy Coombs, and thank you very much for joining me for the conversation, coffee break oh, thank you so much for asking me for a coffee break and I hope you will join me on the Dorothy edit when your next book comes out absolutely, I accept straight away.

Speaker 1: 36:37

Great, that's what I was waiting.

Speaker 2: 36:39

I've been waiting for a moment to ask you because I was thinking so I want it to be a new book, so we can talk about your new book we will, we will, and that's it for this coffee break.

Speaker 1: 36:50

Thank you so much for joining me. Starting from season four, we will be bringing you regular coffee breaks 30 minute episodes perfect for a quick chat with your favorite authors about their latest books. And here's's the fun part. Next season, we are answering your questions. If there's something you've always wanted to ask an author, send it in Email, your question to theconversation at nadiemathesoncom, and we might just answer it in a future episode with a special shout out to you. Of course, until next time, keep reading, keep, keep listening, and I'll see you soon for another coffee break. Oh and before I forget, don't forget to subscribe, follow, like, review and share this episode with your friends. Your support keeps the podcast growing and if you head down to the show notes, you can also support the podcast by buying us a cup of coffee. The links are in the show notes.