Sophie Hannah
Sophie Hannah
Sophie Hannahis a British poet and novelist. From 1997 to 1999 she was Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge and between 1999 and 2001 a junior research fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. She lives with her husband and two children in Cambridge...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPoet
best brilliant goes head ironing mind plots
The brilliant thing about swimming is that, while you're doing it, there's nothing else you could be getting on with, like the ironing or sorting out the children. My mind goes into free-float mode; some of the best ideas for plots come into my head while I'm ploughing up and down the pool.
want-something ambitious plot
Most crime fiction plots are not ambitious enough for me. I want something really labyrinthine with clues and puzzles that will reward careful attention.
Just because someone has stylistic limitations doesn't necessarily make them a worse writer.
books carry emerging few literary mystery novel obviously proper snobby start
I'm snobby about books that aren't crime fiction: if I start reading a literary novel and there's no mystery emerging in the first few pages, I'm like, 'Gah, this obviously isn't a proper book. Why would I want to carry on reading it?'
actual exactly instead inventing replicate trying
Try as I might, Agatha Christie is unique. The actual writing style can't be exactly the same, so instead of trying to replicate it exactly, the way I got around it was by inventing a new narrator.
committed crimes effect express people somebody terrible
The crimes in my books are committed by people who can't keep it together any more. They do something to express their own pain, and that has a terrible effect on somebody else.
bad depended entertain life performance somebody trying upsetting
With me, even if my life depended on it, I wouldn't be able to cry. Not with somebody there. Because even if I'm talking about bad and upsetting things, if there is somebody else in the room, I am trying to entertain them. If there is somebody there, I am in performance mode. I can only cry if I am on my own.
hour quarters west
In West Yorkshire, I'd have to drive three quarters of an hour to go shopping.
chapter chapters crime information plant revelation three
In a crime novel, if you are going to have a big revelation in chapter 30, you have to plant the information in chapters three and 11.
ask brilliant name people pleasure
If you ask people if they enjoy crime novels, they'll say, 'Oh, my guilty pleasure is...' then name a really brilliant crime writer.
favourite french lots next
I've got lots of favourite authors, but I would say Nicci French because I look more forward to reading her next new book than any other author.
I'm not cut out to lug babies around!
hooked house love time
I love the house we're in, but at the same time, I'm hooked on the romance of house-hunting.
poetry verses wrote
All through childhood, I wrote verses and mysteries. There is, for me, one connection: structure. My poetry is metrical, rhyming.