Writing Life with Hayley Scrivenor
Australian crime author and Hardcopy alumni Hayley Scrivenor sat down recently to chat to MARION staff member Natasha Seymour about her second novel, Girl Falling.
Hayley Scrivenor is a former Director of Wollongong Writers Festival. Originally from a small country town, Hayley now lives and writes on Dharawal country and has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Wollongong on the south coast of New South Wales. Her debut novel, Dirt Town, was a number-one bestseller and won multiple awards, including the ABIA General Fiction Book of the Year 2023. Girl Falling is her second novel.
Photo credit: Emma Leigh Elder-Meldrum
N: Thanks so much for making the time to talk to us.
H: I love MARION! I did the Hardcopy program in 2018, which was major for me. It was a real galvanising of my work, and what I wanted to do with it, and my real first insight into what the industry was like. I learned just how difficult it is to get published. As much as it's intimidating to hear all the steps and how hard it is, it's good too, because I think some part of me went, game on!
N: Was that around the time you were doing your PhD?
H: I submitted my PhD — a draft of Dirt Town — at the end of 2021 and that was the book that I went to Hardcopy with. It fired me up to keep developing it.
N: Did the PhD give you that discipline, to go, now I've got this deadline, so I'm just going to get it onto the page?
H: I had such crippling self-doubt to be honest, which hardly makes me unique. But I would have stopped many times if it weren't for that external structure, and also having a place to hang out that wasn't the novel. I would get stuck, and I would read other people's books and think about the craft, and then I'd be able to come back. It was a perfect structure for me. I loved my PhD. I would do it again in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, they won't let you do that!
N: You could almost do it yourself, you’d just need some kind of external pressure.
H: Well, a publishing contract works pretty well too! It's funny because Dirt Town took six years, and Girl Falling took three years, because that was the time specified in the contract. I always take the time that's available, and three years is pretty generous for a crime novelist. Often there's pressure to do a book in a year, but I knew that I wasn't going to be able to go from six to one. But three felt doable. I thought, I'll look at 50% less cats on Instagram, and maybe I'll get there faster.
N: And you took three years off to write Girl Falling?
H: I was teaching at the University of Wollongong, and I was expecting to keep doing that and cobble together a mishmash of work in that way that writers do. But then my mum was really sick around the time I submitted Dirt Town, so I gave up all my teaching work. And then Mum got better, and I had the opportunity to dedicate pretty much all my time to Girl Falling. It's pretty great to be able to write in that way. I love a big project.
N: Have you found the experience very different this time around?
H: It's so scary when you're writing your first book, because you're writing into this void. I started writing Girl Falling before Dirt Town came out. And [Dirt Town] exploded in a way I wasn't really expecting at all — I would never have believed you if you had told me that it was going to sell overseas and be translated and win awards, it was a bit insane. So, luckily, I started Girl Falling without that external pressure and I was already locked into a story that I really wanted to tell. I wasn't going, Maybe I need to do Dirt Town 2, because that just wasn't an option. The book I was writing was so very different in many ways, and I'm proud of that.
I also really enjoyed the process a lot more the second time around. Both writing the book and then releasing it and doing events. When I published my first book, I thought that I would do something to blow up the whole process. I believed I had some kind of fatal flaw that would ruin everything. I think a lot of emerging writers feel this way. And when your first novel comes out, you feel like a raw nerve, and everything feels very meaningful, and like it could all go away. When your book is promoted [like mine was], it feels like it’s everywhere. As much as that's a wonderful and amazing thing, it also takes a lot of mental real estate to be exposed in that way.
And now I'm much more aware of me as a person and the book as its own thing. My job is to do everything I can for the book, and then when the book is out, it's not me anymore. And with your debut book, your story and who you are is interesting to people. That's part of how they market debut books. But now, I have a greater sense of me, a person who shows up for the thing I love and does the work, but the book isn't me anymore. I'm very actively working on keeping those things separate. It's good for people to have a core of self that exists outside of what they do. To finish a book, you have to work on going, Okay, this is the thing that I'm creating, and I'm doing my best. But also, this is not my only chance to tell a story. I think that's the scariest thing about your debut book. You're really convinced that this is it. You think, I have to put everything in this book. And if people misunderstand it, then they misunderstand me. With the support of my publisher, and the fact that I love doing this work, I have an even chance at a long career, so I remind myself to enjoy it and try to create a bit of that distance.
N: That’s the nice thing about having the two novels under your belt, because you have the confidence that a debut writer might not have, and that really only comes with time.
H: I didn’t think I would finish Dirt Town, and I've learned that feeling that way doesn't actually mean anything. It's not that I will finish every book I start or that every book I write will be a success, but I have had that experience of thinking, This book is doomed from the beginning and finishing it anyway, and then having the wonderful surprise of it being a success. So, I’ve learned that my emotional response is not the most reliable place to get information. The bit that I can control is what I’m writing about, and writing about it in a way that only I can. Only I have my take on the world, and that's really all you have to offer as a novelist. So, you learn: if this interests me enough that I'm willing to sit here for hours and hours and weeks and days and years on end, maybe at the other end there'll be someone who will also find it interesting.
N: You have to trust that it will find its audience.
H: Yes. And the thing about having a wonderful publisher is that the job of connecting to readers is much less on my shoulders. It's interesting to see how the same object, the same words on paper, becomes something different depending on what the publisher thinks the market will respond to. I don't actually have that much control over that end of it. I'm lucky that my publisher is happy to put the work in and share it with people, because that means I can focus on writing. No matter what kind of publishing experience you have, it’s important to remind yourself: this is one book in my career. The beautiful thing about writing is that we can control the means of production. You can do a lot on the strength of your conviction. And I do think that sheer bloody-mindedness is the best thing for any writer to have.
The flip side of that is that writing is the most joyful thing I can imagine doing. If I woke up tomorrow and I didn't get to do this anymore, it would excavate the meaning out of my life. And meeting other writers has been the best. I felt a bit like I'd been going to the wrong parties all my life. Then, finally, you walk into the right room and your people are in that room. And that's what entering the writing community felt like.
N: Writing is very solitary, and you need to go to a space that's just you and you alone with the work. But it can be incredible because it connects you with an amazing community of people. Have you been able to find a bit of a balance?
H: Oh, absolutely. There are longer blocks of solitary time now, because I’m less in need of that simple encouragement you need at the beginning. I got involved volunteering for a local writer’s festival, and had a lot of writer friends that really made me feel like we we're all doing this thing, and there's nothing wrong with me. It's a valid thing to want [to be a writer].
Even now that I don't need as much affirmation, talking about my work is so important, as is having other people read my work. I'll work on a draft for a long time, but I call it a draft only when I finish it and I hand it to someone and get their take on it. And then I fold that into my understanding of the book, and I do that many times before it ever gets to my publisher. I'm really lucky to have people who are smart that I trust with my work. But they're also the people that I complain to and drink too much red wine with and make me happy that I chose this path. They're the best bit. One of the really wonderful pleasures has been meeting the crime community, because I didn't know any other crime writers while I was writing [Dirt Town], and then I got an invite to this party and I remember thinking, You guys are fun. You've never met a more lovely and well-adjusted group of people in your entire life.
N: Are there any physical spaces you go to?
H: My favourite crime writing festival in Australia is BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival, which feels like an extended weekend held entirely for my benefit. I've been going to that since before Dirt Town came out. It's a real fixture on my calendar. But we crime writers tend to find each other at festivals. I think Australian writers in general are a generous bunch. Someone will be about to have a book come out, and someone will introduce them to everyone and make sure that they're being folded into the community.
N: Your writing is very accomplished in a literary sense. But Girl Falling and Dirt Town reached an audience beyond readers of literary fiction. Is that something that you thought about, or was it a happy accident?
H: It's interesting, because I certainly didn't think that what I was writing about was appealing. I didn't understand structure or plot at all when I began. I was writing from a very urgent, emotional place with my first book. When I write, I’m genuinely trying to answer a question that I don't know the answer to. I start quite selfishly, and I'm like: What do I need to get out of this book? What am I trying to understand?
Often I focus too much on the line, and then by the three-quarter mark I realise that I have to honour the really high structural requirements of crime. It's an incredibly satisfying and muscular form. There are certain promises that you make to the reader that you have to keep. So there comes a point where my mind switches, and I start considering the reader first and foremost. And that's what I'm most proud of in my books. I don't just stay in that emotional impulse, but I'm also intrigued by and want to do the work of structure. I would love to get better at doing that a bit earlier, so there's a bit less wandering through the wilderness.
I'm working on that with my third book. I'm learning more about what the reader expects, and thinking about how I can build that in earlier, while still exploring that urgent emotional territory. I can't imagine sitting down and writing a book if I don't have skin in the game. But I think you owe the reader an experience that is pleasurable and that leads them through the book. I start from this quite confusing and messy place, but I want to get to a place where it feels simple.
N: I love Finn and Magdu’s relationship, and the way that you depict queer relationships in Girl Falling. Do you think you could tell me a bit about that?
H: I really did want to actively write about queerness. Dirt Town took aspects of my life as a kid and was set in a fictional version of the place I grew up. But Girl Falling felt like it was covering emotional territory that felt quite personal. Queerness is baked into Dirt Town as well, but Finn’s personal identity, as a bisexual woman, is closer to me than any character I've written before. It was satisfying to feel like I got down just a few things that felt true to me. And that comes back to: Why am I telling this story? It makes sense to me that there would be queer characters in my fiction, because there are queer characters in my life, including myself. It felt important to do and it felt a little scary to do. Their love story was fun to write and something that I wanted to explore. It was satisfying but also quite exposing, writing sex scenes! I still blush to think of my mum reading them.
N: You had a few short stories published before Dirt Town came out. Did you sharpen your pen with short-story writing, and is that something that you would recommend to early career writers?
H: I wrote a few short stories, to build up my bio at the beginning: a process which I found incredibly hard and painful, because I'm not a short-story writer. I hate conciseness. I love a novel. I had a hunch that I was actually a long-form writer, at least I hoped so. But I did short stories because it seemed like the done thing. I'm glad that I did that work and that I learned about short stories. But I felt like I was burning through material that I would rather write a novel about. So, if it's not your form, my advice would be: don't panic! Because I don't think I'll ever write a short story again. My hunch about myself was correct. I belong in the novel form.
N: You’ve said that you chose to write Girl Falling in first person for the sense of claustrophobia and interiority it lent the story. Was this a conscious decision or something that unfolded as you were writing?
H: It was very much part of the origin story of this book. I did my PhD on point of view, and I was looking at stories where the point of telling was in some way tied to what the story was about. That's my jam, that's where it's at for me. I love when the way the story is being told and some essential element of the story seem to reinforce each other. At the heart of Girl Falling is the experience of questioning your own take on events, or going through a difficult experience and wondering: maybe I'm wrong. It centres around this question of: How do I know that I'm not the — air quotes — “crazy one”, because this thing has happened and I can't understand why. The way to tell that story is in the first person, because then the reader is also not sure if your story is the right story.
I was interested in writing about that destabilising place where you're not sure. Take Magdu, for example. She's figured out she has to make her own story because she hasn't been in an environment where it's safe to be herself. All the characters [in Girl Falling] are somewhere on that spectrum. For Daphne, it's very important that she appears to people in a certain way. And Finn tends towards shame and guilt. She wants a story she can live with, which becomes a very dangerous impulse. That’s why telling that story in that way was so important. You don't start out knowing all of it, but you take a break at certain points and look back and realise how those things are strengthening each other.
N: What do you think are some of the barriers that new and emerging writers face?
H: The biggest barrier I experienced was the sense that I didn't deserve to be doing this, or I wasn't talented enough to do it. And the next one was time. I don’t have kids, but there were still times when I could only write for 10 minutes a day because of the realities of life and earning a living. I also really struggled just sitting there, I found it hard to focus and get work done even when I did have the time. But what Girl Falling taught me is that I need to try and steer clear of being too self-critical when I’m writing.
George Saunders says that every strength has a corresponding weakness, and vice versa. So, for example, if you’re too harsh on yourself, the corresponding strength might be that you are good at editing and cutting your own writing, and that can come in handy. Or, if your strength is that you're willing to put in the time, you might struggle to know when to stop. As a beginner writer, this idea of the fatal flaw really hung over me. It's useful in plot, but it's not useful in the writer's life, right? Whatever your situation, I think it’s important to find a way to be compassionate to yourself.
N: Lastly, you’ve said before that a novel becomes a vessel that expands to fit everything it needs. I wanted you to elaborate on that a bit, because I thought it was beautiful.
H: A novel can hold a lot of stuff, and it can be a place to explore lots of things and to connect things. But I would also amend that slightly and say it also shrinks to the exact size that it needs to be for the reader. So, I think you go in and you let it be expansive, and you stuff everything in: that friendship breakup, the crush in high school that didn't end well, the way a certain room smelled, you just keep stuffing it in, but at a certain point you stand back and you take away the things that are not what the reader needs to experience the story. And of course, that's vague and hard to know, and that's why being a novelist is hard. The novel is both expansive, but at the end, perfectly formed, and nothing should be there that doesn’t need to be there.
N: That's really good advice. Thank you so much, Hayley.
Why would my best friend want to destroy my life?
Finn and her best friend, Daphne, have grown up together in the Blue Mountains. Bonded by both having lost a younger sister to suicide, they've always had a close - sometimes too close - friendship. Now in their twenties, their lives have finally started to diverge: Daphne is at university and Finn is working in the Mountains, as well as falling in love with a beautiful newcomer called Magdu.
Unused to sharing Finn, Daphne starts to act up in ways that will allow her to maintain the control over her best friend she's always relished. Then, one fateful day, Finn, Daphne and Magdu all go rock-climbing - and Magdu falls to her death. Is it suicide, or a terrible accident - or something more sinister?
Bold, dramatic and utterly compelling, Girl Falling forces us to confront the stories we tell ourselves about the people we love. Displaying all of Hayley Scrivenor's razor-sharp skills for character, landscape and narrative, this is a breathtaking read.
Girl Falling is out now with Pan Macmillan Australia
Hayley Scrivenor is the author of Dirt Town, which was published internationally in 2022 (published as Dirt Creek in the U.S., where it was a USA TODAY bestseller) and quickly became a #1 Australian bestseller. The novel has been shortlisted for multiple national and international awards and translated into several languages. In 2023, Dirt Town won the ILP John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger, the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ Mystery and the ABIA for General Fiction Book of the Year. Her second novel, Girl Falling, was released in Australia in August of 2024.
Hayley has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Wollongong and lives on Dharawal country, on the east coast of Australia.
Natasha Seymour is the Managing Editor of Overland, Australia’s oldest radical literary journal. She was previously Development Manager at MARION and has worked across the literary and publishing sectors in Australia for many years, holding diverse roles in editorial, communications, events management, and publicity. A passionate reader and advocate for Australian books and writing, she holds a Master of Writing, Editing and Publishing from the University of Melbourne and a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) from the Australian National University.
