0:00:04 > 0:00:05Two writers, one book.
0:00:05 > 0:00:08A novel not in prose but in free verse.
0:00:08 > 0:00:11We Come Apart was produced by Sarah Crossan and Brian Conaghan.
0:00:11 > 0:00:13Writing separately and sending each other the chapters
0:00:13 > 0:00:15using social media.
0:00:15 > 0:00:19It's probably the first novel created on Whatsapp.
0:00:19 > 0:00:21They've both won awards for writing for young readers and this
0:00:21 > 0:00:26is a story about two youngsters, Jess and Nicu, who meet
0:00:26 > 0:00:30by chance when they are both in different kinds of trouble.
0:00:30 > 0:00:32She's from a violent home, he's a Romanian immigrant
0:00:32 > 0:00:34who is the target of abuse in the streets here,
0:00:34 > 0:00:41but who is also facing the threat of an arranged marriage back home.
0:00:41 > 0:00:44They find common cause when their secret lives come together.
0:00:44 > 0:00:54Welcome.
0:01:01 > 0:01:04Sarah, how did this come about?
0:01:04 > 0:01:10I was writing another book at the time and I had met Brian once.
0:01:10 > 0:01:13We'd met when we were both short listed for the Carnegie medal,
0:01:13 > 0:01:16and he sent me a direct message on Twitter and said he was thinking
0:01:16 > 0:01:19about writing a verse novel which I thought was my thing.
0:01:19 > 0:01:20I thought, how dare you?
0:01:20 > 0:01:23And then he asked if I wanted to collaborate on a project with him.
0:01:23 > 0:01:25And it was as simple as that?
0:01:25 > 0:01:28It was as simple as that, and we didn't know each other
0:01:28 > 0:01:30so there was really nothing to lose.
0:01:30 > 0:01:33Let me put this crudely, Brian, did you want a helping hand
0:01:33 > 0:01:35when you thought of writing a verse novel and you knew
0:01:35 > 0:01:36Sarah had done at?
0:01:36 > 0:01:37To put it crudely, yes.
0:01:37 > 0:01:41I had an idea that I wanted to write a verse novel.
0:01:41 > 0:01:44And I probably didn't have the confidence
0:01:44 > 0:01:46to attack it individually.
0:01:46 > 0:01:49Had you written in free verse at all?
0:01:49 > 0:01:51Written any poetry?
0:01:51 > 0:01:57I had, as an aspiring writer I had written a lot of bad poetry.
0:01:57 > 0:02:00But in the novel form I hadn't.
0:02:00 > 0:02:04And when you started, as I said at the beginning,
0:02:04 > 0:02:07you used Whatsapp to communicate, the first Whatsapp novel.
0:02:07 > 0:02:10How long did it take you to put this together?
0:02:10 > 0:02:13Because it's a reasonably substantial book.
0:02:13 > 0:02:15The first draft took about five or six weeks.
0:02:15 > 0:02:16That's quite quick.
0:02:16 > 0:02:20It's very quick and it began with me still working on an individual
0:02:20 > 0:02:22project and Brian working on an individual project
0:02:22 > 0:02:25and sending a chapter a day, but then it became quite frenzied
0:02:25 > 0:02:27and just the excitement of it and having someone
0:02:27 > 0:02:30read your work so quickly.
0:02:30 > 0:02:33As I'm quite a private writer and I don't have that normally,
0:02:33 > 0:02:37so the first person to get my novel will be my agent and that will be
0:02:37 > 0:02:39after I think the book is completely polished.
0:02:39 > 0:02:40That's quite scary, then?
0:02:40 > 0:02:42It's quite scary, you write something, it takes an hour
0:02:42 > 0:02:45and within 20 minutes somebody else has read it, that was
0:02:45 > 0:02:46completely new for me.
0:02:46 > 0:02:48I didn't have any experience of collaborating with anyone
0:02:48 > 0:02:50so I think this experience, for me personally, I think
0:02:50 > 0:02:54it was a fantastic experience.
0:02:54 > 0:02:57And I think the benefit was that we didn't know each other
0:02:57 > 0:02:59so there was no relationship to destroy, so we could be brutal
0:02:59 > 0:03:01with each other and say that's not good enough.
0:03:01 > 0:03:04And to be clear Brian, it's a story about Jess and Nicu,
0:03:04 > 0:03:07two teenagers who have, in different ways, troubled lives,
0:03:07 > 0:03:11who come together in an atmosphere of some frenzy and difficulty,
0:03:11 > 0:03:13and foreboding, really.
0:03:13 > 0:03:17You wrote the boy's voice, Nicu, and Sarah, you wrote
0:03:17 > 0:03:23the girl's voice, Jess, and that was the way it was
0:03:23 > 0:03:24throughout, you never swapped?
0:03:24 > 0:03:27For the first draft it was the best way to approach it, that
0:03:27 > 0:03:30I would take on the Nicu character and Sarah would take
0:03:30 > 0:03:35on the Jess character.
0:03:35 > 0:03:38But the first edit we took ownership of both characters and basically did
0:03:38 > 0:03:39a line edit ourselves.
0:03:39 > 0:03:41They are both very interesting characters, Jess comes
0:03:41 > 0:03:46from a troubled background and she's got into trouble, Nicu
0:03:46 > 0:03:49is an immigrant from remaining with all that entails,
0:03:49 > 0:03:52almost being shouted at in the street and all the rest
0:03:52 > 0:03:56of it, and there is the threat of him going home.
0:03:56 > 0:03:58So they really going through quite a crisis, both of them.
0:03:58 > 0:04:03Do you think their friendship gets them through it?
0:04:03 > 0:04:05I suppose so.
0:04:05 > 0:04:10I think that their friendship is the only thing they have at the end.
0:04:10 > 0:04:13Jess initially looks like she has a lot in her life,
0:04:13 > 0:04:16she appears to have a family and friends at school but when that
0:04:16 > 0:04:21all starts to unravel and we see really what's going on with Jess
0:04:21 > 0:04:24and Nicu steps up to save her in some ways.
0:04:24 > 0:04:27I don't like the idea of a female character being saved
0:04:27 > 0:04:29by a male character, but she saves him,
0:04:29 > 0:04:31and he he saves her.
0:04:31 > 0:04:33In a way that really nobody else could have done.
0:04:33 > 0:04:36Without going into the details of the ending, which would be
0:04:36 > 0:04:38very unfair to readers, the fears are still there,
0:04:38 > 0:04:41and the horrors are still there at the end, it's not
0:04:41 > 0:04:47as if everything is expunged in some wonderful blaze of light.
0:04:47 > 0:04:50I mean, that's just not realistic, it's not how life works.
0:04:50 > 0:04:54And I think although we wanted the novel to end in a hopeful way it
0:04:54 > 0:04:56still had to be realistic to what the situations were.
0:04:56 > 0:04:59Somebody is not going to come out other family with domestic abuse
0:04:59 > 0:05:01and start skipping along Wood Green high road.
0:05:01 > 0:05:05You didn't want the story wrapped up in a nice pink ribbon at the end.
0:05:05 > 0:05:08It just seemed like the natural way to end the book.
0:05:08 > 0:05:11There is a lot of hope in the end and that was important to us
0:05:11 > 0:05:14that we wanted to create that.
0:05:14 > 0:05:18And in terms of creating a nice happy ending it
0:05:18 > 0:05:20would not have fitted in with the stories and characters.
0:05:20 > 0:05:23What do you think, because this is your first expedition
0:05:23 > 0:05:27into writing in free verse in a novel form, what do
0:05:27 > 0:05:29you think that form brought to these characters?
0:05:29 > 0:05:33What did it allow you to do in terms of giving them a voice?
0:05:33 > 0:05:36I think in the positive language that you've got with the form,
0:05:36 > 0:05:39I think that every word has to mean something, it has to
0:05:40 > 0:05:42have a significance.
0:05:42 > 0:05:45I think especially with these two characters, they don't have a voice
0:05:45 > 0:05:47in their environment, they are marginalised
0:05:47 > 0:05:53in their environment.
0:05:53 > 0:05:55And I think they use this language with each other.
0:05:55 > 0:05:57And we're talking here about street language,
0:05:57 > 0:05:59some of it fairly rough, and of course Nicu's English
0:05:59 > 0:06:07is very characterful in the sense that it is partial?
0:06:07 > 0:06:10I know what it's like to live in a place where you can't speak
0:06:10 > 0:06:16the language and you feel very isolated within that.
0:06:16 > 0:06:19And the language, the tools that you have that you use
0:06:19 > 0:06:21are irrespective of right and wrong, it's all about communication.
0:06:21 > 0:06:23He is not necessarily interested in getting the finer
0:06:24 > 0:06:28details of the language.
0:06:28 > 0:06:30You've found out a lot about these two characters, Sarah,
0:06:30 > 0:06:32by creating them yourselves, separately but together,
0:06:32 > 0:06:33if you follow me.
0:06:33 > 0:06:36You must have discovered a lot about each other as writers as well?
0:06:36 > 0:06:40I suppose so.
0:06:40 > 0:06:42I mean, the process was so interesting because we literally
0:06:42 > 0:06:44didn't have a conversation, it was all through Whatsapp.
0:06:44 > 0:06:48So Brian sent me the first chapter and then I sent him another chapter
0:06:48 > 0:06:51and we didn't have a discussion about where we were going to go
0:06:51 > 0:06:53with the work or what we were going to do.
0:06:53 > 0:06:54Was that deliberate?
0:06:54 > 0:06:57That you didn't want to get into too much discussion,
0:06:57 > 0:06:59you wanted to do your own thing and have it protected anyway?
0:06:59 > 0:07:03I suppose to see how the characters allowed the story to develop rather
0:07:03 > 0:07:06than as having too much input and that made it really exciting.
0:07:06 > 0:07:09So there were moments in the story where there were things that
0:07:09 > 0:07:12I hadn't expected to happen and in my control and way,
0:07:12 > 0:07:14I thought, that's not how the story is supposed to go.
0:07:14 > 0:07:17But I had to go with it because that was Brian's decision.
0:07:17 > 0:07:20The obvious question, you are both very successful in your own rights,
0:07:20 > 0:07:23you are a multi-award-winning author, Sarah, Brian,
0:07:23 > 0:07:26you have just won the Costa children's book award,
0:07:26 > 0:07:28are you going to do this collaboration again?
0:07:28 > 0:07:29It's a dangerous question.
0:07:29 > 0:07:32I think, I mean, it's a question we asked ourselves.
0:07:32 > 0:07:33Have you answered it yet?
0:07:33 > 0:07:37We are very busy at the moment.
0:07:37 > 0:07:41I mean, we have thrown a few ideas around and spoken about it but again
0:07:41 > 0:07:42it's finding the time.
0:07:42 > 0:07:46Well, if you think this has worked, it would be hard not to do
0:07:46 > 0:07:47it again, wouldn't it?
0:07:47 > 0:07:49I think it would just be very different process.
0:07:49 > 0:07:51You might even talk to each other.
0:07:51 > 0:07:55Might even have a conversation, yeah.
0:07:55 > 0:07:58Of course, the thing is, without giving the ending away,
0:07:58 > 0:07:59you could take the story on.
0:07:59 > 0:08:00Have you thought of that?
0:08:00 > 0:08:02Only now.
0:08:02 > 0:08:03Well, there you are.
0:08:03 > 0:08:08We could take the story on that for me personally,
0:08:08 > 0:08:11I don't know how Sarah feels, if I was doing something
0:08:11 > 0:08:13I'd like to move away from those characters.
0:08:13 > 0:08:16I think those characters, for me, have told me as much as they can
0:08:16 > 0:08:19tell me and I'm finished with Jess, I think.
0:08:19 > 0:08:20For the moment, anyway.
0:08:20 > 0:08:21For the moment.
0:08:21 > 0:08:23Sarah Crossan and Brian Conaghan, thank you very much.
0:08:23 > 0:08:24Thank you.
0:08:24 > 0:08:29Thank you.