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Choc Lit
Flavour of the Month Award
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Give your feedback, review our books. Allocate a Choc Lit heart rating. Tell us about any books you’d like to see featured here. Describe the hero in terms of chocolate and you could win our Flavour of the Month Award.
Get writing!
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Choc Lit Interviews Sue Moorcroft
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Choc Lit
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Where did you find the inspiration for your novel, Starting Over?
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Sue Moorcroft
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Inspiration’s a funny name for what happens when a story’s brewing. It’s more like a daydream that takes me over. I was watching the 1983 film of The Pirates of Penzance and was mesmerised by the Pirate King played by an extremely fit Kevin Kline. The central male character, Ratty (Miles Arnott-Rattenbury), evolved as I watched.
Then Tess just began to come to me. Very early on it was obvious that she was a flawed heroine and that her overriding character trait of not facing up to things would drive the book.
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Choc Lit
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What was particularly challenging about writing this story?
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Sue
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Getting it right.
It took a while for the whole book to emerge. I thought I had a first draft but then I realised that Olly, Tess’s ex-fiancé, needed to come on stage to allow Tess to become fully rounded. He was part of her past and was having an influence on her present so leaving him in the wings, as I had, didn’t make sense.
I didn’t mind setting about the story again as I love reworking a draft, making it better. And it’s what first drafts are for! To go up blind alleys and uge characters to reveal themselves. (And the second draft and third …)
However, bringing Olly on stage raised its own problems. For a while, I thought he was worse than he was. An archetypal villain. Eventually, I realised that he was a bit weak and self-centred rather than a bad lad. He could be quite funny and even laugh at himself. In the type of fiction I write, a goodie isn’t all good and a baddie isn’t all bad – it’s getting the shades of grey right that’s the trick.
When I really thought I’d smoothed and honed everything I took another look at the first chapter and saw it still needed work. So I worked upon it. And, finally … success!
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Choc Lit
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What do you love about your Tess and Miles (Ratty)?
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Sue
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I’ve been in love with Ratty ever since he first moved into my head. He’s a bit impatient but he’s kind. (He tries to hide that, sometimes, but he is!) I like the way he goes about things because it allowed me to spring a couple of surprises on the reader. To quote his mother, Elisabeth, instead of negotiating his way to what he wants, he navigates. It gives him a touch of mystery.
Tess could be exasperating if I didn’t realise that most of us are like her to some degree. We pick our way through life, discarding or avoiding difficult stuff. I really enjoyed building her inner strength until she could face up to something really difficult to achieve her goal. Of course, Tess being Tess, it didn’t go right first time … She makes me smile.
As a couple, Tess and Ratty are appealing just because they’re a bit of an unlikely pairing. Tess has always gone for smooth city types, before. Ratty has tended towards women who aren’t such hard work! And maybe he’s intrigued because she doesn’t seem interested in him? But the success of Tess and Ratty lies in their liking one another.
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Choc Lit
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How would you describe Miles in terms of chocolate?
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Sue
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Miles is probably a Lion Bar! Really yummy but pretty spiky, many layers and facets to him. He can also snarl when he needs to...
On the website, several readers have suggested he should be dark chocolate and I can see where they’re coming from. I happen to like dark chocolate very much! Maybe there should be a dark chocolate Lion Bar.
You know those posh boxes of Belgian or Swiss chocolate that make such great gifts? That’s what he’s not. No, he’s definitely made by Cadbury or Nestlé: loads of substance and no frills. And very, very tasty …
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