Behind The Spine

“What I trust is if my stories are not so much plot driven but character driven, then the possibilities are endless”.

Crime is a genre we all know and love. But what are the perfect ingredients for crafting a crime story that keeps you coming back for more - that stokes the desire to return for a whole series of novels?

Well, if you want the recipe, look no further than Simon Mason. He’s the author of ‘A Killing in November’ and ‘The Broken Afternoon’, two novels in the DI Wilkins series - an incredible universe he’s begun to unleash on the world. In this episode we find out why Simon always thinks of character first, before plot - and we discover why his novels have been labelled “Morse for the 2020s”.

In this episode, you will learn:

1. Why you should search for opportunities for dramatic conflict when first drawing your cast of characters.

Find out more about Simon here.

Your host is inkjockey founder Mark Heywood.

Behind The Spine is an inkjockey production, and the audio accompaniment to The Writing Salon. Sign up to the newsletter here.

You can buy copies of our anthology series here. 

You can view the full transcript here.

Connect with the show:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthespinepodcast/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BehindTheSpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BehindTheSpine

Website: www.behindthespine.co.uk

“Conflict isn’t just between people, it’s within us. We all have inherent contradictions within us. That is the way we’re built.”

Feuds, power struggles, tensions and conflict - the workplace can so easily become a hotbed of hostility. Toxic work cultures are frighteningly common - but why? And what can we do about it?

Gabriella Braun gets to the very root of this problem in her non-fiction novel All That We Are: uncovering the hidden truths behind our behaviour at work - an essential piece of reading that should be mandatory for everyone. In this episode, hear phrases like “the concentration camp in my mind” as we discuss the unspoken things that divide us. Find out how we can reflect on our “moments of madness” to create workplaces where we can thrive. And hear the haunting discoveries about Gabriella’s ancestry, spurred on through the writing of this book.

In this episode, you will learn:

1. How to tell a story that hasn’t yet found its headline.

Find out more about Gabriella here.

Your host is inkjockey founder Mark Heywood.

Behind The Spine is an inkjockey production, and the audio accompaniment to The Writing Salon. Sign up to the newsletter here.

You can buy copies of our anthology series here. 

You can view the full transcript here.

Connect with the show:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthespinepodcast/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BehindTheSpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BehindTheSpine

Website: www.behindthespine.co.uk

Series 7 is about to launch, and it’s time to whet your appetite for our most international series to date. Find out what’s coming up, and hear a teaser of our conversation with Gabriella Braun, Director of Working Well, who’ll be kicking the series off by discussing her new book All That We Are: Uncovering the hidden truths behind our behaviour at work. 

Tune in from Wednesday 1st February for the return of Behind The Spine.

Your host is inkjockey founder Mark Heywood.

Behind The Spine is an inkjockey production, and the audio accompaniment to The Writing Salon. Sign up to the newsletter here.

Connect with the show:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthespinepodcast/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BehindTheSpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BehindTheSpine

Website: www.behindthespine.co.uk

Ahead of Series 7 which goes live in February, we share some exciting news from our sister project, The Writing Salon.

Your host is inkjockey founder Mark Heywood.

Behind The Spine is an inkjockey production, and the audio accompaniment to The Writing Salon. Sign up to the newsletter here.

You can buy copies of our anthology series here. 

You can view the full transcript here.

Connect with the show:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthespinepodcast/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BehindTheSpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BehindTheSpine

Website: www.behindthespine.co.uk

“This is an expression of everything I feel, in the midlife women around me, this sort of simmering rage that we’re living with. You’re supposed to be the perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect daughter, the perfect friend. It’s a huge, huge pressure.”

Held to an incredibly high standard by society and squeezed from all sides, women are fed an ideal that is impossible to live up to. And for women of a certain age, there’s the prevailing narrative that they’re “past it…invisible and unfuckable”. 

Refuting this narrative is Fran Littlewood. In her novel Amazing Grace Adams, she rails against the existing stereotypes and expectations placed on women. Grace, who at times feels like a minor character in her own life, ends up fighting back, ripping up the social contract to have her “main character moment.”

In this episode, you will learn:

1. Why authentic characters can lead conflicted and contradictory lives.

Find out more about Fran here.

Your host is inkjockey founder Mark Heywood.

Behind The Spine is an inkjockey production, and the audio accompaniment to The Writing Salon. Sign up to the newsletter here.

You can buy copies of our anthology series here. 

You can view the full transcript here.

Connect with the show:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthespinepodcast/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BehindTheSpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BehindTheSpine

Website: www.behindthespine.co.uk

“Anyone who has spent time in a hospice or sat by the bedside of a dying person knows this…it can be a lot of time to fill. Often weeks on end of sitting around. It’s like hosting a really bad dinner party.”

The dramatisation of death is common to see on page, stage and screen - usually all focused around the dying breaths and final moments. But those moments are fleeting, and for those waiting to die, it can be a long, mundane and even funny experience at times.

Catherine Newman is the author of We All Want Impossible Things, a novel which draws on her own personal experience of waiting by the bedside of her best friend as she approached the end. In the book we get to see the humour and heartache of a 40 year long friendship coming to an end, as Ash cares for her best friend Edi who’s been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. 

In this episode, you will learn:

1. How to draw from real experiences in works of fiction.

Find out more about Catherine here.

Your host is inkjockey founder Mark Heywood.

Behind The Spine is an inkjockey production, and the audio accompaniment to The Writing Salon. Sign up to the newsletter here.

You can buy copies of our anthology series here. 

You can view the full transcript here.

Connect with the show:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthespinepodcast/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BehindTheSpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BehindTheSpine

Website: www.behindthespine.co.uk

“Grief doesn’t experience time in a linear model. You don’t just grow out of grief by dint of the days passing. That’s why Lily doesn’t have a typical arc - that eureka moment at the end”.

Characters won’t always align with your views, or do the things you expect of them. The most authentic and compelling characters are those who lead messy lives and make infuriating decisions - because that’s real.

Susannah Dickey is a Northern Irish writer and the author of Common Decency. In the novel we follow neighbours Lily and Siobhan, whose isolating and messy lives become entwined in a dark way. In this episode Susannah explores their lives, delving into issues of empathy, understanding and the hidden intimacies of modern existence.

In this episode, you will learn:

1. Why it’s our job as writers to create deeply flawed and frustrating characters.

Find out more about Susannah here.

Your host is inkjockey founder Mark Heywood.

Behind The Spine is an inkjockey production, and the audio accompaniment to The Writing Salon. Sign up to the newsletter here.

You can buy copies of our anthology series here. 

You can view the full transcript here.

Connect with the show:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthespinepodcast/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BehindTheSpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BehindTheSpine

Website: www.behindthespine.co.uk

“Novels can open a space in which opposing ideas are valid at the same time. In which reality is considered in a complex way.”

What defines a novel? Can the genre deal in both fiction and fact? It may seem contradictory, but the ability to play with facts in a novel may actually bring the truth behind them into focus more clearly.

Juan Gabriel Vasquez is widely heralded as one of the world’s greatest living novelists. In his new book Retrospective, he charts the barely fictionalised and extraordinary life of the Colombian film director Sergio Cabrera. In this episode Juan tells us about Cabrera’s series of incredible adventures, and he explains why he chose the format of a novel to portray the life of a real person.

In this episode, you will learn:

1. How novels can be a powerful way of portraying facts in a new light.

Find out more about Juan here.

Your host is inkjockey founder Mark Heywood.

Behind The Spine is an inkjockey production, and the audio accompaniment to The Writing Salon. Sign up to the newsletter here.

You can view the full transcript here.

Connect with the show:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthespinepodcast/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BehindTheSpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BehindTheSpine

Website: www.behindthespine.co.uk

“I don’t think people have got enough of a taste of what [VR] can offer to really see where it’s going.”

It’s been billed as the future of technology, poised to transform entertainment, but virtual reality still hasn’t hit the mainstream. The technology is being used in increasingly interesting and sophisticated ways, but just how far is it from becoming a staple in everybody’s home? 

Zillah Watson is a London-based consultant on VR and immersive content. In this episode she explores the knowns and unknowns of virtual reality’s future, she discusses the metaverse and how it’s set to reshape everything from entertainment to journalism, and she talks about the much-needed democratisation of VR.

In this episode, you will learn:

1. How and when you should use virtual reality to tell a story.

Find out more about Zillah here.

Your host is inkjockey founder Mark Heywood.

Behind The Spine is an inkjockey production, and the audio accompaniment to The Writing Salon. Sign up to the newsletter here.

You can view the full transcript here.

Connect with the show:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthespinepodcast/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BehindTheSpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BehindTheSpine

Website: www.behindthespine.co.uk

“There is strange conspiracy of silence around romantic comedies”

Despite the genre’s huge share of the market, there’s a notion that romantic comedy is without substance and not worthy of critical acclaim. Today’s guest is here to explain why that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Emma Hughes is the author of No Such Thing As Perfect, a romantic comedy about Laura Morrison, and her experience trialling a new, ground-breaking dating service called Cupid, that promises to find her perfect match. But is there really a formula to finding love?

In this episode, you will learn:

1. To fight the stigma surrounding romantic comedies - and why the genre is capable of exploring deep and complex issues.

Find out more about Emma here.

Your host is inkjockey founder Mark Heywood.

Behind The Spine is an inkjockey production, and the audio accompaniment to The Writing Salon. Sign up to the newsletter here.

You can view the full transcript here.

Connect with the show:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthespinepodcast/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BehindTheSpine

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BehindTheSpine

Website: www.behindthespine.co.uk