Holly Seddon is joining us today to talk about her novel, 59 Minutes. Here’s the publisher’s description:
uclear missile threat to South England. 59 minutes until impact. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a test.
Carrie is a young mother desperate to reunite with her daughter. Frankie, newly pregnant, faces a romantic vacation that takes a terrifying turn. Then there’s the enigmatic older woman determined to protect her teenage daughter, Bunny, no matter what.
Across South England, these three women must navigate survival amidst chaos when the country receives a nuclear bomb alert. With only 59 minutes before mass destruction, will they make it to their loved ones in time?
What’s Holly’s favorite bit?
I plan my novels. Believe me, I really plan my novels. I create detailed spreadsheets and extended outlines, I research until I have to force myself to stop, I try to unravel every potential plot knot before it even emerges. Then I write about half of a first draft, work out what is and isn’t working, stop, and then plan AGAIN.
More spreadsheets, more extended outlines, more research. I am, if it’s not abundantly clear, a plotter and not a ‘pantser’.
Despite this, my favorite bits always come about from characters and moments that are unplanned. Sometimes, they emerge in ways that solve plot corners I’ve painted myself into, or they elevate one of my tightly planned scenes. Sometimes though, they turn up unexpectedly and turn everything on its head. And always for the better.
There’s a weird kind of alchemy involved here, and I don’t like to look to closely at it in case it short circuits the magic. But there are a handful of such moments that emerged while I was writing 59 MINUTES. I have to tread very carefully so that I don’t give away any spoilers, and they’re spoilers because – even though these were unplanned appearances or moments – they all became absolutely fundamental. Let me tell you about two of them.
The first is a girl. She, like almost everyone in 59 MINUTES, is desperately trying to get to her family before nuclear missiles strike and wipe London off the map. When one of my protagonists, Carrie, encounters this girl in the dark space of a London Underground tunnel, she is faced with a choice. If Carrie slows to help her, she loses precious time that she needs to reach her own family so they can spend their last minutes together. But if she doesn’t help, what kind of person does that make her? How can she live with herself, even if that life has under an hour left to run? What would you do?
The second is a truckful of men. These are loud men, men with delusions of grandeur, men who have been prepping for catastrophe, for total collapse all their lives. These are men trussed up like military heroes but without a heroic bone in their bodies. These are men who don’t accept no. In my plans, these men were a passing irritation, a brief plot point. But they roared onto the page with their mud-splattered truck and they refused to leave until they had done a lot of damage.
These men were unplanned, but they felt so real because… I know these men. We all probably know variations of these men. And my character Frankie knows them, and as soon as she encounters them, she knows getting away from them is even more important than seeking shelter.
In writing and in life, it’s impossible to foresee everything that is coming our way. And in both writing and life, I have learned that opening the door to unexpected opportunities, unanticipated faces and moments, makes everything richer.
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BIO:
Holly Seddon is the author of several thrillers, including the international bestseller Try Not to Breathe, The Hit List, and 59 Minutes. After growing up in the English countryside obsessed with music and books, Holly worked in London as a journalist and editor. After several years in Amsterdam, she now lives in Kent with her family and writes full time. Find out more at HollySeddon.com.
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