Candice Fox
I first met Candice at a writer's festival in 2019 and was struck by how generous she was with her experiences as a writer which, of course, is exactly the kind of writer I want to bring to your ears on this podcast. Candice is knowledgeable on the craft of writing, yes, but she also has the best stories. We chatted more about the craft behind her writing but after this, go and have a listen to some of the stories of her very unusual childhood and her experiences, as a writer, interviewing serial killers. If you go to the About page on her website candicefox.org and scroll to the bottom, you'll find a link to her conversation with Richard Fidler which is absolutely fascinating.
In this interview, Candice took me behind the scenes of The Chase. We talked about her drafting and editing processes, how she pitched the idea to her publisher, how she structured the novel with an A and B plot and multiple vignettes, the techniques she uses to make the reader care about the characters, how she goes about creating and maintaining tension, and so much more
This is another hour-long interview. I think we just need to accept that this podcast has hour-long episodes and I'm okay with that. Hope you are too. That's the beauty of podcasts isn't it - you can break it up if you like or just binge the whole thing on a really long walk.
Remember there can be spoilers in this podcast, although we don't reveal any of the big ones in this episode, but if you hate knowing anything about a book before you've read it, you can buy a copy of The Chase in all the usual places.
Listen on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts.
About Candice
Candice Fox’s first novel, Hades, won the Ned Kelly Award for best debut in 2014 from the Australian Crime Writers Association. The sequel, Eden, won the Ned Kelly Award for best crime novel in 2015, making Candice only the second author to win these accolades back to back. Her subsequent novels – Fall, Crimson Lake, Redemption Point and Gone by Midnight – were all shortlisted for the Ned Kelly Award.
In 2015 Candice began collaborating with James Patterson. Their first novel together, Never Never, set in the Australian outback, was a huge bestseller in Australia and went straight to number one on the New York Times bestseller list in the US, and also to the top of the charts in the UK. Their later novels – Fifty Fifty, Liar Liar, Hush Hush and The Inn – have all been massive bestsellers across the world. Not bad for a chick from Bankstown, where Candice was born and bred. To top it all off, Candice has two undergraduate and two postgraduate degrees.
In other words she's the perfect person to teach us one or two things about writing.
Website - https://www.candicefox.org/