fter winning the BPA Pitch Prize in 2019, Ella King signed with literary agent Hellie Ogden, who secured a publishing deal with HarperCollins. There’s not long to wait now; Bad Fruit is out in hardback on 18th August 2022! If you enjoy character-driven thrillers, you’ll love Ella’s debut novel – available for pre-order here.

We asked Ella some questions about the inspiration behind the novel and the steps an author takes leading up to publication day. You can also keep up with her on Twitter and Instagram.

Sarah May describes Bad Fruit as ‘a beautiful collision of mothers and daughters, human darkness and human kindness.’ What is it about the mother-daughter relationship that fascinates you as a writer?

I find motherhood fascinating because I think our society exhibits a cognitive dissonance about motherhood. On the one hand, motherhood has acquired a Madonna status – there’s so much pressure and expectation to be endlessly perfect, giving, patient. Any woman falling short of this is a “bad mum”, and abusive mothers are “monsters”. At the same time, it’s painfully apparent to me through my volunteer work with domestic violence and anti-trafficking charities that this labelling is too simplistic, enabling us to sidestep questions that are very difficult to answer, like why has someone become like this? What are the roots of their destructive behaviour? How do we break cycles of inherited trauma? Bad Fruit is my attempt at exploring these themes and giving space to these questions.

We don’t talk much about everything an author is involved in between signing the deal and celebrating publication. Were there any highlights for you?

That’s such an acute observation – many people are shocked that it can take more than a year from signing the deal to publication but the reason for this is that a novel on the shelves of a book shop is actually the result of a hugely collaborative effort. Many things happen before a book is finally published – edits, covers, marketing, publicity. For me, the highlight has definitely been the edit. With the right editor, like my very own Charlotte Brabbin, it’s such an enjoyable process. Suddenly, there’s another brilliant mind applying itself to your novel, clarifying it, refining it, making it the best it could possibly be. As an author, that’s all I want.

“Many things happen before a book is finally published – edits, covers, marketing, publicity. For me, the highlight has definitely been the edit.”

How about challenges?

HarperFiction offered me a two-book deal, which means they acquired Bad Fruit plus a second novel that I hadn’t written when they signed me. So, I’d say the main challenge during that period was starting to write a second novel while editing your first. I had to adjust to how different writing a second novel feels. You’re under different pressures with your debut – yes, you struggle with imposter syndrome and whether you’ll get an agent, but you rarely struggle with time, you can, like me, take three years to write nine chapters. That’s not the case with your second novel; you’ll have to juggle edits on the first novel, marketing and publicity as well as your general life, so start writing as soon possible after edits to your first novel are finished.

Our team was completely taken by your original pitch for Bad Fruit when you entered the BPA Pitch Prize. Do you have any pitching advice for writers submitting this year?

The starting point has to be the quality of writing – the first 500 words must be immediately gripping, compulsive, beautiful. But the other parts – the cover letter and the synopsis – are also important. The cover letter should include a one-line pitch summarising your novel and why it’s distinctive. Don’t be surprised if this takes you a while. I remember my agent, Hellie Ogden, saying that it takes her a day to come up with this when she sends novels to publishers; it’s supposed to be hard, it’s supposed to take time and thought. Writers often find the synopsis very difficult too; rather than an outline of events, my tip would be to think of it as a summary of how your protagonist has changed during the course of the novel – what are their motivations and desires at the beginning of the novel, what are the key events or confrontations that change this, how does this get resolved?

It’s a really memorable title – which has clearly inspired the brilliant cover art! How early in the process did the title come to you?

Not early at all. The title was entirely different when I signed with Hellie. She knew it was the wrong title but she took the bull by the horn a few weeks after she signed me and we had a “title-off” where we messaged each other title after title until we finally landed on “Bad Fruit”. Once we saw that, we knew it was the one. My advice for budding authors is not to worry too much about titles – they’re essentially a distillation of your novel and you can sometimes be too close to have a feel for. It will come.

“The title was entirely different when I signed with Hellie. She knew it was the wrong title but she took the bull by the horn a few weeks after she signed me and we had a ‘title-off’ where we messaged each other title after title until we finally landed on ‘Bad Fruit’.”

Writing thrillers that are genuinely thrilling is no mean feat. How do you manage twists and turns so the reader is always surprised? Do you have it all figured out at the outlining stage?

I definitely did not have it all figured out at the outlining stage! The version of Bad Fruit that existed when I won the Blue Pencil Prize 2019 was not the literary thriller it is now; it was only after Bad Fruit was acquired by HarperFiction that I decided to make the shift from magical realism to psychological mystery (luckily, they loved the idea). Which only goes to show that you don’t need to have it all planned out. I try and hold my plot loosely whilst maintaining a steely grip on my characters’ motivations and desires – that guides the twists and turns.

Finally, what are you reading at the moment?

I’m writing my second novel at the moment – a feminist Lolita struggling with motherhood and revenge – so I’m reading books that speak into the intersection of motherhood, trauma and sex, including re-reading The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch. Stunning, beautiful, visceral, each time I come back to this book, I find myself astounded afresh by the power of her language. And she is also just the most generous, lovely woman who blurbed Bad Fruit. Read everything she writes.