Claire Ackroyd: 'Seed hints of the drama to come from the start of your book'
BY Maya Fernandes
11th Jun 2025
Claire Ackroyd was a student on our online Writing Your Novel – Six Months course in 2020. We caught up to discuss her debut novel, The Surfacing – out now from Lake Union Publishing.
Read on to discover Claire's advice for building suspense in a novel, her approach to navigating a dual timeline and the inspiration behind her domestic thriller.
Claire, you studied on our online Writing Your Novel – Six Months course in 2020. How did your time with us shape your approach to writing?
The course was a game-changer, in terms of leading me to carve out time for writing, and to treat it as a skill that I could improve through regular practice, rather than as something nebulous which could only be harnessed in moments of inspiration. The course was also key in teaching me how to structure scenes – particularly how to balance dialogue, description and interiority.
Many of our students find lifelong writing friends on our courses. Are you still in touch with anyone you met during the course?
Yes, several of us are still in touch via Slack and Zoom – we feed back on each other’s work and hold regular catchups to share news. Being part of such a group has been invaluable in helping to weather writing’s lows and celebrate its highs, as well as to share opportunities and regain momentum at times of doubt.
The Surfacing is a slow-burning psychological thriller, full of tension, secrets and family drama – all unfolding over the course of a wedding. Do you have any advice for writers looking to build suspense in their novels?
Seed hints of the drama to come from the start of your book, without providing a full picture – this can be done in terms of foreshadowing a later scene, giving a glimpse of a protagonist’s fears/secrets, or slipping in an unsettling detail. Then gradually ratchet up the darkness and the pace at which explanations/events unfold.
Loch Ness makes for such an atmospheric setting. What made you choose the Scottish Highlands as the backdrop for the story, and how did the landscape feed into the themes of the novel?
I was interested in what causes people to act in a terrible way, and the degree to which they can be held responsible versus the blame that should be assigned to their upbringing or circumstances. Loch Ness provided an obvious parallel (do we all have monsters potentially lurking in our depths?) but I also liked the contrast between the wildness of the Scottish Highlands and the manicured Home Counties hotel where the rest of the book is set, which reflects the protagonist’s inner battle between dark truths and superficial politesse.
Dual timelines can be notoriously tricky to navigate but you manage to weave the past and the present together seamlessly to build suspense. What was your process for structuring the novel in this way, and were there any particular challenges you had to overcome?
I wanted each of the past scenes to be prompted by something relevant in the present, which was tricky because it meant the past scenes don’t take place in chronological order. To make this work, I employed some simple tools like having a date header for each past scene, but also by including age-related information upfront. So, for example, in a past scene where my protagonist is eleven, I drop in an early remark by her mother about how she’s struggled with the transition to secondary school, which makes it easier for the reader to position themselves in time.
What does a typical writing day look like for you?
It depends on my other commitments, and on the stage of writing I’m at, but if I’m writing a first draft, I like to attack the word count early in the day and then improve it in the afternoon or evening. This works for me because I need to get the words down but feel too despondent with the quality if I don’t do any editing as I go along!
Are there any thrillers on your ‘to be read’ list that you’re excited about?
Many – I’m particularly drawn to thrillers set in wild places, so am excited about the prospect of Sarah Pearse’s The Wilds and Amy McCulloch’s The Girl on the Ice. I’m also keen to try some Icelandic thrillers, so The Creak on the Stairs by Eva Björg Ægisdóttir and Snowblind by Ragnar Jónasson are high on my list.
And finally, what’s next for your writing journey?
I’m deep into edits for Book Two – another domestic suspense story based around a family holiday in the Peak District, where old resentments and secrets combine with deadly consequences…
Get your hands on a copy of The Surfacing.
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