Grace Walker: 'Human connection is everything, it’s what gives the story weight'
BY Maya Fernandes
6th Nov 2025
In this interview Grace Walker, author of the debut dystopian novel The Merge, shares her advice for writing compelling characters.
'For me, everything starts with the characters. A concept might be fascinating on its own, but it only becomes compelling when you care about the people at its centre.'
We caught up with Grace to discuss her time studying with us, her approach to merging two narrative voices and the speculative novels that have inspired her.
Speculative fiction often explores imagined futures, but The Merge feels startlingly close to our present, particularly in its exploration of advancing technology. Do you believe authors have a responsibility to engage with current social or environmental issues in their work?
I don’t think authors have a responsibility to engage with those issues; I think they have a responsibility to write what they need to write. For many readers and writers, fiction is a form of escape, and that’s just as valid as work that grapples directly with politics or society. Not every story has to carry the weight of the world.
For me personally, though, it’s almost impossible to keep those things out. Whatever I write tends to absorb the world around me – the pace of modern life, the disconnection that can come with constant progress. The environmental aspect feels especially inescapable now. The climate crisis sits in the background of everything, rarely the focus, but always present. That undercurrent inevitably seeps into my work. The Merge isn’t about the environment on the surface, but it exists in a world defined by that quiet, persistent anxiety, the sense that the future is already pressing in on the present.
One of the most powerful elements of The Merge is its portrayal of grief, trauma and human connection. How do you approach building such layered emotional landscapes during the early stages of your writing process?
For me, everything starts with the characters. A concept might be fascinating on its own, but it only becomes compelling when you care about the people at its centre. Human connection is everything, it’s what gives the story weight.
With The Merge, I wanted readers to feel what’s at stake emotionally. The idea of merging isn’t just a speculative concept; it’s a way of exploring identity, loss, and the parts of ourselves we give away, willingly or not. You have to care about what the characters bring to the world, and what it means if that’s altered or taken.
When it comes to writing trauma and grief, I try not to force those emotions onto the page. I approach them quietly, through how characters behave, what they avoid saying, and the small moments where their pain slips through. Grief isn’t always loud; often it’s the silence between words, or the unspoken. I think the power comes from restraint, letting the reader feel what the character can’t always articulate.
The novel shifts from first-person narration to a collective ‘we’ in the latter half. How did you navigate developing Amelia and Laurie as distinct individuals before merging their perspectives into one shared voice?
It was vital to understand Laurie and Amelia as individuals first – their voices, quirks, fears, and the ways they move through the world. I wanted to know what shaped them before I even considered what would happen when those boundaries began to blur. They developed naturally over time; the more I wrote, the more I understood not only who they were, but how they responded to one another.
The real challenge, and what I was hugely intimidated by, was finding a way for their voices to coexist once they merged. I wanted readers to still sense both of them, to feel Amelia’s conviction and Laurie’s warmth, even as they began to speak as one. The merged voice needed to feel new, but not unfamiliar, like the residue of two selves becoming something neither could have been alone.
There’s an intense sense of claustrophobia that builds throughout the novel. What advice would you give to aspiring authors looking to create that kind of atmosphere in their writing?
My advice would be to focus on the emotion of confinement before you think about the physical space. Claustrophobia isn’t always about rooms or walls; sometimes it’s about being trapped inside your own thoughts, your own life, or someone else’s orbit. Ask yourself: how would it feel to be unable to step outside, unable to leave your room, your house, your own thoughts? What would that stir in you? What would you start to long for, or fear?
In The Merge, the sense of confinement isn’t just physical; it’s psychological. It comes from being so closely bound to another person that there’s nowhere left to hide – not even in your own mind. I think if you pour that unease and anxiety onto the page first, the physical setting will naturally begin to reflect it. The atmosphere grows out of the emotion, not the other way around.
Which speculative novels have most inspired you?
The list is long!
In my adult life, I’ve been most inspired by Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time, and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Each of those books reveals the emotional reality beneath the imagined; they use the speculative to expose what’s already true about us.
From childhood, it was Lois Lowry’s The Giver, Malorie Blackman’s Noughts & Crosses, Veronica Roth’s Divergent, and Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games. Growing up, it was always the genre I devoured. Those stories shaped the way I think about identity, control, and what it means to resist a system – ideas that naturally found their way into The Merge. I’m sure that early reading had a huge influence on both my writing and how I see the world.
You studied with us on our flagship Writing Your Novel – Six Months course in 2022. How did your time with us shape your approach to writing?
It was the insight of the other writers on my course that really shaped the early stages of The Merge, particularly their response to the concept itself. Their enthusiasm made me believe it could become a novel, and that belief kept me going through the difficult first drafts.
I was also so inspired by their writing. Being surrounded by people who were just as invested in storytelling pushed me to think harder about my own work. And having to read and critique other people’s writing was invaluable, it made me see my own with fresh eyes. You start to recognise patterns, the instincts that work and the ones that hold a piece back, and that awareness inevitably feeds into your own writing.
It’s rare and wonderful to be part of a group of readers and writers who put so much time and thought into your work. There’s something very grounding about that level of care and attention, the generosity of it. Over time, you find those voices you really trust, people who can read your writing honestly and thoughtfully, and that’s an incredible thing to carry forward after the course ends.
And finally, what’s next for your writing journey?
I’m working on a new project that’s really exciting me. I’m not entirely sure where it’s heading yet, but I’m enjoying the process of finding out. That’s one of my favourite parts of writing, when the story is still revealing itself, and you’re discovering what it wants to be as you go.
Get your hands on a copy of The Merge, out now from Magpie.
Grace studied on our London Writing Your Novel – Six Months course in 2022.
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