L J Shepherd: 'Try and find clues which have multiple potential meanings'

L J Shepherd studied with us in lockdown 2020 on our Writing Your Novel – Six Months course. Her debut courtroom crime novel The Trials of Lila Dalton is out this Thursday 1 February with Pushkin Press. After her CBC course came to an end, L J was longlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Prize before gaining a publishing deal.

We spoke to L J about drawing on real-life experiences from her time practising as a barrister, genre expectations and her words of wisdom for aspiring authors.

You worked on your debut crime novel The Trials of Lila Dalton during our Writing Your Novel – Six Months online course in 2020. How did studying with us impact your approach to writing?

One of the key things I learned on the course was how to pitch a novel. This involves condensing an enticing central premise into a couple of lines. I joined the course with one manuscript and as time went on, I realised that the central premise wasn’t strong enough. I decided to change track and genre and write something else entirely. I experimented with my voice and realised that I was most confident writing with a more informal, conversational tone. The manuscript I began the course with was set in Medieval Florence and so didn’t suit the more contemporary register I preferred. The course helped me to find my voice and identify the type of author I wanted to be.

Many of our students find lifelong writing friends on our courses. Are you still in touch with anyone you met on the course?

We set up a Slack group and carried on with the same pattern of posting and providing feedback as we’d maintained during the 6-month course. My fellow authors read and critiqued the first few chapters of The Trials of Lila Dalton, pointing out some key plot holes and inconsistencies. Although the discipline of this posting regime wore off after a while, I’m still in touch with people from the course via social media and I’ve enjoyed following their writing journeys. Kate Foster (author of The Maiden) was the first from our group to get an agent and a publishing deal. Having her go first was invaluable because I could seek out her advice when I was out on submission to publishers. She was very generous with her support, and it was so helpful to be able to speak to someone who knew exactly what I was going through.

You’ve been practising as a barrister since 2017 – the courtroom is a setting filled with tension and courtroom thriller and dramas are beloved story formats. How much of your real-life experience did you draw on when developing your novel?

A surprising amount of real-life experience went into the book. I wanted to write something with high concept idea so that I didn’t feel too constrained by realism, as that would make the novel too procedural and potentially too dry, but a lot of the twists and turns in the courtroom are borrowed or adapted from my personal experience. For example, I once did a case where part of the CCTV was missing a crucial thirty seconds. I’ve also had to deal with some difficult behaviour from opponents and occasionally judges, some of which makes its way into the novel verbatim, other parts have been amplified or exaggerated. As well as taking ideas from real cases, the main benefit of writing about what I know is that I was able to ensure that the details of the court building and court procedure were accurate. Having the courtroom feel as realistic as possible buys some credit with the reader when I ask them to suspend disbelief outside of the courtroom.

Cryptic notes, memory loss and the courtroom setting all play a role in making your debut so intriguing and gripping. Crime readers love a puzzle and have strong genre expectations, how did you balance meeting those expectations with keeping your story fresh?

I was very aware of genre expectations, mainly because I love seeing those tropes when I’m reading. I was keen to emulate the feeling I get when I watch or read conspiracy thrillers like All of the President’s Men or John Buchanan’s The Thirty-Nine Steps. Therefore, I included key scenes such as meetings with “deep throat” sources, the sensation of being watched, and the constant threat of the state. On top of that, there’s the weird dystopian setting and uncanny behaviour of the island’s inhabitants. This is very much in-keeping with the speculative fiction aspect of the novel. I think it’s the combination of different genres which keeps the story fresh.

Carefully unfolding mysteries and shocking reveals are integral to successful crime fiction – do you have any advice for budding writers looking to set clues and build tension in their work?

It’s difficult to give advice about this because it very much felt like a lot of trial and error for me! The best advice I can give is to try and find clues which have multiple potential meanings, and then part of the fun for the reader is working out which is the correct one when all the other puzzle pieces lock into place. Another tip would be to identify ways of signalling the twist to the reader but presenting the information in a way which leads them down another path entirely. I had the idea for the ending of the novel very soon after having the idea for the beginning so a lot of the work was simply finding the path from A to B. Another source of inspiration for twists and clues came from research. I listened to True Crime podcasts and read non-fiction books about real crimes to give me ideas for clues and misdirection.

What books have you enjoyed reading recently?

I found Sarah Moorhead’s The Treatment to be gripping and incredibly well-researched. I admire how she has managed to combine a fast-paced plot with some really big ideas about justice and rehabilitation and our capacity as humans to change and be changed. It’s a top-rate piece of speculative fiction. Ruth Mancini’s The Woman on the Ledge is one of the cleverest psychological thrillers I’ve read recently. There’s a lot of talk about the genre becoming tired or over-saturated but Mancini has done something truly fresh. The ground constantly moves beneath you as you’re reading. One of the books from 2023 which will stick with me is Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent. It is a deeply unsettling novel but one which is so gripping. I was in a reading slump when I picked it up and managed to finish it in two days. The ending is divisive, but Nugent’s ability to keep the reader engaged is second-to-none. She makes it seem effortless.

Do you have any words of wisdom for the aspiring authors reading this?

The biggest lesson I learned on the course was to work out what type of author I wanted to be. My advice to any other aspiring author would be to find your voice. The best way to do this is to read as widely as possible. Only then will you know what sort of novels you want to be writing. I felt so much more excited about Trials than I had about any other novel I’d written before. This meant that I was more motivated to work on it, and ultimately that enthusiasm comes through in the writing.

Finally, what’s next for your writing journey?

I’ve already delivered the first draft of Book 2, which will be another legal thriller with a speculative edge. Right now, I’m working on Book 3 which is moving away from the legal thriller sphere and into something quite different!

The Trials of Lila Dalton is out on 1 February!

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