Wyl Menmuir: 'Read widely, deeply, and joyfully'
BY Katie Smart
4th Oct 2022
Wyl Menmuir’s debut novel The Many was longlisted for the Man Booker Award in 2016 and was an Observer Best Fiction of the year pick. His second novel Fox Fires was published in 2021 and his short fiction has been published by Nightjar Press, Kneehigh Theatre and National Trust Books, and appeared in Best British Short Stories. Wyl's first full-length non-fiction book The Draw of the Sea won the Roger Deakin Award from the Society of Authors. Wyl has been a member of the CBC teaching team for three years and we’re thrilled that he is the lead tutor of our upcoming online Writing Your Novel – Three Months course, beginning 14 Nov.
We spoke to Wyl about his writing process, the books that he’s been reading recently and his advice for budding writers.
We’re delighted to have you on board as the tutor of our upcoming online Writing Your Novel – Three Months course! What's the most rewarding part of teaching creative writing?
I’m delighted to be tutoring on the course. My favourite part of teaching creative writing is seeing those moments of breakthrough happen – whether that’s when a writer realises they are really onto something, or when they see a new possibility for their novel in progress, or when they work out the shape the story wants to take and that they can do it. I love those moments of realisation and the buzz that comes with that, not just for them but for me to. I love seeing writers’ confidence in their own abilities and their story grow, and there is something truly gratifying when a former student gets in touch and tells me that they have seen their novel through to the end or, in some cases, that their book has attracted an agent or a publisher and that it is going to be hitting the shelves.
Can you remember the book that made you fall in love with reading?
I’m sure there were others before this book, but I have a particularly strong memory of reading Michelle Magorian’s Goodnight Mr Tom. I read it in a single sitting one Saturday, lying on my bed when I was about ten. I remember opening the book and I remember closing it, but what completely stunned me was the way it transported me entirely for the entirely time I had been reading it. I wasn’t aware of words on the page at all. I felt I was really there with the characters, transported wholesale in time and place. It felt like a kind of magic to me and I knew, after reading that book, that I wanted to be able to do the same for other people. As well as making me fall in love with reading, that book made me fall in love with writing too.
Your first non-fiction book The Draw of the Sea was published this year. In the book you explore your own connection with the sea and the Cornish coast as well as the collective pull we all feel towards the sea. What inspired you to explore this topic?
After I wrote my first novel, The Many, many readers I met while I was promoting the book wanted to talk about their experiences of the sea and of small fishing villages like the one in the book, and that got me thinking about the different ways in which we view the sea. Alongside that, while I was researching the book, I spent a lot of time walking around the Cornish coast, listening to people’s stories and they were so varied and interesting I started to think there would be a really interesting non-fiction book to be written about those stories. And finally, I’ve always had a strong relationship of my own with the sea. If I’m going to spend a considerable amount of time writing a book, it has to be something that will hold my interest, and I’m endlessly fascinated by the sea.
Your debut novel The Many is set in an insular fishing community and your latest novel Fox Fires is set in a fictional, expansive and labyrinthine European city. Although these two settings are in many ways juxtaposed, across all your works landscape and setting are vital – what advice do you have for writers looking to invoke a strong sense of place?
I consciously chose two contrasting settings for my first two novels because I wanted them to explore quite different stories. So it was the stories that demanded different settings. In The Many, I wanted to use the setting of a small fishing village to heighten the protagonist’s sense of constriction and claustrophobia, whereas in Fox Fires, I knew I needed a bigger canvas for the story I wanted to tell as it was a different story entirely. When I’ve settled on the kind of setting I want, I go deep into research, whether that’s reading histories of places I’m using as inspiration, treading the streets of a city I’m using as a model for the setting, or listening to stories of people who live there. I will do that until I feel I’ve got enough of a feel of my setting to transport my reader there, and often that’s about getting the small details right as well as the broad brushstrokes.
When you’re starting a new project what comes first – the characters or the setting?
I was going to say that I come up with the character first and then work out the best setting in which their story might take place, though it’s a bit messier than that usually. Often, character and setting come along about the same time, hand in hand. A place I’m visiting might inspire the development of a character, or I might be playing with the idea of a character and the more I do so the more the idea of the perfect setting for this character’s story might emerge from the mists or coalesce around that character.
What have you enjoyed reading recently?
I always have loads of books on the go at any time – in my house I usually have at least one book on the go in each of the main rooms. Right now I’m reading a George Saunders short story collection in my bedroom, Yoko Tawada’s Scattered All Over The Earth in my office, and James Aldred’s Goshawk Summer in the sitting room. Two books that completely blew me away recently were Joanna Quinn’s The Whalebone Theatre, and a forthcoming literary novel from Kim Sherwood, A Wild And True Relation, both of which have a wonderful quality of beautiful writing, incredibly strong characters and stories that compelled me to continue reading even when I knew I ought to stop, in order to get enough sleep. That’s when I know a book is really strong – when I’m willing to give up sleep for it.
What advice do you have for the aspiring authors reading this?
One thing I know from meeting many novelists over many years is the ones who are successful are the ones who persist, the ones who keep putting pen to paper even when it gets tough (or, rather, especially when it gets tough), because they know they will get that breakthrough they need at some point. So my advice to aspiring authors is to keep going. I found this advice so useful I had the words ‘Finish what you start’ carved into the surface of my desk as a daily reminder of the value of persistence.
And the second thing I know from meeting many successful novelists is that I can’t think of one who is not an avid and passionate reader. If you’ve fallen out of the habit of reading for whatever reason, go and pick up a book now. Because novelists read novels and pick them apart in their heads – they work out what makes the books they love tick and as a result expand the number of choices that are on offer to them as a writer. So my advice is to read widely, deeply, and joyfully.
Photo of Wyl Memuir by Oliver Udy.
If you want to take part in teaching, workshops and one-to-one tutorials led by Wyl Menmuir, apply for our online Writing Your Novel – Three Months course. Deadline 9 Oct.
We are also honoured to offer a scholarship place on this course in memory of the late John le Carré. One talented writer with low income will be awarded a free place. Deadline 30 Oct.