From Screen to the Page: Finding Your Way as a Writer with N J Hatton

We had the pleasure of sitting down with N. J. Hatton to pick his brains on all things psychological thriller writing. His debut novel, Truth Will Out, follows the story of a hit and run involving a child. Main character and criminal lawyer, Jack, is rushing his pregnant wife to hospital at just 23 weeks when he hits a boy on a bike and so begins his moral dilemma as he must choose between who he saves and how.

The premise was inspired by the author’s own experience of knocking a cyclist off their bike. In his case, no one was harmed but it always made him wonder…what if?

Can you tell us more about the experience that inspired the initial premise of Truth Will Out?

I was driving home one dark and foggy evening, following a cyclist that kept weaving across the road. Naturally, I wanted to give him a wide berth so I went to the other side of the road but as soon as I went to overtake, he did a 90 degree turn straight across my path. I slammed on the brakes! But I saw the bike go under the car and the man go over the car in slow motion. And, in that moment, I thought I had killed him.

Fortunately, when I got out of the car, the cyclist got up and whilst the bike was mangled, he was fine. Even more fortunately, there was an off-duty fireman following behind us that saw the whole thing. But then the cyclist took a swing for me! He couldn’t string a sentence together and it soon became clear that he was very drunk. In fact, I later learned that the whole reason he was on a bike was because he’d lost his driving licence for drink driving.

The fireman and I called the police but they never turned up so eventually we all went our separate ways. But I remember, whilst we were waiting there, the cyclist discreetly put a coin into his mouth in hopes the copper would disguise the alcohol if he was breathalised. Now that might be a myth but, in the moment, part of me worried that if his trick worked, it would change the narrative and it wouldn’t look very good for me…It made me think ‘what if’? What if there had been no witnesses? What if I had killed him?

I love the what if scenario whenever I’m reading or watching tv - if you can put the reader or audience member in that scenario, I think that’s where the best stories are made. I’m interested in that sliding door moment. I’m a big fan of Sally Wainwright’s (Happy Valley) writing where a normal person makes one bad decision and then it snowballs out of control.

I also really like studying that moral grey area and how we come to justify decisions - no one is inherently good or bad, there’s shades of everything in all of us. In the novel, Jack starts with that simplistic view of trying to save his family but when he doesn’t own up to what he’s done, he starts to dig a bigger and bigger hole to try and protect his family. Then other characters aren’t quite what they seem and things get out of control. The initial inspiration started with my story but it developed into something much deeper.

And, given your background in film and TV, how did you come to write it as a novel?

I had my own small production company that made short films. I did a lot of pilots that almost got funding but projects often ending up falling through early on so I ended up falling into children’s media directing and writing on animations.

But when the company was bought out, I was made redundant soon after and I was contractually ‘locked out’ of working for anyone else in that space. At this point, I had a one-year-old so I had to think ‘what can I do?’

So, since I know plot and dialogue, I thought why not try and write a book. I turned to the thriller genre because I knew where my strengths and weaknesses were. I’m good at story structure and pacing because of my background in film where everything costs money! Things had to be tight - the golden rule was always get into the scene late and get out early. You have to get to the heart of things.

That said, I knew it would be very different to writing for the screen so in search of some help, I applied to Faber Academy’s Writing a Novel course. It was a brilliant 6 months of learning and meeting likeminded people. I went from not having any connections in the literary world to bonding with a group of five other writers who I still have monthly meetings with even now. This community was a really important part of my debut journey because writing can be a lonely experience especially if you’re used to working in a team like I was when I worked in media.

After the course, I sent the novel off to agents and after an agonising wait and some rejections due to the book covering the death of a child, I finally found representation with my dream agent at Curtis Brown! I naively thought I would then be published and the book would be out there but it didn’t quite turn out like that…

So how did you take the book from initial idea to fully fledged novel?

With the first draft, the main plot was the same but the characters and the perspectives were a little different. I got a lot of feedback that said the writing was good but the main character didn’t inspire enough sympathy, it felt fragmented and it wasn’t clear who was leading the story. Basically, I needed to pick a lane.

Naturally, I went away and wrote a different book altogether (still unpublished) and by the end of the writing process for that one, I realised I was actually ready to go back and rewrite Truth Will Out. Luckily my agent was very supportive! I made the novel much better but given we’d already gone out to the big publishers with the initial manuscript, it was hard to reapproach them with the same story despite having made significant changes. That’s when we decided to approach digital publishers and when Hera took me aboard.

In terms of the writing process, I found that I had to be open to change. The ending of Truth Will Out changed whilst I wrote and I had to shift with it, letting go of how I thought the story might turn out.

I used to be a planner but for the book I’m writing now, all I had to start with was an opening. I’m just writing and seeing what happens! But I think that strong hook is what has helped me get my foot in the door. If you’re a writer on submission and you want a traditional book deal, you’ll know how laboriously slow publishing can be and waiting for a response can be agonising. You have to know how to hook a reader from the get-go because agents and editors are reading so many submissions so you need to know how to stand out.

On that note, what advice do you have for fellow authors?

It’s hard because I think publishing is constantly looking for the next trend whether it’s sports romance or romantasy and it can be easy to become lost in that. I think it’s important to remember that there will be an audience out there if you write what you love. Don’t give up - you will find someone who backs you and your work and even in a world of derivative AI copies, I believe and hope that quality and unique new ideas will always cut through.

For example, some publishers wanted to take out the police procedural parts of the novel in order to make it more marketable in the psychological thriller space - I thought my blend of the two genres worked well so I was really glad when I found the right agent and publisher who felt the same. Of course, they still had constructive criticism, suggestions and refinements which I was very open to but I’m glad I knew where to draw the line in order to keep the core essence of my story.

I think the Faber course was an important part of this for me as my tutor would often pick apart my work in a way that, at first, made me think she hated it! But I soon realised that she was teaching me how to defend my plot points. If I couldn’t come up with a defence, that’s when I knew a part should be cut. I think that’s a valuable lesson for an author - to know when to have conviction and when to take suggestions on board.

I think another good piece of advice, if you’re like me and hate the idea of a blank page, is to think of your next book idea before finishing your first. That way, you have something to dive into.

My final tip would be to just write. I have young kids so I take the weekends off but I try to write every day and treat it like a 9-5. But that isn’t solid hours of writing, often it’s going for a walk and thinking ideas through - that can be hard to outsiders who don’t recognise it as ‘real work’ but it’s all important. I try to aim for 1000 - 2000 words a day but half of it usually ends up being cut the following day! Either way, the rhythm of it is helpful. Some days, you won’t feel like it but remember you can always flesh things out and refine later - eventually things will come together.