Author Kate Weston on making the switch from writing for Young Adults to her debut adult thriller, You May Now Kill the Bride . . .
When I began writing for Young Adults, I did it with intention. I’d had a difficult time with my mental health and at thirty-two, therapy made me realise that most of my mental health problems had begun when I was a teenager. I developed a compassion for my teenage self that I’d never had before and I started writing for her. I wrote a diary that talked openly and with humour about periods and about mental health struggles like the ones I dealt with as a teenager. This became Diary of a Confused Feminist. The diary of Kat Evans. I couldn’t have predicted when I started writing it in 2018 that Kat’s diary would resonate with so many people, that I would learn how many teenagers are going through the same things Kat and I did every day, and that she might help them feel less afraid to talk about it.
When my debut adult thriller, You May Now Kill the Bride was announced one of the most common questions I received was what the difference between writing for adult and YA audiences was. I imagine the answer is different for every writer on this one but for me, it’s actually that there aren’t as many differences as you might think. In fact, there are a lot of similarities.
It’s true that Young Adult books tend to be coming of age stories, they tend to follow younger protagonists and maybe the themes more age appropriate. But the reader still wants the same thing, a story that they can connect with, that broadens their world, entertains them and keeps them gripped. Readers still have difficulties in their lives that they might find comforting to see on the page. The other day I read Lauren Bravo’s Probably Nothing and delighted in reading a hypochondriac people pleaser just like me on the page. It’s emboldened me in a way that’s probably dangerous – pride comes before a fall after all. But I’ll take the fall when it happens. I imagine it’ll be in public somewhere.
I personally like to use humour as a way of dealing with sad or difficult things. It helps me stick around to process them. I need to laugh to stop myself running away from serious things in fear. I don’t think this is particular to me, in fact, I think it’s the same for so many people. So I’ve always written with that in mind, whether writing for adults or young adults. Wanting to laugh is universal, it’s just that the things you find funny may vary depending on your age.
However, whilst in writing adult books you’re talking to an older audience, I personally don’t think that necessarily means that there can’t be characters behaving immaturely. All of us, no matter how adult we are and how many tax returns we’ve filled out, are prone to a bit of immaturity. In fact, tax returns are the key trigger to me behaving immaturely. They have me behaving like a toddler, which is apt because I understand about as much of them as a toddler would. I’ve often seen books by young adult authors that have switched to writing for adults reviewed with scathing comments about maturity, but the truth is that everyone has a certain level of immaturity in them, no matter their age. I personally hope to become very immature around eighty. If I live that long…hypochondria says it’s unlikely.
The fact is that when writing for adults and young adults, in my opinion the similarities are there. I think as a young adult there can be some kind of perception that when you reach adulthood it’s a stopping point. An endgame where you’ve learned everything, you’ve made it! Now you get to enjoy your steady, boring, adult life until you die! Everyone knows that’s not true though. You don’t stop changing and evolving no matter what age you reach. You learn new things every day, everything that you experience still shapes and leaves a lasting imprint on you, even those things you don’t want to. Just as I carry the imprint of the teenager I used to be in my bones and my brain, I carry the experiences I’ve had as an adult too. Sometimes we need to feed that teenager or past version of ourselves, as much as we need to feed the current version. Although You May Now Kill the Bride, a comedy thriller, set around hen dos, is a far cry from a comedy diary about period positivity and mental health – and it’s very much for adults – it’s still a book that I hope will bring joy, entertainment, laughs, and help people through the trauma that is the hen do years.
(c) Kate Weston
About You May Now Kill the Bride by Kate Weston:
Their hangovers may fade, but this is a hen party they’ll never forget…
Lauren, Saskia, Dominica, Farah and Tansy have been friends since nursery. They wonder if that was the last time they all actually liked each other.
Reunited as bridesmaids at Tansy’s spiritual hen party in the woods, it doesn’t take long before old grudges begin to surface. Not to mention the secret they’ve been hiding for twenty years.
But what starts as a weekend of macramé and contraband vodka ends in murder when Tansy chokes to death on a poisoned cacao drink.
As the body count keeps climbing, the friends realise that one of their group must be the killer – and if any of them want to make it down the aisle, they need to watch their sash-covered backs.
Who will be left standing when the bouquet is thrown?
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