The Secret Life of a Funny Girl
Susan Chalker Browne is a writer living in St. John's,
Newfoundland. The Secret Life of a Funny Girl is her tenth book for children
and her first young adult novel. Her other works include Goodness Gracious,
Gulliver Mulligan; The Land of a Thousand Whales; and Freddy's Day at the
Races. Susan has won writing awards from the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts and
Letters Awards, the Cuffer Prize, and the Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia
Atlantic Writing Competition. Recently she opened up to AE about her latest
literary effort.
On the Book
I was inspired to write The Secret Life of a Funny Girl
because I wanted to write about the time in which I went to school, which is a
type of schooling that doesn’t exist anymore. I wondered if young girls today might be
interested in reading about that. There
is a particular dynamic that exists in a class of 42 girls, and the social
mores of the early 1970s were quite different than those of today.
So that was the setting, and I needed to add a
conflict. I thought about a theme of
alcoholism, but that’s been done. Then I
thought about mental illness. In the
early 1970s, the hospital for mental and nervous diseases in St. John’s was
commonly known as ‘the Mental’. There
was tremendous fear and stigma surrounding mental illness and I was interested
in exploring it.
So the setting is 1971 St. John’s, but the characters and
events are fictional. Like many authors,
I have pulled fragments of experience from real life, but these have been
kneaded and massaged by creative imagination, ballooning into events that never
happened and people who never existed.
For example, the main character Maureen O’Neill has been given my
character trait of impulsive behaviour, but she also has a confidence in
herself that I didn’t possess at thirteen years of age. She has experiences that I never had and her
family is very different than mine was. She
is 10% actual experience and 90% imagination.
At the outset of the novel, Maureen’s grandmother dies
suddenly, which sets into motion a series of events that deeply impact
Maureen’s life. She is forced to take on
extra tasks at home, forced to keep a terrible secret, and ends up taking out
her frustrations on a susceptible teacher at school. Eventually, her secret
leaks out and there is bullying. In the
end, Maureen assumes responsibility for her mistakes and learns to accept
vulnerability in other people.
I have been working on The Secret Life of a Funny Girl on
and off for a period of six years. This
is my first young adult novel and it took me a while to get it right. The most challenging part was developing the
voice of Maureen. Initially, this book was
written in the third person. And while
Maureen’s dialogue sounded like a thirteen year-old girl, the narrative
sections sounded like an adult speaking.
I solved this problem by writing a new draft in the first person, so
that all the narrative sections were written from the point of view of Maureen
and began to sound like her. I tried to
remember how it felt to be thirteen again.
And once I hit my stride, it began to flow easily.
The most rewarding part of the experience was finishing the
final draft. I worked with a marvellous
editor, Nora Flynn, and her main criticism of the novel was that Maureen and
her family sounded too perfect, that ordinary girls would not identify with
her. So the final draft involved a line
by line edit, inserting imperfections and character flaws, which was actually a
bit of fun. In the end, we have a main
character that worries about her looks, who makes mistakes and learns from
them, with a family full of conflicting personalities and funny situations.
I felt a tremendous sense of achievement when this final
draft was completed and submitted to Flanker Press. I had always wondered if I could ever write a
novel, and now I knew I could. I just
love the look of the published book – the cover is so eye-catching. Half of the model’s face is hidden, just as
in the story itself where half of Maureen’s life is hidden from public view.
The response from friends and family has been overwhelming
and gratifying. While I knew there were
funny parts in the novel that would make people laugh and I knew there were sad
bits, I didn’t count on the number of people who have said they cried at
certain sections of the book. It’s
amazing to me that my words could carry this strength. People have also told me that the book is
very well-written, that the plot is totally engaging, and that they had to keep
reading to find out what happened next.
And people have also told me that this book would make a
perfect movie. That the characters are
well-developed and true to life and that the plot would make a great
screenplay. Certainly Flanker Press is
open to any discussion on movie options.
I would be interested in writing another young adult
novel. But I also know that a novel
involves a tremendous amount of work and a huge quantity of emotional
energy. If readers want to hear more
about the world of Maureen O’Neill, I’d be happy to go there again. All they need to do is let me know!
On Herself & Writing
I always had an inner impulse to put words down on
paper. As a young girl, I read copiously
and kept journals. I was inspired by
Lucy Maud Montgomery and read everything she ever wrote. She was a writer, her characters were
writers, and I wanted to be like that too.
A good novel needs a really strong central character who is
engaging, who is real and human, who encounters challenge and is changed in
some way as a result of that challenge.
The writing needs to be fresh and vivid and unencumbered. The plot needs to have tension and pull. And readers need to identify with the people
and the events portrayed.
Canadian literature today is exploding with wonderfully
talented writers and incredible books.
There are so many fabulous choices it’s almost impossible to keep up
with them all.
My advice for aspiring writers is simply to write. Keep a journal, write stories, write poems,
write a book. Start writing and keep
writing and you will improve. Read the
good writers and see how they do it, observe the current styles of
writing. Attend writing courses and
workshops. Listen to and incorporate
criticism of your work. Pursue the
writing craft and you will find satisfaction and fulfillment.
