- Could you please introduce yourselves and your upcoming release, Son. Ladies first!
Johana: Bonjour! I’m Johana Gustawsson, I am a French writer living in Sweden after more a decade spent in London, where my three sons were born. Son is the first instalment of our new Kari Voss thriller series, where Dr Kari Voss, a social psychologist, gets entangled into the horrific death of two teenagers who used to be her missing son’s best friends.
Thomas: Hei, hei. I’m Thomas Enger, I’m originally from a small town called Jessheim, but for the bigger (and maybe better) part of my life I’ve been living in Oslo. Having worked as a journalist for many years, I made my debut as an author back in 2010 with my Henning Juul series. Hooff, that makes me feel old.
- What would you say were the most rewarding aspects of writing as a duo?
T: I’ve always enjoyed teamwork in general a lot. To create something with another person is so much more fun than just doing it by yourself. It doesn’t mean that it’s half the work, of course, but what I find really enjoyable is just to throw ideas back and forth with someone as brilliant as Johana. Whenever we find ourselves backed into a corner, it’s easier to get out of the predicament as well, whatever it is, when you’re two.
J: Yes, and it’s the stimulation that I love the most. It’s always such an amazing and gratifying feeling to get the creative wheel running so fast that ideas pop every minute! Two brains are always better than one.
- Could you talk us through your collaborative writing process? Does one of you handle plotting while the other focuses on character development, for example?
J: Funnily enough, we do it all together: plot, talk about characters, editing. We just split off the research as I love that process to bits and Thomas is not fond of it. It’s almost hard for me to stop researching and start writing! So, I was responsible for most of the science linked to body language and memory, and created notes that Thomas could study. I know, It’s totally geeky!
T: What I can add is that Johana was the primary writer on the chapters involving Kari, precisely because she had done most of the research, whereas I took more of the lead on some of the other characters. Having said that, we would always edit each other – add stuff, take away stuff – so in some of ‘my’ chapters there is a lot of Johana’s writing as well, and vice versa.
- How do you maintain a consistent voice and style in your work?
T: We write differently in our mother tongues; the structure of the sentences can be completely different at times. It’s possible that we sort of grew into a certain way of writing as well, adapting to each other in terms of syntax and grammar. Or maybe we just got very lucky.
J: We never really thought about it consciously, I think, but maybe we secretly just hoped for the best! As Thomas touched upon, we can easily have a dozen versions of the same chapter, sending it back and forth between us, so I guess our voices somehow ended up as one.
- Are there certain aspects of your collaborative writing that you both prefer over other aspects. For example, certain themes, scenes?
T: I prefer the actual writing the most. Dialogue, in particular. That’s where and how we really get to know the characters, hearing how they talk and seeing how they interact with other people.
J: I like it all but, but, but, I fear the worst when I have handed a chapter to Thomas, and he comes back with a long, over-elaborative sentence. I know then that the ‘but…’ is coming, and that I’ll have to rewrite extensively!
- Could you tell us more about your main characters: psychologist Kari Voss and Chief Constable Ramona Norum?
J: Kari Voss is a social psychologist expert on body language and memory who is grieving her missing son. She is very close to her father Hans-Christian, former Chief of the Oslo police, and to chief constable Ramona Norum with whom she has been working many criminal cases. Kari is hard-working, stubborn, and bloody brilliant.
T: Ramona, I would say, is a modern-day life policewoman in the sense that she juggles the every-day challenges of being a mother of two sets of twins with her partner Linnea, as well as heading up the high-profile investigation of the brutal double murder. Ramona was, actually, in part, based on my sister Hege, who lives in Trondheim with her partner Anita and their five children. Hege is not a policewoman, though, but a brilliant doctor.
- Do you have any rituals or routines that help you get into the collaborative writing zone?
J: To be honest, as soon as we talk plot and solve problems, we are in our creative bubble – it really is a magic thing. Even when my sons interrupt our conversations, popping into my office to ask me this and that, and end up talking to Thomas too, we go back to our mystery solving very quickly. I guess we are on the same work and creative frequency!
T: I think Stephen King said it the best: ‘Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.’
- What’s the best piece of advice you’d give to aspiring co-authors?
J: Write every day. Plan for 15 minutes daily. Sick, tired, drunk, no excuse accepted. Then increase that time until your story takes over and you get addicted to spending time with your characters.
T: And – read. Read a lot. Read everywhere and all the time. If you find an author or a type of story that you love reading: Study it or study them. There are secrets to be found on every page.
