The Man with Green Fingers

I have received a fair few messages recently, asking me what made me think of “The Man with Green Fingers” and how in the world I came up with the plot.

Well, first of all, all my books are set in expat situations, simply because it is a life that I know, having almost always been an expat myself.  I picked the island of Cyprus because I needed everything to be English-speaking.  My book “Saying Nothing” is set in Spain, and “French Sand and “A Call From France” are set in France or in French-speaking places.  This means that, in order for the story to be even a little bit plausible, the writer needs to have phrases in French or Spanish, as the case may be.  This is off-putting for a lot of readers.  Cyprus, however, is largely English-speaking.  Although it is not somewhere I have lived, I have been there several times, to both the north and the south of the island.

Some writers set out their plot in advance, but I allow my plots to evolve as the characters evolve.  Certainly, I set out with a story in my mind, but this will chop and change as other elements enter in to what I am writing.  Originally, the person of “John” was going to turn nasty towards the end of the book, but he became a genuinely nice man as I wrote … so I couldn’t turn him nasty. For example.

Omar Khayam wrote “the moving hand, having writ, moves on” – and that is very true.  Sometimes I just cannot think of what to write, but I just put pen to paper, or fingers to key board, and somehow the writing starts.

Many of you have asked ofr sketches of Stella, John, Ashley and so on ….. yes, that will be fun.  I’ll draw them and put them on here some time soon!

Catherine Broughton is an author, a poet and an artist.  Her books are on Amazon and Kindle. More about her and of her work on http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk