Character Study

Novelist Jem Calder reads from I Want You to Be Happy in this passage episode of Character Study, a scene about a hundred pages in, as his two characters go on early dates and feel each other out across a pub table by the river.Jem and Freya talk about writing romance that feels real without being neat, the transactional and inexplicable pulls that draw two mismatched people together, and why a "situationship" can carry the weight of a love story even when you know it won't last. They get into the small, specific power of complimenting a stranger who's dressed a little braver than usual, and then into the harder subject underneath the whole book: attention. Jem and Freya make the case for stepping back from social media to protect your writing: the compounding minutes, the shrinking attention span, the excuse that posting is somehow part of the work.📚 Further reading mentioned in this episode: – Liadan Ní Chuinn, Every One Still Here (short story collection) – Zadie Smith on living without a phone🎥 WATCH the full episode here 📘 Buy Jem Calder's I Want You to Be Happy and Reward System, plus Freya's novel: A Real Piece of Work 💛 Follow @freybromley on Instagram for updates and to ask your questions 📚 Join Freya's newsletter at freyabromley.substack.com for behind the scenes thoughts 🎙️ And hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts00:00:00 Introduction — and last night's karaoke reading00:00:56 Jem reads from I Want You to Be Happy00:02:12 The power of complimenting a stranger00:02:53 Writing an unironic love story00:05:02 Being reverent about the relationships that don't last00:06:33 The intimacy of two people who really listen00:08:19 Sharing your writing with a partner00:09:50 Sensitivity as a superpower00:11:28 Why he gave himself a pass to write about writers00:12:43 Bring back emailing someone a poem00:13:34 The decision to quit social media00:15:14 "You'll get your attention back" — advice for writers00:16:20 Liadan Ní Chuinn and the myth that you need a platform00:18:54 Zadie Smith on living without a phone

Novelist Jem Calder joins Freya to talk about I Want You to Be Happy, his debut novel about two people trying to fall in love while everything around them is engineered to distract them. Jem’s writing career started with Sally Rooney emailing him about the first story he’d ever finished and now his debut is on the tote bag of every literary it girl this summer. He tells Freya why he’d rather write a novel than a memoir (he’s a self-described cagey person who doesn’t like giving too much of himself away) and why he thinks of fiction as a gift, something a reader can reach for in their worst moments. They chat about how quickly a good line about phones curdles into cliché, why he keeps thousands of words of notes he’ll almost never use and why writing within the constraints of a genre is a form of respect for the writers who came before.A funny, honest conversation between two writers about connection, cringe and what fiction is for.00:00:00 Introduction00:01:44 Book tour vs writing — the "spiritual maths" of promotion00:04:24 Why Reward System reads like a novel, not a story collection00:05:17 The novel-in-stories form and Tulathimutte's Rejection00:06:04 "Limbic capitalism" and the little treats of modern life00:09:26 Writing a love story when everything conspires against connection00:10:29 Writing cringe, and the brutal comedy of small humiliations00:12:08 Turning real life into fiction — the notes process00:13:41 The anxiety of being judged forever on your first book00:16:44 When readers over-read symbolism into your work00:18:15 Cringe as comedy, and fiction that makes you feel understood00:19:36 Why fiction, not memoir or autofiction00:22:38 The Cazalet Chronicles and reverence for the family saga00:26:32 Chuck as a version of Jem who took the other path00:27:41 Comedy as inspiration, and the sauna theatre reading00:30:25 Writing an unlikable character you still feel empathy for00:32:40 The likability question and his Financial Times essay00:39:30 Why he wouldn't want to adapt his own novel00:42:09 Annie Baker, plays vs screenplays00:44:41 Favourite live performers — and a clowning night gone wrong⚠️ Contains spoilers for the ending of I Want You to Be Happy — skip forward when you reach that section if you'd rather go in fresh.Links to further reading:This Substack on writing by Naoise DolanLiadan Ní Chuinn – Every One Still HereTony Tulathimutte — RejectionPhilip Roth – On writing and re-writing a novelElizabeth Jane Howard — The Cazalet Chronicles, including the announcement of the reissue of The Light Years with a foreword by Jia TollentinoElizabeth Taylor (novelist)Ella Hickson – The WriterAnnie Baker – Infinite Life🎥 WATCH the full episode📘 Buy Jem Calder's 'Reward System', and I Want You to Be Happy📘 Buy Freya's novel: A Real Piece of Work💛 Follow @freybromley on Instagram for updates and to ask your questions📚 Join Freya's newsletter at freyabromley.substack.com for behind the scenes thoughts🎙️ And hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

Poet Will Harris reads Speakee Stonehenge, an exclusive sneak peek into the collection of poems he is currently working on, Speakee.It's a piece that keeps circling back on itself, returning to the same small moment in a room full of people, and each time it comes back it has picked something up: a piece of research, an overheard shout, a memory of a stranger's grief. Nothing is explained, and by the end a single ordinary word has quietly turned inside out. It's about who gets to belong somewhere, and how language decides that for us before we've noticed.Will and Freya talk about writing people as names and voices rather than fully fleshed-out characters, why the most poignant moments are when someone stutters or says the wrong thing, and the danger of editing: that in smoothing out the clunky words, you can flatten everything interesting about a sentence. Plus, whether the internet and MFA culture have quietly made all our sentences sound the same.00:00:00 Introduction00:00:11 Speakee — the book Will is working on00:00:32 Will reads Speakee Stonehenge00:03:11 "Is it a poem? I don't know"00:03:56 Writing people as names and voices00:05:28 Why the poignant moments are the stutters00:05:43 The exercise of transcribing overheard speech00:07:15 Repetition, word choice and editing00:07:58 The danger of smoothing out the difficulty00:08:24 Has the internet made all our sentences the same?🎥 WATCH the full episode📘 Buy Brother Poem, RENDANG and Mixed-Race Superman by Will Harris and Freya's novel: A Real Piece of Work💛 Follow @freybromley on Instagram for updates and to ask your questions📚 Join Freya's newsletter at freyabromley.substack.com for behind the scenes thoughts🎙️ And hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

Screenwriter, artist and Murky Book Prize-winning novelist Sufiyaan Salam reads the opening chapters of Wimmy Road Boyz: three young men in a BMW, cruising towards Manchester's Curry Mile at the start of a night that none of them yet know might be their last together.Sufiyaan and Freya talk about writing as a kind of method acting, how he inhabits his characters so completely that when they're in trouble, he is too, and the film-set principle of "method dressing" that shapes his approach to prose: build the parts of the room the camera will never see, because the reality bleeds through anyway. They discuss the histories buried in the text, from Tipu Sultan to Manto's Toba Tek Singh to Islamic Spain and Partition, and why he likes leaving them there as either a treasure trove or simply texture that feels real. And they talk about the pressure of being one of very few British Pakistani male literary novelists — and why he'd rather write questions than be anyone's spokesman.This is a conversation about the last night of being young, the work behind effortlessness, and why novels ask rather than answer.00:00:00 Introduction00:00:08 Wimmy Road Boyz Passage Reading Chapter 1: three boys drive towards the Curry Mile00:04:40 Wimmy Road Boyz Passage Reading Chapter 2: the homeless man00:09:28 The first chapter that barely changed00:12:06 "Method dressing": building what the camera won't see, and Martin Scorsese00:13:43 Writing as method acting00:14:09 Hidden histories: Tipu Sultan, Manto and Partition00:16:06 The last night of being young00:17:18 Can you come of age at any age?00:19:55 Why he doesn't want to be a British-Asian spokesman🎥 WATCH the full episode📘 Buy Sufiyaan's novel Wimmy Road Boyz and Freya's novel: A Real Piece of Work💛 Follow @freybromley on Instagram for updates and to ask your questions📚 Join Freya's newsletter at freyabromley.substack.com for behind the scenes thoughts🎙️ And hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

Screenwriter and novelist Sufiyaan Salam won the #Merky Books New Writers' Prize for his debut Wimmy Road Boyz. He joins Freya to talk about his novel that follows three young British-Pakistani men across one chaotic night on Manchester's Curry Mile. Sufiyaan, who’s also a BAFTA-nominated screenwriter and animator, tells Freya where the book came from: a real night out where he wanted to tell his friends what he was going through but couldn’t, and wondered if they were holding something back too. They chat about why the novel is built to feel like a rap album rather than a novel, how screenwriting taught him to chase specificity and what it was like to take his dad to the BAFTAs. They also get into whether film audiences really are ruder than book audiences and why saying the dumb idea out loud is worth it if one in ten turns out to be brilliant.A funny, honest conversation between two writers about masculinity, specificity and throwing everything at the wall to tell a story.🎥 WATCH the full episode📘 Buy Sufiyaan's novel Wimmy Road Boyz and Freya's novel: A Real Piece of Work💛 Follow @freybromley on Instagram for updates and to ask your questions📚 Join Freya's newsletter at freyabromley.substack.com for behind the scenes thoughts🎙️ And hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

This week, a special bonus episode: the prologue of Freya's debut novel, A Real Piece of Work, read by actor Ellie Kendrick. OUT NOWA Real Piece of Work follows Nola, whose memoir about her late sister Darina has become a hit — critics love it, producers want the film rights, and everyone in her family hates it. When an anonymous complaint about the book lands with her publisher, Nola is certain the culprit is one of her own relatives. As the family gathers on the remote island of Lundy to mark the fifth anniversary of Darina's death, Nola sets out to discover who made it before it does irreparable damage. It's a sparkling, spiky story about complicated families, who owns grief, and who gets to tell the story of those who are gone and those left behind.Want to know how Ellie brought Nola to life? Read Freya's interview with her in the Behind the Book series on Substack📖 Buy A Real Piece of Work🎧 Listen to the full audiobook📸 Instagram: @freybromley✉️ Substack: freyabromley.substack.com🎙️ And hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

Novelist Sarvat Hasin reads from the second chapter of her novel Strange Girls — the beginning of Alia's story.Sarvat and Freya talk about how the two narrators of Strange Girls arrived in different voices and tenses: Ava, bold and certain, who could only ever be written in first person, and Alia, quieter, rendered in a storybook third-person past. They discuss the novels woven through the book — Donna Tartt's The Secret History and Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence — and why an ambiguous relationship that's never named or declared can still change a person completely. Along the way, a conversation about what it means for writing to feel alive: raw, uncertain, and true to life, even when only a few stories have ever really been told.This is a conversation about voice, ambiguity, and the books that live inside the books we write.🎥 WATCH the full episode HERE📘 Buy Sarvat Hasin's Strange Girls and Freya's novel: A Real Piece of Work💛 Follow @freybromley on Instagram for updates and to ask your questions📚 Join Freya's newsletter at freyabromley.substack.com for behind the scenes thoughts🎙️ And hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

Novelist Sarvat Hasin, author of This Wide Night, You Can't Go Home Again and The Giant Dark , joins Freya to talk about her latest novel Strange Girls a novel that explores the relationship of two former friends forced to reunite at a hen party after a decade apart. She’s written many other award-winning books and is also in a workshop group with Freya, sharing early drafts with one another, which they talk about in this episode. They also discuss why friendship breakups are so much harder to talk about than romantic ones, what theatre taught Sarvat about structure and why she romanticises the mundane moments of her own life (and how that feeds directly into her writing).A funny, honest conversation between two friends about the creative process and everything it touches.🎥 WATCH the full episode📘 Buy Sarvat Hasin's Strange Girls and Freya's novel: A Real Piece of Work💛 Follow @freybromley on Instagram for updates and to ask your questions📚 Join Freya's newsletter at freyabromley.substack.com for behind the scenes thoughts🎙️ And hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts