How to Write a Summer-Set Novel (Even When It’s Winter)

In an ideal world, writing and publishing schedules would be arranged so that novels are always written during the corresponding season. Alas, the world is not ideal and invariably you will end up writing, say, a Christmas-themed novel during a heatwave. You really start to question your life choices when you’re hunched over a laptop, sweat stinging your eyes despite the fan aimed right at your face as you write about mulled wine and carol singers and being so cold that you can’t feel your toes.

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In an even more ideal world, a writer would earn enough money that they could simply decamp to colder or warmer climes as the muse dictates. But grim reality and my bank account begs to differ so in order to write seasonally accurate novels, I’ve learned how to fake it.

My new novel, The Last Days Of Summer, is set, not surprisingly, during the summer season. It begins in June in London, where the city’s inhabitants swelter and sweat in old, badly ventilated buildings and no one has air conditioning. It is not for the fainthearted. The largest part of the novel takes place during the August Bank Holiday weekend, which falls on the last weekend in August, in a big house on the Sussex coast in South England, near Brighton.

I started my first draft on the 10th of September, when I could remember all too clearly the very recent bank holiday weekend. I finished that draft on the 18th of December, cuddled up to the radiator, when summer was but a dim and distant memory and I wondered if I’d ever see the sun again.

So, this is how I did it.

The ephemeral nature of the summer, moving from bright, sunny days to chilly mornings and the dying of the light, underpins the entire premise of The Last Days Of Summer. I let the season dictate and drive both plot and pace and really leaned into any symbolism I could. Dreamy, romantic scenes happen in the soft, hazy heat. There are steamy encounters on sticky, sultry nights and a furious, world-tilting, third act argument on a windswept, rain soaked beach.

So much of being a writer for me is being able to access not just superficial, surface memories but to burrow down and mine those memories which feel very specific to me. I spent a lot of time thinking about the many summers of my life. Of childhood daytrips to Southend On Sea; sandwiches brought from home, crunchy after being clutched in sand-encrusted hands, and my mother slathering me with suntan lotion like she was buttering up a chicken for Sunday lunch.

I remembered my student years in Brighton when I lived just around the corner from the seafront with its railings painted a soft pastel blue and the delicious wafting aroma of fresh doughnuts from the stall on the Palace Pier. And of course, no memories of a British summer are complete without remembering the many times spent shivering in a Victorian era shelter (a ubiquitous feature on most UK seafronts) while the rain came down and the wind howled. These might be my memories but I hope there is a universality to them that will spark recognition in a reader.

Without going totally method and gorging on ice cream and zingy fresh salads when all I want to eat was a thick, hearty soup then cake, there are other ways to channel sunny, summery thoughts. A summer playlist to listen to when I wasn’t writing (the writing occurs in deathly silence) was a no brainer and yes, of course it had Taylor Swift’s “August” on it but it was First Aid Kit’s poignant, evocative “Stay Gold” which became the novel’s unofficial theme tune.

I think smell is always the most powerful tool to summon a mood. I never open my laptop until I’ve spritzed myself with a fancy fragrance from my current perfume rotation. While I was writing The Last Days Of Summer, I almost exclusively wore Annick Goutal’s iconic citrussy Eau D’Hadrien, which is essentially a Sicilian lemon grove in a bottle. I also always have a scented candle burning (I am so bougie) and again, went for summery scents that invoked meadow flowers and English country gardens. There was also a bottle of Ambre Solaire suncream on my desk to whiffs when I needed an instant hit of inspiration.

I am great at writing big, sexy, messy emotional romances. I expect readers to cry at least once while reading any book I’ve written. I live for snappy banter. I pride myself on my spicy scenes. For everything else, there’s Google.

The thing I find most difficult as a writer is what I call “the nature stuff.” I’m not a botanist, so I will absolutely put the words “flowers native to Sussex late August” in the search box. British days also lengthen and shorten dramatically depending on the season. Again, I’m a writer, not a meteorologist, so I will happily Google sunrise and sunset times, average amount of rainfall, and daily temperature, and will absolutely not feel guilty about it.

I never send off a manuscript until I have a competent third draft, at the very least. My first draft is concerned with getting the story down and hitting all the emotional beats. The second draft involves a lot of heavy lifting as I figure out everything that’s wrong with plot, structure, and characterisation. Then I always describe the third draft as sprinkling on the magic dust.

As well as making each line sing to the best of my ability, this is also where I add texture and patina and all the little details that really capture time, place, and feeling. So it was on the third draft of The Last Days Of Summer where I did most of the work to transform it into not just a summer-set novel but a novel where the summer sun was baked into every page.

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