On scrapping a novel and starting again

Bestselling author Caroline O'Donoghue in an exclusive Hyphen interview

One summery evening in 2021, the writer Caroline O’Donoghue and I went out for dinner on the publication day of her YA novel All Our Hidden Gifts. We were still in the midst of Covid-19 confusion and she was visibly nervous about her book’s release — the publishing circuit still felt a bit haphazard and it was the first in a (now fully published) trilogy. She needn't have worried of course, as the book later went on to become a New York Times Bestseller.

Over our steak frites I asked her what she was currently working on and she told me she was working on a new book called Clare, described in her own words as “a sort of Black Mirror-ish feminist workplace novel”. That night I went home and bookmarked Clare on Bookshop.org. Months later, Caroline decided that it was no longer working. The project was scrapped, it was no longer available to pre-order.

Clare was no more, but instead Caroline started writing a new novel for fun. Out came a hilarious, heartfelt story of unexpected love and friendship set in Ireland, with the main character Rachel Murray looking back on her early twenties when she first meets her best friend James. The Rachel Incident was born.

It’s a brave thing to let go of something that doesn’t feel like it’s working for whatever reason. I’ve also scrapped many drafts of my second novel (which I am still working on! And I will write about it all one day once I have some distance from it.)

We like to celebrate the upside of ‘quitting things’ on The Hyphen in a world that doesn’t seem to like any speck of “failure”. So, today I’m celebrating Caroline’s new book, the one that grew in the place of another. Caroline has kindly answered some questions for us below in her trademark style and smart wit — on writing, knowing when to quit, pivoting to a new project and how to keep the ‘fun’ going when working on any long-form creative project.