Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Original poster

How do you think fiction writers will deal with Coronavirus?

51 replies

TheYearOfSmallThings · 17/02/2021 22:57

Will we have a rash of novels set during the pandemic? Or will it be ignored in fictionland? Or just a passing mention?

I was looking for references to the 1918 flu in contemporaneous fiction, and I found almost none, which has set me wondering.

OP posts:
WonkyCactus · 17/02/2021 23:06

I follow the Irish writer Catherine Ryan Howard on Instagram and she's recently finished writing a novel set in lockdown. She's a crime writer so I think she's using the lockdown as a plot device to throw people together.

That's the first pandemic novel I've heard about. I kind of hope we don't get many novels set in 2020/21. I'm not sure I'd want to read a fictional take on this pandemic, at least not any time soon!

Original poster
TheYearOfSmallThings · 17/02/2021 23:14

I'd probably give it a read. It could be like a locked room mystery, with a support bubble instead of a carefully selected group of suspicious strangers.

I heard the writers of the Aisling books talking about a new book set in the pandemic, but not sure if they were joking.

OP posts:
PleaseStopExplaining · 17/02/2021 23:15

I’ve seen a couple of chicklit ones being promoted

WonkyCactus · 17/02/2021 23:20

Oh I love Aisling! I would definitely make an exception for a pandemic novel about her! Grin

Original poster
TheYearOfSmallThings · 17/02/2021 23:25

They felt that she would be loving all the rules, have an instinctive 2m boundary, be too nice to pull someone up for crossing it, but simmer with righteous judgment.

OP posts:
Original poster
TheYearOfSmallThings · 17/02/2021 23:27

I'm not sure if they were serious about writing it though - probably a bit sensitive!

OP posts:
scrappydappydoo · 17/02/2021 23:30

I can’t imagine many chick lit novels being written - surely all the cupcake cafes would have been shut down?

SylviasMotherSaid · 17/02/2021 23:37

I would love an Aisling book set during lockdown as long as long as John is off the scene preferably stranded abroad

Changeispossible · 18/02/2021 00:21

I’d say a lot of books will come out post-lockdowns set in 2018 or 2019! I don’t think we will want to revisit it anytime soon.

Menual · 18/02/2021 00:27

You must have missed this little gem? 😬

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kissing-Coronavirus-M-J-Edwards/dp/B08KJFTN7C/ref=mpssa111?dchild=1&keywords=kissing+the+coronavirus&qid=1613607827&sprefix=kissing+the+coro&sr=8-1

No in all seriousness I'm a fiction writer and I act like it doesn't exist (which is getting harder and harder to do... I spent every day writing in coffee shops and being around people).

I did use this line in a book that released last July but it was just an easter egg and a wee joke for my readers. I wanted to be the first author to use "she automatically keeps the social distance as I walk around the island." in a published novel 🤣 but it what I meant was he was stalking her around the kitchen island, not actually social distancing!

MintyCedric · 18/02/2021 00:31

I imagine it'll be a mixture tbh.

I started writing my first (crime) novel at the end of 2019 and although there's no specific references to the time I imagined it would be current.

Now I'm having a rethink as all going well it'll the first of a three part series and I really don't want to have to feature Covid in all of them.

Taking into account my timeliness I'll probably move it back to Spring 2019, with book 2 Autumn - Christmas 2019, and book 3 coinciding with the pandemic as it is about cybercrime which will possibly work even better in the context of lockdown.

Original poster
TheYearOfSmallThings · 18/02/2021 00:53

Wow, that book looks...Shock

As for setting books in 2018/19, I'd be reading them thinking "HA! You think you've found your happy ending? Wait 6 months."

OP posts:
MintyCedric · 18/02/2021 01:07

@TheYearOfSmallThings

Wow, that book looks...Shock

As for setting books in 2018/19, I'd be reading them thinking "HA! You think you've found your happy ending? Wait 6 months."

There's no definitive happy endings in crime fiction...thank God!
Changeispossible · 18/02/2021 02:29

The beauty of fiction is that we can make it up!

Bainne · 19/02/2021 04:21

A friend of mine is a well-known novelist and has just sent her editor an MS set during lockdown.

IamEarthymama · 19/02/2021 04:41

Val McDermid's Still Life was set in February 2020 and she includes the growing awareness of Covid19.

interview with Val

StartupRepair · 19/02/2021 05:10

The latest Michael Connelly goes up to March/April 2020 and has the beginning of the pandemic. Weird reading about it in a novel.

WhatWouldPhyllisCraneDo · 19/02/2021 05:13

@Menual

You must have missed this little gem? 😬

[[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kissing-Coronavirus-M-J-Edwards/dp/B08KJFTN7C/ref=mp]]ssa111?dchild=1&keywords=kissing+the+coronavirus&qid=1613607827&sprefix=kissing+the+coro&sr=8-1

No in all seriousness I'm a fiction writer and I act like it doesn't exist (which is getting harder and harder to do... I spent every day writing in coffee shops and being around people).

I did use this line in a book that released last July but it was just an easter egg and a wee joke for my readers. I wanted to be the first author to use "she automatically keeps the social distance as I walk around the island." in a published novel 🤣 but it what I meant was he was stalking her around the kitchen island, not actually social distancing!

Haha. I love that the "reviews" on the back of that book cover are by the authors son and a nice amazon reviewer GrinGrinGrin
JaninaDuszejko · 19/02/2021 07:21

There's a sequel! Review on the back: 'why did you make me read this?' MJ Edwards 82 year old Mum, Dorothy Grin I'm almost tempted to read it now GrinGrinGrin

LApprentiSorcier · 19/02/2021 07:32

I recently read a thriller set during lockdown, 'Stay Home' by Ava Pierce. It read rather as though she'd been halfway through writing it, the pandemic happened, so she went back and inserted lots of early lockdown cliches - children doing whatsisname's PE sessions etc. One of the plot points was that a character who was stuck at home saw lots of comings and goings through her window - but the character was an alcoholic loner so in non-Covid times could equally well have been written as a recluse.

Worth reading if you are feeling nostalgic for the heady days of lockdown 1 Grin.

StealthPolarBear · 19/02/2021 07:36

I read that, it was OK wasn't it? Covid references better than the actual whodunit I think but very readable.
I also read one which ended in a hospital in Jan 2020 I think and thwre was some reference to everyone being very worried about some new virus, but nothing more. Does anyone know which one that might have been?

LApprentiSorcier · 19/02/2021 07:41

I read that, it was OK wasn't it?

Yes, it was quite good. I agree the Covid references were better than the suspense - I worked out what had happened quite early on, but then half the fun of that type of book is reading on to see if you were right!

LApprentiSorcier · 19/02/2021 07:43

The hospital rings a bell with me too - was it a book where one of the characters was anorexic?

StealthPolarBear · 19/02/2021 07:50

No definitely not. I tend to read crime and thriller so it might have just been when everything was wrapping up and the main characyers were being patched up. Hmm.

Original poster
TheYearOfSmallThings · 19/02/2021 09:37

I recently read a thriller set during lockdown, 'Stay Home' by Ava Pierce.

I'm definitely going to read this!

OP posts: