Paula Hillman, author

Regarding Stoney and Jill, the main characters in Seaview House, they very much grew out of the landscape I created. Stoney’s character is firmly grounded in my own knowledge of nineteen-seventies schoolboys living on Walney Island; he smokes, uses lots of expletives and colloquialisms, and is bonded to the landscape in a way that has not occurred to Jill. That is part of the attraction for her, as he is viewed through her eyes. Stoney is an enigmatic and complex character, and what he says and does ignites every scene he appears in; he’s apparently manipulative but also intelligent, charming, dynamic, and so inevitably lending drive and drama to the developing story. When writing him, I took inspiration from Kathleen Jamie’s nature essays. She won’t idealise nature: she sticks to the principle of interconnectivity, so her writing of landscape and nature only come to life through human interaction. Throughout Seaview House, when Stoney and nature connect, issues come into the story arena. He has a pragmatic approach to these issues; Jill’s is more sentimental. I really want my readers to understand the conflicts and misunderstandings between these two characters; it’s what will make them endearing.  Stoney and Jill had to emerge from the story in a way that seems so unscripted, they must be real. Indeed, they often surprised me: As I wrote them, they took on a life of their own!