Talking Location With author Aliya Ali-Afzal – Set across LONDON

29th June 2021

#TalkingLocationWith… Aliya Ali-Afzal, author of Would I Lie To You?, set in Wimbledon and The City.

These days you can set your novel anywhere. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t visited the place or even lived there in a particular era. Google Earth and the internet are your friends. My research involved a different kind of process though, as my novel is set in Wimbledon, where I’ve lived for most of my life, and The City, where I used to work. I thought it would be easier writing about places I knew well, but in fact, familiarity presented its own set of challenges. I found myself struggling. When you see something every day, do you in fact still ‘see’ it at all, and if not, how can you still write about it accurately and objectively?

Would I Lie To You? has been described as Real-Housewives-meets-Thriller, and the leafy, affluent suburb of Wimbledon seemed the perfect setting to explore the themes of trying to fit in, financial infidelity and secrets behind seemingly perfect lives. The glamorous yet fragile housewives’ setup in suburbia is closely linked to the tension, high stakes and intrigues of the financial district in London, with its historical building and iconic skyscrapers. I am intimately acquainted with both locations.

When you’re researching a new place for the first time, you pay attention to the sights and sounds, and discover interesting historical facts and quirks, like the architecture, the taxis or how shopkeepers greet you. These details find their way into your novel, describing what you saw to the reader with the same urgency and freshness that you felt when you saw them for the first time. My problem was trying to describe my every day locations in a similarly exciting and detailed way. I discovered that this involved a process of ‘reacquaintance’ rather than traditional research.

I walked around Wimbledon by myself to observe the places that I knew by heart, probably for the first time in decades. I watched people, scrutinised their clothes, and eavesdropped! In the delicatessen, instead of looking at my shopping list, I noticed the artistically stacked fruit crates, the air-conditioned ambience and gleaming windows. I watched the expressions of people waiting at Wimbledon station and craned my neck to study skyscrapers near Bank, instead of rushing past as I normally would. In Wimbledon Common, I didn’t listen to music or chat to a friend, but instead, noted the tiny door of the windmill, watched people running after dogs and toddlers, and listened to golfers arguing. I found secret pathways and read the tomb stones in the cemetery.

Some of the research was especially enjoyable! I dined in City haunts like the Shard, quizzing banker friends about their latest deals and industry gossip. I investigated The Royal Exchange like a detective, though I had visited it dozens of times before, plus St Pauls Cathedral, Spitalfields market, then revisited my former offices.  It’s amazing how much we don’t notice, when working in a place every day and how memories fade. I remembered client lunches on a roof top bar and the tiny kiosk selling incredible sushi. I sat in pubs jotting down banter as city workers congregated after work. As an outsider, I noticed things I hadn’t seen when I had been part of the crowd, such as group power plays. I also took hundreds of photographs of the mundane, like the houses I walk past every day, and the sublime, like the bridges across the Thames. Photography gave me the distance and perspective to really ‘see’.

There are advantages of writing about a place you know so well too. When researching unfamiliar locations, you cannot always identify the emotional landscape or the complex social undercurrents of a place. These factors were an integral part of the plot in my novel. For example, the dream-come-true aspirational lives in Wimbledon, and a community with certain societal expectations, drove Faiza to spend her family’s savings to try to fit in and belong.

As a proud Londoner, I also wanted to show its beauty and spirit; the calming greenery of Wimbledon Common and the caring, close-knit community which feels like a village, even though it is in London.  I loved writing about the energy of The City and feeling anything is possible when walking along the pavements in the square mile.

If you’re writing about a place you know well, try to go on a date with it. Pretend you’re meeting each other for the first time. Ask questions, tease out the answers, then listen carefully.

Aliya Ali-Afzal has a degree in Russian and German from University College London and worked as an Executive MBA Career Coach in London. While helping her clients to pursue their dream lives and careers, she decided to take her own advice and become a writer. Her debut novel, Would I Lie To You? will be published in the UK in July 2021, and in the USA in Spring 2022.

Aliya is studying for an MA in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London, is an alum of Curtis Brown Creative, and has had her writing longlisted for the Bath Novel Award, the Mslexia Novel Competition, the Mo Siewcharran Prize, and the Primadonna Prize. Aliya lives in London but has also spent time in Moscow, St Petersburg, Amsterdam, Cairo, Munich, and Lahore.

Until 10 July 2021 you can be in with a chance of winning one of three copies of Aliya’s novel JUST CLICK HERE TO ENTER

You can follow her on Twitter @AAAiswriting or Instagram @aliyaaliafzalauthor

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