Interview with Sarah Moss (Author)

How did the Summerwater novel come about?

The novel came about autobiographically. It's set on the shores of Loch Lomond, which is one of few places I've returned to throughout a generally peripatetic life. I realised a few years ago that my kids had never seen it and there were some lodges down the road that I'd always noticed and had my eye on because if you stay there, you're already at the base of all the hiking routes. We rented one of the cabins and we were extremely good at wrestling victory from the jaws of defeat as it rained hard all week without stopping at all, even at night. I became really fascinated by not so much the relationships between the people staying within the cabins, but the complete absence of relationships between the people staying in the various cabins. They all had big French windows looking over the lake which made those spaces simultaneously an auditorium theatre because as you moved around you could usually see in.

What was the process of it starting to transform into a TV series and working with Freedom Scripted?

It was very exciting because the book didn't seem very filmable as it's psychological and you're in people's heads. It's been lovely watching it take shape and watching it move away from that very internal one person at a time interior monologue-based storytelling. The process has been a positive one in terms of working with John Donnelly and the Freedom Scripted team - it's been delightful. I don't feel controlling about it as it's very clear to me that a book is a very different medium from a TV series, and I know nothing at all about making television. It's been fascinating and exciting to hand it over to people who really do know what they're doing.

What are the big differences between novels and series?

The big one is that John said to me that one of the challenges of his craft is that everything must be visible; that's very much the opposite of writing, you can have people think about things that are not expressed. The challenge of making all those unsaid things and thoughts and desires visible but not explicit is fascinating to me and very different from what you do on the page.

What has it been like being on set?

It's very interesting and very strange. I've particularly liked watching the actor’s step in and out of roles because it seems so intense for those few minutes and then they switch back and they’re completely different. Also, the number of people and the amount of kit involved. It's so easy when I'm writing on my own to come up with everything and not be responsible for the budget - I don't have to worry about the special effects, and how many people are in a small space. Seeing all those difficulties made into practical problems is fun for me, because they're not my problems.

How has this experience affected how you write and writing with the potential of screen?

This is exciting and has maybe affected how I think about the visual elements of fiction. I don't write with anything in mind except writing the best possible novel. There’re some characters that have been fleshed out quite a lot in the series that aren't in the novel, Alina's a good example of that.

What are your observations on these characters that have been given a different life?

One of the big challenges of writing this novel for me was what to do about the family who in the novel are Ukrainian. Because although I do have Ukrainian background, it's not part of my experience. You can either not give them a voice, in which case to some extent you're complicit with their silencing, or you can try and give them a voice, in which case you're going to have to appropriate an experience that's not your own. I've always been very aware of that silence at the center of the novel and tried in the writing to hold the silence to make sure that the reader would have been aware that there was a voice they weren't hearing. It's a great relief and pleasure to me to have that voice put back at the centre, because that's where it needs to be. To know that they're getting a full voice in this rendition is deeply comforting to me.

How do you feel seeing Summerwater on the screen?

It was lovely to see it on the screen, partly because it's so visually stunning. The scenes I saw came from various locations, and they were all striking and beautifully observed - that was very nice to see.