‘He was too emotionally aware!’ - Dolly Alderton opens up about challenges of writing a male protagonist

Virgin Radio

6 Nov 2023, 15:43

Everything I Know About Love author Dolly Alderton delighted Virgin Radio listeners when she visited the studio to discuss her second novel on Sunday (6th November).

Speaking with Graham Norton on The Graham Norton Radio Show with Waitrose, the celebrated author and journalist opened up about some of the challenges she’d encountered while writing Good Material, her first book with a male protagonist.

The novel focuses on the failed relationship of characters Andy and Jen, and focuses in on Andy, a budding stand-up comedian who’s career struggles pale in comparison to his battle to work out why his relationship has come to an end.

“I interviewed about 15 men about heartbreak and relationships and male friendship,” Dolly revealed regarding how she prepared to write the novel.

“And then I was checking stuff with my male friends,” she added. “The main note that I got that I think was really interesting, because it’s a first person narrator, is the first people who read it - particularly my male friends - kept telling me that [Andy] was too emotionally aware!

“He was having all these observations about his own emotions, which didn’t ring true for a 35-year-old man who’s not in therapy and doesn’t talk about his feelings with his mates, so I had to sort of strip out some of that,” she finished.

Another challenge Dolly discussed with Graham was writing the novel’s intimate scenes from Andy’s perspective. 

“[It was] so difficult,” the Sunday Times columnist admitted. Sympathising, Graham joked: “You understand why in movies, it fades to black!”

“Weirdly, I found writing it from a male perspective so much harder,” Dolly continued. “I feel so much more respect for male writers who can write those intimate scenes, and they come off as you know - true and sexy, and not embarrassing.”

Finally, Dolly also revealed how she had to get over the hurdle of writing about a stand up comedian, and therefore also having to write some fictional potential stand up material into her novel. 

“It’s hard enough for comedians who’ve been doing it for 30 years to write material that people laugh at on stage,” she said, explaining: “So instead I did a sort of talking around the material, of what the material might be like for the audience, rather than trying to write comedy, which I wouldn’t be able to do.”

As well as capturing the world of stand-up comedy and creating an honest depiction of heartbreak from a male perspective, the 35-year-old author also wanted Good Material to focus on lives before and after the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I wanted to capture the last six months before lockdown… I feel weirdly romantic and nostalgic about that time,” she told Graham. “I just wanted to spend some time in that very innocent period before we knew what was coming… [and] what happened to the people who were utterly heartbroken, [then] plunged into solitude, for the best part of two years.”

Good Material by Dolly Alderton will be released on Thursday, 9th November, 2023.