Cecelia Ahern - One Hundred Names

She pushed open the door and stepped into the café. Colin Maguire turned round and stood up from his stool.

And she walked towards him, hoping, and above all, praying, for his forgiveness.

Behind the scenes writing

One Hundred Names

How did you come up with the title for this book? Inspiration is so hard to pin down, but can you remember anything specific that caught your imagination and helped fire you up to write the story of Kitty and her list of one hundred names?

I was half paying attention to the television one day, the MTV awards were on, and actress Jennifer Lawrence appeared on the television to talk about her upcoming movie – which I heard as One Hundred Names . As soon as I heard this, I stopped what I was doing and looked up to see what the movie was about. Something about the title excited me, it made me want to hear more, it made my mind go wild trying to figure out who the one hundred people could be and how they were linked and what the story might be. So my mind was incredibly active as I was watching the trailer, and as usual whenever I heard a good title or idea, I was feeling jealous I hadn’t thought of it. Then I realized it wasn’t called One Hundred Names at all, it was The Hunger Games ! I was so delighted that I’d got it wrong because it meant that I could use the title for myself. The idea very quickly formulated in the seconds it took from mishearing the name to realising I was wrong. It’s incredible how ideas come, and what triggers them, and this is a perfect example of how something totally unrelated can spark off an idea. When I get an idea I become so excited, my adrenalin is pumping and I need to find a pen and paper straight away to write it down before I lose it, as it flows and develops so rapidly in my head. I remember not having a pen and paper near me so I emailed myself the idea on my Blackberry.

Instantly I created two very different characters to tell the story. One was a detective who found a list of names and had to solve a crime, the other was a young journalist who found a list of names and had to write a story. I went with the journalist who had to write a story. I could relate to her.

Did you plan the plot for this novel in detail before you started? Did you know how the book would end before you started writing the first line?

It was September/October 2011 and I was just about to begin publicity for my novel The Time of My Life so I didn’t – couldn’t – think the idea through any more in major detail. Over the next few months I just let it bubble away so that it could grow and take on a life that would be three dimensional and exciting, something that would be worthy of a novel. During those months I travelled to Australia, Spain, Germany, the UK, and all around Ireland, but I was thinking about the idea the entire time. I felt sure it was going to be my next novel and I was excited. But I was nervous. I knew that the idea was a good one, possibly one of my best, but I felt it was too adventurous. To have to come up with one hundred characters, plus the main characters, was much too big for me. It would be close to impossible to write, not to mention confusing for the readers. I toyed with changing it to Ten Names or another more manageable number but I wasn’t happy with that idea. It had to be One Hundred Names or nothing at all. So I kept pushing myself away from the idea and trying to think of something else for my next novel.

I love getting ideas, I thrive on ideas, other people’s and my own, and the terrifying thing for a writer is to not have the idea. This time I had too many ideas. I had so many characters and storylines in my head that had been developed over the years. I had to begin work on a new book in January and I couldn’t decide which one I was going to write. This was unusual for me because it has always been very clear to me over the years what I should write. It would be the story that would take over my mind and refuse to leave me alone until it was written. It would be the story where I would hear the character’s voice in my head and they would become so real I would be compelled to tell their story. It would be the story where the first few sentences would already be forming in my head, just begging to be written. It was the One Hundred Names idea which wouldn’t leave me alone but I had a problem; I had the great idea, but I didn’t have the characters.

I wasn’t ready to write my novel and I only had six months to the deadline. I’ll be honest, I wondered if there would be a book at all by June. January came and I still couldn’t begin the novel, so I began writing a novella called Herman Banks and the Ghostwriter . That took me a month to write and while I was concentrating on that – a very different project for me that funnily enough is exactly what I needed to help me work out what I was going to do next – somewhere the wheels were in motion for my next novel. Some people ask me what they should do when they draw a blank, when they get writer’s block. I used to tell them I’d take a break, I’d empty the dishwasher, do the washing, busy myself so that I was actively doing something but all the while my brain would be still mulling it over. It’s the equivalent of giving someone peace and quiet while they try to remember something. Writing Herman Banks and the Ghostwriter was my equivalent. I had to give my mind some peace and quiet. Ironically, Herman Banks and the Ghostwriter is a story about a man with writer’s block and the lengths he’d go to in order to write a novel.

That’s when I had my eureka moment.

I had an idea but no characters. On the other hand I had lots of characters and stories that I’d been working on for years but which had never been developed enough to become novels of their own. A-ha.

I had six characters that I had been thinking about for years, characters that I had wanted to write as short stories, or develop as television shows, or write as novels. I was so familiar with them and their stories I suddenly realized this is what they were for. I would focus on them.

They were my one hundred names.

I started writing in February 2012 and I finished in April 2012. I have never written a book so quickly in my life. PS I Love You had been written, obsessively, through hibernation, in three months and I thought I would never achieve that again. But it happened and I think the reason it could happen was that I had spent years living with all of these characters, I understood them so much already, it was just a matter of writing them down.

What was so unusual for me was placing them together in the same story. There is a scene where Kitty introduces the characters to each other, which is unusual for her because she is seeing them together for the first time. Different people from her life all come together in one room. I felt as she felt, they were all from different stories in my mind, from different notebooks, created years apart, and here I was introducing them to each other. It almost felt like they were reaching out of one notebook to shake the hand of a character in another. It was kind of magical. It would be like putting all of my previous characters from novels in a room together. What would happen if I put Holly, Rosie, Elizabeth, Sandy, Joyce, Lou, Tamara and Lucy all in a room together? It would be bizarre – but special – and that’s how it felt for me.

As for writing the first line of my novel? I told my neighbour I was pregnant. I hadn’t told many people. She said she was like a graveyard. Secrets went in but nothing ever came back out. I’d never heard it before and I loved it. That morning I knew I had my first line for the novel. Constance became The Graveyard, Kitty’s trusted mentor and friend.