Charlene Carr: Get the First Draft Done

Charlene Carr studied literature at university, attaining both a BA and MA in English, including a study program at Oxford. She has independently published nine novels and her first agented novel, Hold My Girl, sold to HarperCollins Canada, Sourcebooks Landmark, and Welbeck Publishing. It was an Amazon Editor’s pick for best literature and fiction, was shortlisted for both the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and the Dartmouth Book Award, and has been optioned for adaptation to the screen. Charlene received grants from Arts Nova Scotia and Canada Council for the Arts to write and revise her most recent novel, We Rip The World Apart, and is working on her next book. She lives in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia with her husband and young daughters. Follow her on X (Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram.

In this interview, Charlene discusses how a curiosity about her own family history combined with the history of racist violence helped inspire her new novel, We Rip The World Apart, her advice for other writers, and more.

Name: Charlene Carr
Literary agent: Hayley Steed of Janklow & Nesbit UK
Book title: We Rip The World Apart
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Release date: January 28, 2025
Genre/category: General Fiction
Previous titles: Hold My Girl (and nine self-published novels)
Elevator pitch: A moving and memorable multi-generational family saga: When Kareela learns she’s pregnant with a child she isn’t sure she wants, she embarks on a mission to understand her family’s tragic past with the hope of figuring out her own future.

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What prompted you to write this book?

There were a mixture of things. First, I started thinking about my grandmother, Violet, a woman I’ve never met. I wondered what my family’s life would have been like if she hadn’t died when my father was a child, and how she may have helped to guide us and be a connection to our Jamaican heritage.

From that, I had the first few inklings of a story about a family’s journey, but no real plot. And then when George Floyd was killed, people I’d known for years started questioning me—asking how I was doing, asking what it was like to live as a Black woman in today’s world, and though this was well-meaning, it was infuriating and frustrating, and distressing. It made it seem like these people thought Floyd was the first contemporary Black person to be killed by anti-Black racist violence, and I wanted to speak to that.

My first thought was to rewrite my Master’s thesis, which focused on race and racial representation, specifically looking at issues of racial expectation, racial stereotyping, and bi-racialism. I started to, but then I began thinking about how much those well-meaning questions bothered me, and what the Western World’s sudden realization that racism exists would feel like to all of the families who had loved ones killed or harmed due to anti-Black violence before the murder of George Floyd opened people’s eyes to the systemic racism in our societies.

I quickly saw the ways in which that could merge with the story of a mixed-race Jamaican immigrant family that was already struggling to take root in my mind, and the rewrite of my thesis was abandoned to start We Rip The World Apart!

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

Probably not much more than two years. I received a two-book deal (this being the second of that) and so was writing to a pretty tight publication deadline in Canada. The biggest shift was that originally, I wasn’t planning to have a present-day timeline. But when my agent suggested that, it meant creating another character to carry that timeline and Kareela was born—which is interesting, because I feel it’s her story that really carries the narrative.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

The book is being published in three different territories (Canada, the U.K., and the U.S.), and it’s been really interesting to see the different approaches my different publishing teams are taking with the book, especially regarding the covers. They’re all SO different, and yet I feel they all represent the story in unique and beautiful ways.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

As I was writing, though I wanted to include Violet’s vignettes (especially since the first inklings of the story were inspired by her) I felt there was a strong possibility they may not fit, so I wrote them fully expecting they may just be for me, and would later be cut. But to my surprise and delight, they ended up feeling essential to aspects of the story and merged into relaying so much about not only Violet, but her relationship to both Evelyn and Kareela and who each woman becomes.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I hope they ask questions about the way the world is and the way it should be. I hope, where they can, it inspires them to make choices that will help make this world a better place, if only in small ways. And I hope it leaves them with the belief that being open and honest with the ones we love can do so much toward healing wounds that may never be erased, but can become a part of what makes us stronger, kinder people.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Get the first draft done. Do whatever it takes—write in 10 minute spurts if that’s all you have. Just get it done, and THEN you have something to work with. Then you can take what you have and turn it into something that lines up with the vision you have in your mind.