Problems For Novelist

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31509, 25 October 1967, Page 2

Problems For Novelist

Writing for American readers of light fiction who do not want “crime or hospital stories, or complicated plots,” has been a challenge for Mrs Nora Sanderson, a Christchurch author of romances with hospital settings.

After initial difficulties “getting on the American wave-length.” Mrs Sanderson has spun a story of a New Zealand girl whose travels to New York and bogus marriage make for many complications and a happy ending after her return home.

The novel has a Christchurch setting, and an American hero. The latter ingredient. the publishers assured her, was essential Tentatively entitled “No Bells Were Ringing." the novel is destined for the paperback market in the United States and will also be sold in New Zealand. Apart from finding a story Hne quite different from the nursing scene around which she has fashioned her last 12 books, Mrs Sanderson had to change her writing style. “Americans like crisp, short

sentences and interests other than the romantic theme,” she said.

When Mrs Sanderson’s publishers told her they wanted her to write for the United States she had hopes of achieving an ambition to write detective stories. “But Americans have so much crime they seem to want soothing light fiction—like a sleeping pill.”

However, she has not lost hope and thinks there may be

a market for her mysteries. In January, Mrs Sanderson’s readers will be able to follow her characters in familiar settings, when “Urgent Case For Dr Belmont” and “No Welcome For Nurse Jane” are published.