What Would You Ask a Writer?

Creativity is always a leap of faith. You’re faced with a blank page, blank easel, or an empty stage. (Julia Cameron)

I’m often asked about the writing process. Of course, every writer has his or her own way to get stories down on paper or computer screen and eventually into a book. But I once invited people to ask me a question they might have wondered about how I write. Here are a few of those.

How do you manage when writing more than one story line at a time? How do you keep each thread in the story separate and flowing forward separately?

I usually concentrate on one novel at a time although at times I might be working on the first draft of one story while doing edits on a story I’ve already written. Also, as the question indicates, an author may have several story lines going in one novel. It might help to think about that the way you might think about your family. You know about your kids and what they’re doing and their plans. You also know about your siblings and parents. All have, in some ways, his or her own story line – a past and a future. Characters are like a writer’s family while you are creating their stories. After you get to know them, the characters begin to shape the story and what’s happening.

I have often wondered how you know which direction to go with a story. Do you do an outline and go from there?

I’m what is sometimes called a “seat of the pants” writer.  That’s a writer who comes up with an idea and characters and puts her fingers on a keyboard or picks up pen and starts writing to see where the story goes. Other writers are plotters who do outlines and a lot of planning until for them the writing is just fleshing out the bones of their stories. I do research if my book is a historical novel and  even when it isn’t, there are always things to research. I do some pre-writing about my characters. Not as much now as when I was writing my first novels. But those character sketches are how I get to know my fictional people. With the historical books, I do have the history line to suggest real events I can drop my characters into to see what happens next.

I often start with a “what if” page that helps me think about what might happen to my characters. With The Refuge, I started with the idea of what if a woman joined the Shakers with her husband for what they thought would be a short time, discovered she was expecting a baby, and then was widowed. Once I type Chapter 1 and start, I tug the story out of my imagination bit by bit until I get it told. I’m continually sure outlining is the better and perhaps easier way, but a writer has to write however works for her.

Do you have certain times you set aside? I would think you would write when creativity strikes you.

A writer can’t always wait for the muse to show up when you make writing your occupation and have deadlines to meet. You have to go find that creativity and corral it and make it work for you. I do spend a lot of time at my desk writing. But my best writing time seems to be in the afternoon, even though I’d rather it was in the morning. Does that make sense? Not really.

How do writers read books written by other authors with similar settings or time periods and not include some of the other story line in their books?

It’s been said there are only about 10 basic plot lines and all stories come from those. Don’t ask me what they are, but ten sounds like a nice number. Obviously there are a lot of variations on those ten. However, you could ask a dozen authors to write a story with the same initial idea and all the stories would be very different. That’s what makes reading and writing so much fun! Every writer brings different insights and experiences and imagining to his or her story.

At the same time, the truth is that everything you read buries thoughts and happenings in your mind where they stew in your imagination juices and then pop back out in unique and fresh ways when you’re writing. If I hear echoes of other books, it’s usually from one of my own books when I want to describe something the same way and then think,”Oh, I’ve written that before” and have to go back to the drawing board for a fresher, new description.

So, are you ever curious about the writing process? What question do you sometimes wish you could ask a writer?