Did some work on the characters for my new book today. While taking a break I talked to my friend Bob, who owns the house I rented my office in. He's a composer and non-fiction writer. "I don't know how you fiction guys do it," he said, while applying some sort of sealant to the bathroom floor tiles.
"I'm just making it up as I go along," I replied, meaning the technique, not the book. I've done each book differently, and I am trying some new stuff with this one. I'm thinking of doing my notes as a wiki this time.
But I might have answered: You just play God with the characters. Not too much, though. At a certain point, they take on a life of their own and you have to stop interfering.
I'm definitely at the starting-from-scratch God part now, though.
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Namaste!
I BEGAN writing my novel Home Products in the summer of 2003, a few weeks before my wife gave birth to our first child.
But even before I began work on the book I bought a black hardcover sketchbook. In its pages, I started writing down whatever I liked in what I happened to be reading. Among the earliest journal entries is the opening line of a review that had appeared, in the New York Times, of the film "The Hours". This was also the opening line of a novel by Virginia Woolf. I cut it out and pasted it in my journal. "Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself."
There are no notes around that neatly cut out quote but I can imagine why it had appealed to a first-time novelist. You read Woolf's line and are suddenly aware of the brisk entry into a fully-formed world. No fussing around with irrelevant detail and back-story. And I began to write various opening lines.
Read more How to write a Novel
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