Who knows how, when, or even why this Blog Hop on Writing Process even started.
But if it’s good enough for my friend, fellow author and all-round nice guy Michael Gerard Bauer to sass his way through four questions on his writing process, then it’s good enough for me.
So here goes.
1. What are you working on at the moment?
[Cue: deer-caught-in-the-headlights]
Em … [That question ranks right alongside people asking (as one did at last week’s launch of Intruder) ‘When’s your next one coming out?’ My first impulse is to lie – because the truth does not set us free. The truth is I’m trapped on Level 181 of Candy Crush. Trapped like my protagonist Win Mackie in my adult work-in-progress The Lonely Dead. Trapped by a terrifying past and an intricate web of lies half a lifetime in the making. And that’s just me. Win Mackie’s in an even tighter spot.]
2. How do you think your work differs from other writers in your genre?
Well, I don’t know, how many other writers of fiction for children and young adults are working on adult literary crime at the moment?
3. Why do you write what you write?
Because I have no choice. Stories either sink their teeth in or they don’t.
4. What’s your writing process and how does it work?
I day-dream, incessantly, obsessively about my main character and their (usually ghastly) situation. I interrogate my characters ruthlessly,letting scenes spool through my head, as I dream up ways of making it worse, making it funny and making it matter. Generally, I need three strong ideas to come together in a unique way to make a novel work.
I usually don’t start writing until I come up with something that makes me cry. And that’s often the ending. It can change in the writing (and often does, as I discover unforeseen depths of character and dramatic opportunities as I write the story).
Writing novels is a bit like driving in the country. You can have a destination in mind, and a map, but it’s the discoveries along the way that make the journey unforgettable.
Well, that’s it for me on the Blog Hop, folks. I can’t resist dobbing in Katherine Battersby next, so hop over to her blog sometime at The Well Read Rabbit to see if she takes up the challenge. 🙂
Christine Bongers 