Letting Characters Decide

 

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting regional author Alice McDermott several times over the years at various book festivals and literary events. During one of those events, she explained that although she writes fiction, she bases her fiction on experience. 

“Writers like to say that they write from their imagination because that sounds harder,” she said. She’s not literally writing about herself or her family, but she is writing from her experience, observations, and the world she knows. “Our thoughts come from our experience. The way we use words is part of our experience.”

McDermott said that she never writes from an outline or with a set destination in mind. She writes from the hearts and minds of her characters and allows them and their relationships to evolve and drive the story. “If I’m not surprised by what my characters are doing, I stop writing.”

An emotive writer approaches writing like a reader, wanting to be surprised. McDermott’s characters make choices based on who they are; the choices are not made by her as the author. She compares this method to the great clockmaker theory: the author creates the world and then leaves it up to the created to determine their destiny. But once it’s set in motion, the characters have to follow the established rules.

“When writing fiction, you’re constantly eliminating choices. As soon as you’ve written that first sentence, you’ve eliminated a million choices. Each sentence eliminates more.”

Alice McDermott has won the National Book Award and has been nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize. Her characters seem to be making good choices for her.

Learn more about Alice McDermott and her books at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7505.Alice_McDermott