Interviews with Authors

LJ:  In your stories, do you consciously include setting details so that they echo the emotions of your character, or is this something that simply comes to you as you're writing?

MS:  Oh, definitely. The more novels I write, the more deliberate I become. I like to think that I have enough control over my writing now that I can become deliberate.  Actually, it feels like when I was first learning to use colored pencils as a portrait artist. At first I was just struggling to get a likeness down, and then, as I got more proficient, I started to play with nuance and stylizing -- things that I couldn't even consider when I was just trying to get the portrait to look like the subject.

My first editor, Andrew Karre at Flux, drilled into me the importance of every word in a YA novel. Not that this isn't true in an adult novel as well, but since YA tends to be so short, every sentence has to serve double duty -- character and setting, or setting and plot, etc.

LJ: You have mentioned elsewhere that edits were the most difficult part of writing. How different is the first draft from the final copy?

MS: It really varies from book to book. I think of each book as being composed of a handful of really key scenes -- scenes that are the core of the book. Often they're really visual scenes, too. Those scenes don't change, at least not significantly. They're what makes the book THE BOOK. But every other scene is open to negotiation. They can get cut, changed, warped to better heighten those core scenes. It's amazing how different the book can look on the surface when those scenes change.  As long as the core stays the same, it feels like the same book to me.

LJ: Do you outline? If not, did you have an ultimate goal even as you wrote the first word?

MS: I firmly believe that writers need to write the same way they do everything else in life. So for me that means I know my goal, but not necessarily how to get there. I'll have a goal for the day, but not a schedule, for instance. I'll have a road trip planned -- I know the destination, but not the stops; I won't stick fast to one route. My novel writing is the same way. I cannot finish without knowing the end first -- the final scene. It doesn't have to make sense to me, and it can be fairly nebulous, but the image itself has to be vivid enough to give me a final point to aim at. Some writers are seat-of-the-pants writers and don't need the end first -- but I think there are far fewer pantsers than people who think they are pantsers.

LJ: How important is a critique group to your work? Do you brainstorm ideas with them or do you ask them to read your work during the drafting process?

MS: My critique partners -- I have two -- are hugely important. They're great for brainstorming, even if I don't take their ideas, and most importantly, for reading the draft before my editor gets to it. They're brutal, the way I like it, and they don't hold back. We're all beyond the stage of hurt egos. We just want to make the book the best it can be now.

LJ: Are your characters composites of real people? If so, do you draw up sketches for your personal reference, or do you write the story and see how their quirks play out?

MS: I don't draw sketches for my characters. I used to, before I realized that it's just a procrastination tool for me. I figure out my characters' rough attributes in my head before I start and then hone as I "meet” them and find out how they react in situations. And yes, every one of them has real people stuff at the heart of them, otherwise I don't think they'll ring true.

LJ: What would be your ideal writing environment?

MS: Any place where I can listen to my music playlists while writing. I find it very difficult to focus without music to ground me.

More information at www.maggiestiefvater.com

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