This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Hannah Beckerman's debut novel, The Dead Wife's Handbook, has been the talk of the women's fiction community since its launch last month. Susan was left contemplating its unusual premise and memorable characters long after she'd finished. Today, Hannah joins us to talk inspiration, her writing routine and journey to becoming a published author.
Where do you find inspiration for your books?
I think it’s less that I get inspired by something as that something intrigues me: anything from a newspaper headline to a single line someone might say in an otherwise everyday conversation. I’m fascinated by how people interact with one another – what they say, what they don’t (even when they want to), how they conduct relationships – so I’d say most of my ideas spring from those kinds of observations.
Can you tell us a little about your average writing day?
I’m not sure such a thing exists! Not least because one day you can be beavering away in a writing frenzy and the next you can be surfing Twitter and scoffing sweets in a fit of self-delusion that somehow both of those things will help get your book written! The Dead Wife’s Handbook was written when I was pregnant, and I had major insomnia throughout, so often wrote from 4am to early evening when my husband got home. Now my little girl is a toddler so I tend to write for a couple of hours during her nap and at weekends. Having less time makes you very efficient, I’ve found!
When you are writing, do you use any famous people or people you know as inspiration?‘Am I in it?’ has to be the most frequently asked question when you say you’ve written a novel. When you tell people they’re not, I’m never sure whether they’re secretly relieved or disappointed. I’ve never transplanted someone from real life straight into a novel, but I do sometimes ‘borrow’ the the odd phrase or mannerism from people I know. I think most characters are probably a composite of my imagination and fragments of real people.
What is your favourite Women’s Fiction book of all time and why?
It would have to be The Golden Notebook. Doris Lessing achieved things with that novel – both creatively and politically – that will last for generations. I read it in my late teens and then re-read it straight away (which is something I do very rarely). I love that her female characters are both so inspiring and flawed at the same time. I think that’s about as honest as writing gets.
What female writer has inspired you?
The female writer who’s probably had the most impact on me – both as a reader and a writer – is Grace Paley. She was an American short story writer in the mid-late 20th century. She writes beautifully – and so economically – about women and their relationships and the dilemmas faced. If you’ve never read any of her stuff, go and buy her Collected Stories now!
Can you give us three book recommendations?
Only three? Okay, just focussing on relatively recent books that I loved: Nicole Krauss’ Great House; Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell; and Rachel Joyce’s The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.
What is your writing process? Do you plan first or dive in? How many drafts do you do?
I’m big on planning. I tend to treat novel writing pretty much the same as essay writing at university. After I’ve had an idea and sketched out a very rough plot, I do a ton of research and make a lot of notes. That usually helps inform writing a detailed chapter breakdown, which I populate with the notes I’ve made so that every single idea finds a home. I’m usually left with a pretty detailed plan – around 25k words long – and that’s when I feel ready to start writing. I redraft a lot. The finished version of The Dead Wife’s Handbook was the 19th draft. And I probably could have gone on and on if I hadn’t had a deadline!
What was your journey to being a published author?
Like most writers, I have a stack of unfinished manuscripts on various hard drives and stuffed into the bottom of drawers that I’ve written over the past fifteen years or so (and that will never see the light of day, I hope). With The Dead Wife’s Handbook, I wrote the first chapter and a very detailed chapter breakdown and sent it to four agents who seemed to represent similar books. A couple of days later, Luigi Bonomi got in touch to tell me he loved it and we started working together right away. He was instrumental in helping to shape the rest of the first draft, and in giving notes to make it ready for sale.
What do you think is the biggest myth about being a novelist?
That it’s not a proper job! People often ask me whether I have to wait for inspiration to hit before I can write. The answer is a resounding no. It’s a job like any other and you sit at your desk and get on with it. Some days are more productive than others, like in any job, but have you ever noticed how little work gets done some days in your average office? And the fact is, many novelists are juggling their writing around other things – day jobs, studying, children – so I think that discipline plays a much bigger part than most people imagine.
What advice can you give to our readers who want to write a novel of their own?
My advice to any aspiring novelist is simple: write, write and write some more. And when you’re not writing, read everything you can lay your hands on. It’s so true that you only become a writer by actually writing. The fact is, most of us have to write a fair amount of dross before we write something half decent!
What are you working on at the moment?
The first draft of my second novel is written and I’ll be editing that over the next couple of months. And the third is knocking away inside my head demanding to be researched so I’m eager to crack on with that soonest too.
Thanks, Hannah!