This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Last year was a big one for American author Rainbow Rowell. Eleanor & Park and Fangirl were both chosen by The New York Times as being some of the best young adult fiction of 2013. Eleanor & Park was also chosen by Amazon as one of the 10 best books of 2013, and as Goodreads' best young adult fiction of the year. Drawn to the teenage love story just as much as the rest of the world, Dreamworks snapped up movie rights and hired Rowell to write the screenplay.
Now, with her newest title Landline on the shelves, Rainbow joins us to answer a few questions about her writing. Don’t forget you can put your own questions to the author on July 15 during a live Novelicious Book Club Q&A.
Where do you find inspiration for your books?
Hmm. Everywhere, I think. I seem to write about things in my own life that I need to process or figure out. With Fangirl, I was thinking about my relationship to the Internet and fandom – and about how the Internet might have changed who I was as a teenager. With Landline, I was thinking about how marriages change over time, and how it’s impossible to understand on your wedding day what it means to join your lives together.
Can you tell us a little about your average writing day?
I’m not sure I have one! I wrote my first three books while working full-time. So I wrote during holidays – or when I could afford to take time off. I have a home office now, and I’m a full-time novelist. But I seem to always be working around my kids’ schedules and my own travel. I like to immerse myself in the manuscript when I write. So four to six hours at a time, four to six days in a row is ideal. I tend to get up, reply to the most urgent email, then try to sit in my office for a few hours and write. If my kids are home, I write in coffee shops.
When you are writing, do you use any famous people or people you know as inspiration?
Well, I have a hard time picturing faces when I write. So sometimes I choose celebrities to use as face or expression models. Celebrities work well because there are so many photos available online. I used Tom Felton for Levi in Fangirl. And for Neal in Landline, I used Iwan Rheon. (I have so many photos of those guys on my laptop.)
As far as personalities … I never just lift people from my life and put them in my books. But I do take traits or sometimes even anecdotes. In Attachments, I gave Lincoln’s mom the way my mom interrupts every conversation with food – and the way she takes something she’s heard on the radio and twists it to apply to a personal situation.
What is your favourite Women’s Fiction book of all time and why?
Probably Rachel’s Holiday by Marian Keyes. It’s the book I recommend most. Everyone likes it. I personally love all of Marian Keyes’s books. She’s so funny and her characters feel real. The family and friend dynamics. The way they think. I also like the way she writes men. Luke in Rachel’s Holiday is a smart, complex, hot, real guy.
What female writer has inspired you?
It’s easier for me to say which books written by female authors have inspired me.
I loved The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend – the way Townsend loses herself in the voice of this weird 13-year-old boy. His voice is so specific and so hilarious. I can’t think of another book that expresses the concept of voice so perfectly.
As a child, I read everything by Beverly Cleary, and I just read the Ramona books out loud to my sons last year. They hold up! Ramona’s voice is compelling and consistent.
Both of these authors wrote about young characters whose lives are really difficult – and who are difficult themselves. You cringe when you read about Adrian and Ramona.My literary agent says my books are funny/sad, and I think I seek that quality out in books and movies. I like stories that make you laugh and cry during the same scenes.
Can you give us three book recommendations?
Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. Start here, then read all of Stephanie Perkins’s books. She writes about good people trying to figure the world out and falling in love.
I just read Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. I know it’s a few years old, but, oh man, it’s so good. Funny and touching and thoughtful, and just nails what it’s like to work at an ad agency. (Which I did.)
I also love The Brides of Rollrock Island, which is a novel about selkies by Margo Lanagan. (I loved Tender Morsels, too.) Rollrock reads like a fairy tale and also a history. Sort of Neil Gaiman-ish. Very poetic. Lovely.
What is your writing process? Do you plan first or dive in? How many drafts do you do?
I always start with the characters and their relationships and the situation they’re in. And I always know how the book ends. It’s the second act I’m not sure of.
When I get the idea, I pitch it to my agent, then I write a page long summary – sort of a story/outline. Then I do an actual outline. Very bare bones. And then I start writing, and I fill in the outline as I go, jotting down ideas as I have them. I write in a program called Scrivener, which is very intuitive. It lets me organize my thoughts and, most importantly, see the elements of the book from a bit of a distance. I’m more aware of a book’s structure, in Scrivener.
I usually write three to four major drafts. Two by myself, one with my agent and one with my editor.
What was your journey to being a published author?
I worked at a newspaper as a columnist, then as creative director at an ad agency while I was writing my first book, Attachments. It took me five years to write – because I really thought of it as a hobby, and I took time off when I had my first son.
Then it took me another year to find an agent. That was absolutely the hardest part.
I wrote my second book, Eleanor & Park, because Attachments had sold in a two-book deal to Orion in the UK. Thank goodness! I’m not sure when I would have written a second book if I hadn’t had that deadline.
What do you think is the biggest myth about being a novelist?
That it’s a full-time job? That it pays like one.
I feel very lucky to be writing full-time, but it took me a while to get here, and even though my books are doing well, it was a leap to give up my full-time salary.
When I was a newspaper columnist, I wrote a story where I interviewed every novelist I could find in my state, Nebraska, and all of them had other jobs – or they had a spouse who supported their families.
It’s really hard to make a living writing books.
What advice can you give to our readers who want to write a novel of their own?
Stop thinking about it and do it. I thought about Attachments for years before I started it. I thought I had to have it all worked out, but you work the book out as you’re writing it.
What are you working on at the moment?
I just finished the first draft of a YA fantasy. It’s my first fantasy, and the first time I’ve written first-person. It’s been a bear, but I’m really excited about it.
Thanks, Rainbow!