This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
We recently had a chat with Jean Kwok, bestselling author of Girl in Translation and her latest book, Mambo in Chinatown.
What is her writing process, does she plan her novels and how many drafts does she do?
I usually mull things over for a long time before I know I have a novel. I need something that tugs at my gut, both emotionally and intellectually. I want to know that I will be happy living this novel for a long time and I need to be deeply curious about what I’ll learn during the process. It might begin with a voice or a character, which then turns into a sentence or two of what-ifs: what if a poor girl became a dancer? What if her little sister became sick?
Once I can hear the voice more clearly, I sketch a very rough story arc, which changes dramatically as I progress. I have learned to dream and plan as much as I can before jumping into the writing. Some writers do it the other way around. I love using the program Scrivener to hold all of the many files I create along the way: the draft, research, my journal (of despair and hope during the process), character sketches, physical places, timeline, photos, random thoughts, possible titles, etc.
I force myself through the first draft, allowing all sorts of problems and contradictions to exist side by side in terrible prose. Then I go back and rewrite the whole thing: the second draft is the true birth of the novel. I did a total of 4 drafts before sending Mambo in Chinatown to my agent, who loved it and then sold it to my editor. Working in conjunction with my editor’s comments, I wrote another 5 drafts. So the novel that readers hold in their hands is the 9th draft!If that makes you want to bang your head against the table (as I always do), just remember that I wrote 15 drafts of my first novel! The one I submitted to my agent was the 12th version and that time, I wrote 3 more drafts for my editor.
And then we asked her what advice she would give to our readers who want to write a novel of their own?
When writers go back to tinker with their pages, many first try to polish the language. After all, that’s a large part of the reason we became writers: our love of words. However, I would advise novelists to resist this urge and to look carefully at the overall structure first. Do the story and characters make sense? Are there places where characters are forced to do things they wouldn’t really, just to serve the larger story? Is there a sense of progression, does the foundation of your book ring true? Is the pacing even or does the book suddenly speed up or slow down?
I think of writing a novel like building a ship. I need to make sure the underlying structure is strong and compelling before I build on top of it. Otherwise, the whole thing will sink. Of course, language is an essential part of a novel and it can guide us and our novel, but it’s possible to write hundreds of pages of carefully-wrought prose that then need to be tossed because the basic story or characters don’t work. I know because I’ve done it. With my debut novel Girl in Translation, I had to throw away 400 pages and start afresh, only keeping 50 pages of what I had originally written
Make sure your foundation is sound first, then work on the language.
Thanks, Jean!