Guest Post with Author Susan Wiggs
Today Im happy to have Susan Wiggs on the blog as she talks about the steps in writing her lovely novel, The Goodbye Quilt. Be sure to check out the blog later this after noon and read the review!!
The hold-up, in the case of THE GOODBYE QUILT, was not just the time factor. The book also lacked a narrative voice, a unifying theme, a title and an ending. Any ninth-grade English student will tell you that without those things, you don’t actually have a book.
Finally, and most importantly, the book needed an ending. I wanted it to feel right and true for the characters, and also in the reader’s heart and mind. I came up with what I thought was the ideal, bittersweet conclusion to the journey–only to realize later it didn’t work. It was only when I realized the true meaning of Linda’s oeuvre–the quilt itself–was I able to come up with the right ending.
Today Im happy to have Susan Wiggs on the blog as she talks about the steps in writing her lovely novel, The Goodbye Quilt. Be sure to check out the blog later this after noon and read the review!!
Gestation by Susan Wiggs
Some novels have a long "gestation period." The Goodbye Quilt is one of those novels. From the time I conceived of the idea until the book was actually published, several years had passed. That’s not to say I was working on the book the whole time. I had other deadline and obligations to take care of. I had to keep my Lakeshore Chronicles on track and write other novels that had been nagging at me.
But all along, the notion of a mother driving her only child to college for the first time was a project on the back burner, never really out of my radar range. It was like one of those unfinished home craft projects–a sweater that turned out to be too ambitious to knit. A scrapbook that overwhelms you with its abundance. A garden that looked a lot prettier in your mind than it did in the real world. You tend to set it aside, thinking you’ll come back to it one day but secretly wondering if you really will.
I found the narrative voice by experimenting. First, I told the story in the third person, past tense. ("Linda was worried about what would become of her once Molly left the nest...") It didn’t feel immediate enough to me. Then I tried rewriting it in the first person, past tense. (I remember how much I worried about Molly leaving the nest...") But my readers are savvy, and they would figure out the ending too quickly that way. Finally, I tried the first person, present tense, to show the story unfolding through Linda’s eyes as it happened. This was the choice that felt right, and so I went with it. Boom, done.
Next I needed a theme. In the early drafts, Linda was not a quilter. She was a bit of a homebody but I had to work on her for a while before realizing she had a consuming passion for fiber crafts and quilting. I fell in love with this beautiful art form, even though I don’t practice it myself. Linda was very, very good at it, maybe as good as my friend Joan, who created the original quilt pattern at the end of the book.
The book was called, on its computer file the College Road Trip Book. Not a very apt title, so I started calling it The Last Carpool. I loved that one, but let it go when it was pointed out to me that "carpool" implies a group of people traveling together, not just a mother and daughter. Now that I had turned Linda into a quilter, I could name the book after her pet project–The Goodbye Quilt. Boom, again.
I’d love to hear what readers took away from the story of Linda and Molly, talking and arguing and adventuring their way across the country.
Happy reading,
Susan Wiggs
**Thanks Susan for stopping by and best of luck to you and your novel The Goodbye Quilt!! To learn more about Susan, check out her website at Susanwiggs.com.
Such a beautiful cover on this one, I love how simple yet eye-catching it is:) Thanks for this guest post, it's always fun to read the process authors go through to get to the finished product we're familiar with! Looking forward to reading your review of this one Tina:)
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I look forward to trying this book.
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