Ask the Author: Sara Gruen
Answered Questions (8)
Sara Gruen
I do think about cover design, and sometimes even mock them up, but so far they haven’t even remotely resembled the final covers. Suffice it to say there’s a very good reason why I’m not a designer!
Sara Gruen
My new book isn’t classified (I don’t think—perhaps I’d better check!), but I hesitate to say anything about it because my writing process is so organic and messy that I only have a handful of characters so far, and no plot to speak of.
Storylines and characters come to me as I write. After I get the setting down and can pass through what I think of as my creative portal into that other, fictional world and lose myself in it, the characters begin to reveal themselves, and their actions and reactions create the story. So basically anything I might say now about the book now would be completely useless by the time it comes out. It’s kind of a running joke around here about how wildly different my original thoughts are from the finished product. For example, my working title is “Dear Henry,” but I’d be willing to bet that changes by the time the book comes out!
Storylines and characters come to me as I write. After I get the setting down and can pass through what I think of as my creative portal into that other, fictional world and lose myself in it, the characters begin to reveal themselves, and their actions and reactions create the story. So basically anything I might say now about the book now would be completely useless by the time it comes out. It’s kind of a running joke around here about how wildly different my original thoughts are from the finished product. For example, my working title is “Dear Henry,” but I’d be willing to bet that changes by the time the book comes out!
Sara Gruen
I really don’t have a favorite historical period, probably because I don’t tend to think in terms of genre, which means I don’t set about to write historical fiction. I mean, obviously I am writing historical fiction, but I don’t have that in mind when I am looking for a book idea. I generally run across some moment or event in human history that fascinates me (the circus, the Depression, WWII), and then, if it’s meaty enough, build a story around it. For me, everything is about the story.
Sara Gruen
Rosie is a mixture of various circus elephants: two specifically (see the Author’s Note), and others by a more distant connection.
When I began researching “Water for Elephants,” I had no idea that an elephant would be its star. A chance encounter with a vintage circus photograph set the whole thing in motion, and as I began to read about old-time circuses, I realized that the most interesting, funny, touching, and heartbreaking anecdotes involved elephants. I decided to incorporate as many as I could into my story, and Rosie was born.
Circus history in general is so ripe with fascinating anecdotes (such as red-lighting, the pickled hippo, the origins of pink lemonade, etc.) that I included many of them, so while many of the things that happened to characters in my book happened to real people, none of the characters is based on anyone real.
When I began researching “Water for Elephants,” I had no idea that an elephant would be its star. A chance encounter with a vintage circus photograph set the whole thing in motion, and as I began to read about old-time circuses, I realized that the most interesting, funny, touching, and heartbreaking anecdotes involved elephants. I decided to incorporate as many as I could into my story, and Rosie was born.
Circus history in general is so ripe with fascinating anecdotes (such as red-lighting, the pickled hippo, the origins of pink lemonade, etc.) that I included many of them, so while many of the things that happened to characters in my book happened to real people, none of the characters is based on anyone real.
Sara Gruen
I opened the paper one Sunday morning and found a huge vintage circus photograph staring me in the face. It was like a bolt of lightning. I was about a third of the way through a different novel and had just returned from a research trip, but when I laid eyes on that photo, I knew what I was going to do next. My husband sensed that something was up and was pacing nervously in the background when I stabbed the picture with my finger and said, “This! This is where I have to set my next book!”
The camera was custom built by Edward J. Kelty, a WWI vet who followed and photographed circuses across the country during the 1920s and early 30s (after the Crash of ‘29, there were only three left to follow). His camera was enormous, capable of producing negatives that were something like 12 x 24 inches. That’s the negatives, so his photographs were capable of capturing a huge amount of detail, even when he was filming hundreds of people at one time. He used to set up the camera on the top of a ladder on the bed of his pickup truck and the take the pictures from up at the top. The picture that shook my world featured a round-up of all the Ringling employees, and I could see the individual rhinestones in the women’s barrettes, the wrinkles in their stockings, the individual fronds in costume feathers. I was completely and instantly mesmerized.
And last but not least, thank you very much for the compliment! I can honestly say it made my day.
The camera was custom built by Edward J. Kelty, a WWI vet who followed and photographed circuses across the country during the 1920s and early 30s (after the Crash of ‘29, there were only three left to follow). His camera was enormous, capable of producing negatives that were something like 12 x 24 inches. That’s the negatives, so his photographs were capable of capturing a huge amount of detail, even when he was filming hundreds of people at one time. He used to set up the camera on the top of a ladder on the bed of his pickup truck and the take the pictures from up at the top. The picture that shook my world featured a round-up of all the Ringling employees, and I could see the individual rhinestones in the women’s barrettes, the wrinkles in their stockings, the individual fronds in costume feathers. I was completely and instantly mesmerized.
And last but not least, thank you very much for the compliment! I can honestly say it made my day.
Sara Gruen
Research is one of my very favorite parts of the writing process. It’s also why you’ll never see me set a book in Sudbury, Ontario, in the middle of winter!
I love that I can find something that fascinates me--and that I hope will fascinate others--and immerse myself in it until I feel I know it well enough to write not just about it but from within it, if that makes sense. I have to create a fictional world in my head that I pass into when I'm writing, and because I also hope to transport readers there, all the details have to be in place. Although I no longer enter the world of "At the Water's Edge" to write, I still know every cobweb in the Fraser Arms, every floorboard that creaks, the earthy, oppressive smell of the Anderson Shelter.
I incorporate real incidents into my novels all the time. It's the interesting little nuggets I've never heard of that fascinate me the most, and I think readers like taking away odd little bits of knowledge as well. It's also true that when I'm blending fact with fiction, sometimes the lines do blur. If I want to include something historical that almost works but not quite, I remind myself that I’m a novelist and can take a little creative license. For example, in “At the Water’s Edge,” I incorporated every Nessie sighting that happened up to the time of the novel, and reimagined the most famous one, the “Surgeon’s Photo,” as the Colonel’s photo in my book. I also incorporated a few wartime incidents, like the Royal Observer Corps sighting of the monster and the bombing in Foyers, although in both cases I changed the year.
I’m very careful about accuracy, and during my initial research make contacts with museums, historians, and others so I can ask questions and verify things that come up as I'm writing the story. I also have a point person to read the final text for accuracy. I can’t say history was my thing in school, because it seemed dry and somehow disconnected from real life, but now that I’m learning about it by unearthing WWII installations, unwittingly tromping around among undetonated 70-year-old bombs, and crawling under abandoned circus wagons, it feels very much alive!
I love that I can find something that fascinates me--and that I hope will fascinate others--and immerse myself in it until I feel I know it well enough to write not just about it but from within it, if that makes sense. I have to create a fictional world in my head that I pass into when I'm writing, and because I also hope to transport readers there, all the details have to be in place. Although I no longer enter the world of "At the Water's Edge" to write, I still know every cobweb in the Fraser Arms, every floorboard that creaks, the earthy, oppressive smell of the Anderson Shelter.
I incorporate real incidents into my novels all the time. It's the interesting little nuggets I've never heard of that fascinate me the most, and I think readers like taking away odd little bits of knowledge as well. It's also true that when I'm blending fact with fiction, sometimes the lines do blur. If I want to include something historical that almost works but not quite, I remind myself that I’m a novelist and can take a little creative license. For example, in “At the Water’s Edge,” I incorporated every Nessie sighting that happened up to the time of the novel, and reimagined the most famous one, the “Surgeon’s Photo,” as the Colonel’s photo in my book. I also incorporated a few wartime incidents, like the Royal Observer Corps sighting of the monster and the bombing in Foyers, although in both cases I changed the year.
I’m very careful about accuracy, and during my initial research make contacts with museums, historians, and others so I can ask questions and verify things that come up as I'm writing the story. I also have a point person to read the final text for accuracy. I can’t say history was my thing in school, because it seemed dry and somehow disconnected from real life, but now that I’m learning about it by unearthing WWII installations, unwittingly tromping around among undetonated 70-year-old bombs, and crawling under abandoned circus wagons, it feels very much alive!
Sara Gruen
About four years ago, I was spending the afternoon happily doing one of the things I do best—procrastinating—when I ran across a news article about the Loch Ness Monster. The article talked about recently declassified documents that showed that as recently as 1938, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the beast in the loch was real. I’ve been fascinated with the Loch Ness Monster since I was twelve and first visited the Highlands (and was entirely sure I was going to see it!) and the article sent me straight down a Nessie rabbit hole. When I emerged at the end of the day, I knew the setting of my next book.
It wasn’t until my first research trip that I decided to set the book toward the end of WWII, and later, as the story began to form in my mind, it dawned on me that the monster worked as a metaphor on every possible layer. I don’t think I chose it, per se, because my writing process is really messy and organic, but once the story started to come together, I realized that monsters of every kind—internal, external, global, personal, real, mythical—spanned the entire spectrum, and it grew from there.
I’m so glad you’re enjoying the book!
It wasn’t until my first research trip that I decided to set the book toward the end of WWII, and later, as the story began to form in my mind, it dawned on me that the monster worked as a metaphor on every possible layer. I don’t think I chose it, per se, because my writing process is really messy and organic, but once the story started to come together, I realized that monsters of every kind—internal, external, global, personal, real, mythical—spanned the entire spectrum, and it grew from there.
I’m so glad you’re enjoying the book!
Sara Gruen
I'd love to live temporarily in all kinds of different time periods (if I got to pick and choose my circumstances, of course--everyone kind of assumes that if they went back in time they'd be a Lady Mary and not a Daisy in the kitchen, but the reality is most of us would have been Daisy in the kitchen or a fish wife on the docks). But my completely non-exciting answer is that I would choose to live in the here and now, because I would not have made it to my first birthday without antibiotics, and I think things like central heating, air conditioning, indoor plumbing, and kitchen/laundry appliances are most excellent. I cannot imagine going outside and stirring a great pot of boiling lye once a week to do the family's laundry, but I can tell you that my tolerance for dirty clothes would be a lot higher.
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