Five on a Friday with Rachel Stone

One perk of being a published author is how many other authors I get to “meet.” We all hear about the big, flashy books by big-name authors, but there are a host of gems that may never cross our paths. I get to see some of those books these days as I help other authors, and I thought I’d use my little platform to feature some stories I’ve really enjoyed.

Today, I’m thrilled to introduce Rachel Stone, author of The Blue Iris, a positively gorgeous book which released this week and which I had the privilege of reading in advance.

Welcome, Rachel! Let’s talk ensemble pieces–stories with half a dozen major characters, all of whom have a character arc that tugs on that of other characters. I tried to write a novel like that and failed. But you’ve managed it! All the characters are so deeply developed, and yet none of them take center stage. How do you develop a story like this?

Available at Amazon and Bookshop.org

In my case, sort of by accident! The first draft had only one main arc (Tessa’s). The secondary characters were coming through more vividly than expected though, and it was actually my developmental editor who identified it as an ensemble piece—even though it needed a LOT more work to bring that out effectively. I had to decide whether to dig deeper into the other characters to get it there, or scale them back and let this story be Tessa’s—which would likely have been the easier, more rational choice all around, from revisions to pitching it to landing the book deal.

But those secondary characters just kept getting louder. I knew the ensemble aspect was the heart of the book, even though the idea of rewriting it that way was completely overwhelming! I knew I couldn’t ask the reader to invest in an ensemble unless every character earned their time on the page in such a way that the story didn’t feel whole without them. It took a LOT of revising and rebalancing until I felt I’d done each of them justice, in relation to the overall story and as individuals.

I’m a sucker for great characters, and yours leap off the page. How did you intertwine these characters so tightly that every one seems to develop in every scene, even when it’s not “their” scene?
 
I spent a lot of time sitting in the other characters’ headspaces until they felt as real and layered to me as Tessa did. The key, I believe, was to reach the point where they all felt like main protagonists. I did various exercises to help with this, like writing out their private journal entries, letters they’d never send, letters to me about why I was all wrong about them (this article by Caroline Leavitt was wonderful for getting started).
 
From there, I began tackling how their journeys connected. My editor warned me the first question I’d get when pitching was: “why so many points of view? Why not just Tessa’s?” So I approached each scene by flipping that question on its head: why not these different points of view? Why this voice here, instead of Tessa’s? Each character had to be established vividly and distinctly, but the bigger the ensemble, the less room you have in which to achieve that. Every move a character made, every word they spoke had to do heavy lifting on as many fronts as possible, because there just wasn’t enough space to pull it off otherwise.
 
The Blue Iris is an open-air flower shop in Toronto. You worked in a similar market, right? How much of what we read in the book is based on your experiences?
 
I did! During my academic breaks over seven years, I worked at a real flower market that inspired the setting of the Blue Iris. I re-imagined many aspects of course, but the intricacies—buying plant inventory, tips and tricks for conditioning flowers, the day-to-day inner workings—are all elements I learned on the job.
 
Many of Tessa’s recollections in the first chapter as she returns to the market after many years are also based on my own memories of walking past the real one with my mother as a child. And the scene where characters are trapped inside the walk-in flower refrigerator, in the pitch darkness, while soaking wet? That really did happen to me! My experience while in there was far less eventful than in the book, though. I was stuck in there for only about five seconds, and in that time I managed to knock over a flat of blueberries, which went flying. For the next couple of days, customers kept bringing their bouquets to the counter and all these berries were falling out!
 
That’s hilarious. And also terrifying. In high school I  was in a play and had to hide in a coffin. One day they closed it on me. I am still not sure I’ve recovered. But I digress! The Blue Iris is chock full of incredible beauty–both of situation and some simply gorgeous writing.

At the same time, there’s a lot of rough, really earthy content, too–language, men being coarse, etc. Talk to me about the decision to include such a breadth of human experience in it.

Thank you for such kind words! I’ve always been fascinated by dualities, the idea that two things can be true at once, and the flower market setting was so rich in possibilities for exploring this. On one hand, you have gorgeous blooms overflowing everywhere you look, and meanwhile just hours earlier there was nothing in that space but rusty, waterlogged shelving and curse words flying all over the place.
 
I’ve learned that things can’t always be taken at face value; a gorgeous presentation isn’t necessarily indicative of depth or integrity. Coarse edges can house the purest intentions. In general, the most exquisite, affecting moments in my life to date have all emerged from the roughest of times. For me, the Blue Iris was the perfect way to explore and celebrate that.

That’s so true, and it opens up a burning question. You and I share a common world view and, I suspect, writing goals. Namely, we are both Catholic, but neither of us writes religious fiction. You and I have spent some time talking privately about the intersection of our religious beliefs and writing about the world realistically. Was this story particularly difficult to write because of that juxtaposition?

It was definitely a hurdle I faced early on, in that I wanted my characters to feel completely real and pull at you, but there was the rather horrific notion lurking over my shoulder that someday people I know were going to read the book, and they might assume my characters’ arcs reflect my own reality or choices (and judge me accordingly). I think a lot of writers struggle with this, especially early on.
 
The trouble with this line of thinking was, I ended up with a first draft that one editor referred to as “entirely afraid.” I’d filtered out every aspect that made those characters compelling: their innermost wants, their sexuality, their mistakes and most shameful secrets, the way they’d naturally speak. If I wanted them to feel entirely human, I had to be willing to put their varied, very human elements on the page. Sharing art in any form always leaves you open to judgment, but the reality is it’s hard enough getting a whole novel to hang together when you’re making everything up; trying to match reality would be like doing a jigsaw puzzle using pieces from a different box! You have to have faith that most readers understand that, and shift the focus towards making those characters as varied and unique as real people are.

Well, my hat is off to you, because you really accomplished what you set out to do. Thanks for taking time to visit on Five on a Friday!

Readers, check out The Blue Iris at Amazon or Bookshop.org—or ask at your local bookstore!

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