Amy Moe
asked
Tana French:
I love your books and have enjoyed each one more than the one before it. When you begin the process of writing a new book, do you know who the culprit is, or does that come to you as you go?
Tana French
When I start, I haven't got a clue whodunit. I start with a basic premise, a narrator and a core setting - everything else I figure out as I go. I think it's because I'm a very character-based writer - the plot tends to grow out of the characters, rather than the other way around - so I have to get to know the characters a bit, by writing them, before I can figure out who would do what and why. It makes for a lot of rewriting, when I realise halfway through that ARGHHH something I did back in Chapter 2 is all wrong and I'm going to have to redo the whole thing...but it's the only way I know how to work.
More Answered Questions
Colleen
asked
Tana French:
I have read all of your books and just finished The Secret Place. I loved it; as an educator pf adolescents and young adults, I compliment you on how well you captured their lives and minds. Please refresh my memory on Holly and Stephen; how did they encounter each other in a previous novel?
Cristina Ferrandez
asked
Tana French:
Tana, I found the idea of the 'animal' in Broken Harbour extremely chilling and a superb metaphor for mental illness and/or depression, but also loved the ambiguity of it (we can never be quite sure that the animal didn't exist - what about the skeletons in the attic?). Could you please tell us how you came up with the idea of the animal, and whether this ambiguity was intentional? Thanks!
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