Meliss

Meliss asked Maggie Shipstead:

Do you know the ending of a book before you write it?

Maggie Shipstead I don't. Or, at least, I didn't with either of my published novels, and I don't with the novel I'm working on now. Welllll . . . actually, that's not entirely true. Seating Arrangements started out as a short story, and the story ended with essentially the same paragraph as the novel. But I didn't know what any of the action leading up to that paragraph would be. I'm not someone who outlines in advance--that kind of planning tends to kill the project for me, and I'm just not very good at it. For me to keep my writing momentum, it seems most important that I commit to a voice and structure and that I have a few plot waypoints out in the future that I'm writing toward. The way I originally drafted it, most chapters of Astonish Me ended where a piece of information was missing, and then the next chapter would usually jump back in time and supply that information. This made for pretty confusing reading and got simplified a bit as I edited, but the plot of the book evolved organically as I went.

More Answered Questions

A Goodreads user

A Goodreads user asked Maggie Shipstead:

Where in the world do you get your ideas for your characters? In both of your books --you've characters a reader wants to 'spank'. How do you write such wonderful books with snotty characters? What's your hidden talent?

Susanna

Susanna asked Maggie Shipstead:

I love your novels, thanks for writing! I would like to know how you come up with the characters? When reading your books, it seems like you can describe what men and women of different ages are thinking and feeling so incredibly well. How did you gain the ability to imagine this? Is it something that you just understand or is it something you deliberately studied?

Kim

Kim asked Maggie Shipstead:

As a reader, I can get awfully wrapped up a book and its characters and sometimes find it difficult to let them go when the story ends. (That happened to me when I read Seating Arrangements.) As a writer, do you have this same difficulty? Some authors seem to explore a similar theme in a very different storyline but is it the theme or certain character traits the author wants to revisit?

All answers from Maggie Shipstead…

Maggie Shipstead

1,913 followers

About Goodreads Q&A

Ask and answer questions about books!

You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.

See Featured Authors Answering Questions