Special chat with Charles Todd, Alan Bradley, and Tasha Alexander discussion
Writing Process
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Patrick
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Sep 07, 2011 03:37PM
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Inevitable question, up for grabs. How many revisions does each novel tend to go through?
A question for Tasha Alexander--Lady Emily is such a fun character. What was your inspiration for coming up with her character?
A question for Alan Bradley: How did he come up with the character of Flavia de Luce? She seems like such an odd choice for a detective because she's so young. Did he know she would be a young girl when he began writing the series or did it just turn out that way?
A question for Alan Bradley: Flavia seems like such a real character. After reading the book, she seems like a real person who I know. What's the inspiration for coming up with a character like her?
Excellent question. I'm also curious about how difficult it was to keep Flavia from becoming just cute and precocious.
Fox wrote: "Inevitable question, up for grabs. How many revisions does each novel tend to go through?"From Alan: I revise constantly as I write. By the time I have a first draft, the number of changes is innumerable. Following that, we probably do about another three complete walk-through with copy editors on both sides of the Atlantic.
Jae wrote: "A question for Alan Bradley: How did he come up with the character of Flavia de Luce? She seems like such an odd choice for a detective because she's so young. Did he know she would be a young gi..."Hi, Jae,
I didn't consciously choose to make Flavia eleven years old. That's the age she was when she appeared, and I'm very happy that it was so. Twelve would have been too old for the character to work, and so would eleven.
Kristy wrote: "A question for Alan Bradley: Flavia seems like such a real character. After reading the book, she seems like a real person who I know. What's the inspiration for coming up with a character like her?"Hi, Kristy,
I wish I knew. Flavia popped suddenly onto the page of another mystery novel I was trying to write, and refused to be budged. She refused to do anything I wanted her to. Eventually, I stopped fighting and learned to shut up and listen.
I don't think Alan Bradley is capable of creating a character such as Flavia, but I'm hugely grateful that she was given to my pen, so to speak.
Lynn Diane wrote: "Excellent question. I'm also curious about how difficult it was to keep Flavia from becoming just cute and precocious."Flavia is too dangerous to be cute. But she - and I - revel in her precocity.
One of the most interesting things about the books is that those around her never realize her enormous capabilities, either good or bad.
Beth wrote: "A question for Tasha Alexander--Lady Emily is such a fun character. What was your inspiration for coming up with her character?"
Hi, Beth! Glad you like Emily.
Before I started writing AND ONLY TO DECEIVE, a vivid image popped into my head--that of a young woman in a Victorian gown standing on the cliff path on Santorini, looking over the caldera and the Aegean Sea. It's one of my favorite views, but I wasn't sure how a Victorian woman factored into the equation. I immediately started asking and answering questions about her---how might she have come to be there? Was she traveling on her own? Why Greece?
A Victorian woman probably wouldn't ordinarily have traveled to Santorini. So she needed to be someone strong-minded, and someone who didn't have people (e.g. overbearing parents or a strict husband) to keep her from going. And she had to be a lady of independent means. Pretty quickly it became clear to me that she was a widow--a young widow. And then I started asking questions about how she'd been widowed. As one question led to the next, I soon had a complete picture of Emily, and I knew I had to write her story.
