Starting a new book

Avi — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 07:01:37 +0000

What’s it like to start a new book? Sometimes I think it’s like a maze, one that has many entrances, many passages, and many outcomes, none known (though you think you know the entrance). The maze also has many dead ends. It certainly doesn’t have a known exit. I, the writer, poke along through this maze, now this passage, and now that, feeling my way (and I mean that feeling literarily). If it feels good, I press on to the next choice of turns. If it doesn’t feel right, I retreat and go another way. I may even have to go back and start again. From a different place. The more I go forward, however, the clearer the way forward—unless, of course, I reach another dead end and have to yet start again. Curiously enough for all the hesitations, false moves, guesses, dead ends, the goal is to make the story appear inevitable, as if it had no hesitations, false moves, guesses, or dead ends. Do you think writers always know what they are doing? Think again.

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Starting a new book