It was a real treat to hear Ms. Fielding speak to a group of writers at the  Humber Writers’ Circle earlier today, and I hope my notes (below) give you a flavour of what she said. When Ms. Fielding spoke at the North York Central Library as part of the Eh List series last spring, I got the start-time wrong. My good friend and I arrived one hour late and sat down in time to hear the audience’s hilarity after Ms. Fielding’s concluding remarks. This time, I made sure to arrive one hour early!

Joy Fielding seems to be an extraordinarily prolific writer, who recognizes the necessity of unstructured down-time – and daytime soap operas – in order to be productive and successful. Personally, as a writer who works full-time and has young children, I have been intensely disciplined about sitting down to write every evening from 8pm – 11pm. Because of my past training in law and science, I am used to working late into the evening and I am probably not unique in this – Sarah Heller noted that many unsolicited manuscripts she receives come from doctors and lawyers, professions characterized by long hours and discipline.  I started writing fiction like this this during my maternity leave and have kept it up in my first two months back at work. Lately, this has been feeling like a chore, but I have still been diligent about researching and writing my novels for two – three hours each evening. I think the main reason I keep going even when I am not particularly in the mood is that I do not want to lose my designated writing time – now that I have set aside this time, I know that it is all to easy to have it reabsorbed by the regular tasks of being a working mother. So, I will keep on going … but I won’t feel guilty when I take time off to do other things, and who knows – maybe that will make me a better writer in the end!

Joy Fielding on “How I write”:

I started writing when I was a child. Writing is something I always did and something I was good at. I cannot be a doctor, or a mathematician, but I can write. I see everything as a scene. If I overhear anything interesting, or meet someone interesting, my first thought is, “How can I use that in a book?” As a writer, nothing is sacred. I have heard it said that,”If you want to be a successful novelist, you have to be prepared to murder all your friends.” I agree with that – you have to be willing to use anything you hear. If your friends tell you something interesting and they have not said you cannot use this, it will appear in a book. So, either they don’t tell you things, or they tell you anyway. People know I am a writer and yet they tell me extraordinary things- that is what I live for. I used to think I would remember the quotes if they were interesting enough, but now I write things down on scrap paper – interesting quotes of things people say.

In my childhood, I played cut-out dolls and I dressed them up and created elaborate scenarios. I spent days doing that and that is all I do now – on the computer I make up stories, dress up my characters like they were dolls and tell them what to say -  up to a certain point when the characters start telling me what they will do or say.

When I was 8, I sent my first story to Jack and Jill magazine. It was a story about an 8 year old who loves to dance but dies. My mother told me that they rejected my story because it was too mature for their readers.Ten years ago, I came across some old things and there was the story and the rejection slip. It basically said, “Sorry, we can’t accept your story.” It was quite a shock that my mother had lied to me. I had thought that only daughters lied to mothers. This was quite liberating. My mother was supportive, as was my father – you need this, because there are lots of people who offer unsolicited critiques of your work – and she instinctively tried to turn this into a positive experience. I always felt that if someone did not like something I have written, “It’s not my fault, its your fault – you are just not mature enough.” [This was quite funny, when said!]

At 12, I wrote a TV script about a 12-year-old girl who murdered her parents. This caused my parents some fear, that I did not understand until I had teenagers of my own. That was also rejected. You will get lots and lots of rejections. It is entirely subjective – what one person loves, another might hate and what one person loves on one day, they may hate another day. Agents sometimes submit a publishable work to a range of publishers and it is rejected. Then they wait a while and submit it to the same publishers in a second round, and it is picked up.

Successful writers have to be lucky – so much is out of your control, and you can’t worry about it. Concentrate on what you are writing. Don’t worry about what other people want to read – you never know, and you just can’t anticipate in advance what readers will want. It is generally 2 years from when I get an idea to when the finished product is in your hands. I have the idea, write the outline and the book in one year, and then it takes one year on the publisher’s side. You can’t predict what will be popular. I love horror stories, but have no interest in vampire stories. Yet, vampire books like the Twilight Series by Stephanie Meyer sell millions. Or even Harry Potter – I have never read those books, yet they sell and are very popular.

Everyone’s taste is different – write about what is important to you. Write what interests you, not what you know unless you have had a remarkable life. Don’t write about your childhood – adult readers are generally not interested in children. Write about something that is important to you – what would you like to spend a year of your life doing? I gave up on a book about halfway through when I realized I did not want to spend that much time with the characters.

Some people go into writing saying, “I want to make money.” If you want to do that, then don’t become a writer. I do make money but that is luck – it has very little to do with my talent. If you want to make money, don’t count on it as a writer. It took me 8 years before I started to make money. I did not have to worry about paying the bills and feeding myself because I am married and my husband has a full-time job. I don’t know how some writers do full-time jobs on top of writing. For me, I need to have down-time to watch The Young and The Restless, or whatever. If I don’t let my mind relax then I can’t produce the next day. To have another full-time job, I could not do it. Writing is my job. I love it and I think it is the best life because it is totally flexible. I have travelled and been a stay-at-home mother. Writing has allowed me to do everything else that I want to do and yet spend most of my day doing something I love. But, you have to like spending time alone. I am alone in my room with my computer for most of the day. So, I like to be out with people in the evenings – and my husband likes to be home after having had a day with people – it is a delicate balance.

To be a writer, you need to be prepared to spend time without any feedback. I think you need: (1) imagination – no writing course can teach you that; (2) life experience; and (3) discipline to sit down every day and work for at least 4 hours. I travel and do other things, so when I have a full day to myself, I will sit down for 7 hours and write. I have found that for me, four hours is optimum – otherwise I write and then have to rewrite.

Kim Moritsugu Q – What is your genre of writing and how do you define it?

A – Everything is a genre including literary fiction. I have fought against genre writing and I don’t consider myself a mystery writer or a thriller writer. I am definitely not a romance writer. If I have to describe myself, I would say I write  contemporary fiction directed mostly at women and maybe psychological suspense. Publishers are happy when you fit into a slot because it is easier to market. People don’t know what to expect when they read my books. I have made a point of changing each time out. I have written 22 books and each one is different.

When I went with Simon and Schuster, they wanted me to do a book a year instead of every two years. I thought that would be hard, because at the time I was doing one book every two years. When I finished, it would take some effort to get into the next book because I would be out of the routine. Now, I move from one project to the next. I am thinking about the next book as I am drawing out the last third of the book. Then I take 3 months to rest, but during that time, I am thinking about my next book.This way, I never get out of the writing mode. The writing has been much easier. My previous  publishers wanted out of the contract with me because it was a new regime – they turned down books that became bestsellers with another publisher. After that, I wrote my next book without a contract or advance and that was the most fun I have had in years. The danger with large advances is that there are large expectations. If you get a million dollar advance you have to make sure you make that back otherwise everyone is disappointed. After that, I wrote a huge book – multiperson point of view over 25 years – I had never done that.Then I wrote Lost, a domestic drama with a bit of a mystery – all fiction has at its core, a mystery: who are these people, what is the problem, how do they cope? Then I got into some thrillers – Still Life and others – and they were consciously quite different from each other. Sometimes I write in present tense and sometimes in the past – every time it is different. My next book, out in February, is called The Wild Zone. It is about a bet in a bar that goes hopelessly bad and that has dire consequences for everyone concerned. I wrote that from a male perspective for 3 out of 5 characters. There has to be a mystery or a reason you are reading the book.

When I teach, some of the techniques I talk about are how to introduce your characters and know who characters are. If characters do not work, often they are too passive. Characters reveal through action. You need to create characters from birth, or even pre-birth. You need to know their family history, if they had brothers and sisters, if they were loved or lonely – you need to have followed them since birth and before. You need to know these kinds of details about your characters, even if they do not appear in book, otherwise your characters will appear two-dimensional. You need to create real, believable characters. Many of the best male writers don’t get women – only a handful really get what happens in women’s minds. I wanted to write popular fiction and page turners, but I made it my mission to write women you identified with. I want my readers to say, “Yes, that’s me, my mother, my sister.” It is harder for me to write a male point of view, but I still think it is easier for women to write men than for men to write women. Yet, women writers have to be careful – it is easy to write men and have them end up women with mustaches.

There must always be conflict in stories – someone wants something and someone is stopping them from getting it. It is boring to read about a happy marriage, and alcoholism is only interesting if someone is trying to stop. It is the same thing for drugs. But, watching someone with an addiction to drugs at party where there are drugs – that struggle, that is interesting.

The best piece of advice I ever got – and one I fought against is – is to do an outline. First of all, you should be able to sum up your book in one sentence. If you can’t, you don’t know what your book is about. For example, Still Life is about a woman in a coma, told from her point of view. Then, I can elaborate from there:  She has been hit by a car and she is in a coma, but she can hear. She hears that her accident was not an accident – someone was trying to kill her. To write that story I had to know some medical facts but I only do as much research as I have to. I like to make up my facts but the story has to be based in reality. Then, you have to do an outline – half page to 10 pages. This is your blue-print.

For See Jane Run, I did an 8 page outline, but it took me years to get to that point. Then, it was easy to write. Your outline is pretty much plot – it helps you know where your story is going. Some writers say that they start writing and let the story takes shape. That’s fine but a book written that way needs lots of rewriting. I would rather work all that out before-hand. I make sure that I have my first 10 chapters done before I proceed further. Writing an outline helps you focus your thoughts. I always know the ending before I start writing, so I know where I am going. That’s what I need to build the suspense. I constantly up the ante and make what happens next a little bit more significant than what came before. I need to know the final point, to be able to set up everything that happens, leading up to that point.

Writing short chapters also helps. My chapters are generally 10 pages each but lots of successful writers have chapters that are one page to 5 pages. That keeps you turning the pages. The readers think, “Oh just another five pages, I might as well read the next chapter.” That’s not a bad trick, but it is just a trick to keep people reading.

Another trick is to introduce a dilemma and then you drop it, just when you have the reader’s attention. Then, the  book becomes a constant threading of one character’s story into another’s while you build to the end. Those are techniques  – the basics of writing.

I like a good plot but I rarely read thrillers. I don’t read mysteries at all. The mystery is the least interesting part of my books – I am interested in the characters and how they are dealing with the situation.

In “Whispers and Lies” – I wanted the reader to gasp and say, “Oh my God” – but I did not know how I was going to do it. But then it came to me, and I had that reaction myself. It works and there is no way that anyone can see it coming. You have to be prepared to be surprised. That is one of the joys of writing – an outline is not carved in stone. You can change it, but it helps you organize yourself.

Q  – How did you publish your first book?

A – My first book was a long time ago. We did not have literary agents in Canada back then. You could send unsolicited manuscripts to publishers then. Now, 99% of unsolicited manuscripts sent to publishers will be sent back unopened. Sometimes, a book gets put in a slush pile, and picked up, and it turns out to be a Rawi Hage – but that almost never happens. I sent my manuscript to  5 publishers at once. Do this with agents. Make sure your manuscript is absolutely perfect in terms of grammar and spelling. You may rewrite it 30 times after you send it to an agent, or start working with an editor – but when you  send it to an agent, you must think it is as good as it can be. Make it your final draft because you don’t get to submit multiple drafts. With my first book, I sent it to five publishers, and 2 accepted it – that would not happen today. Then, it took 4 years to get my second book done – the first one was a bit of a fluke that way.

Q – Who do you read and can you read when you are writing?

A – I can’t read when I am writing, so my reading has really suffered. I only have so much concerntration after writing all day, and I find the intrusion of another writer’s voice difficult. Many writers can’t read fiction when working on their own books, but I still buy books. One of my favourite authors is Phil Roth. [Ms. Fielding also mentioned another author].

Q – Is it a good idea to get an editor to work on a manuscript before you submit it?

A – If you can afford it. I know people who have done that. But, you could also use a friend – if you have someone whose taste is the same as yours, who is honest but not cruel. That is often the problem with friends: they don’t want to hurt your feelings. You give it to them and ask them, “Do you believe the characters? Did you want to keep reading?” – that is what you want to know from them. Reading is subjective and you will get many opinions – you just have to trust your own insticts.  I usually have my books read by two friends and my husband – he has to be the most careful! My two friends are in the business – one is a literary agent, but not mine, and one is a writer/producer – and if they tell me that something does not click, I listen. You have to listen and be prepared to hear criticism, otherwise there is no point to showing your work.