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Month: September 2018

Where do you get your ideas?

Where do you get your ideas?

One of the most common questions writers are asked is where they get their ideas. For me, different books begin in different ways. Usually, I get ideas by playing “what if?” It’s something I can do deliberately. I read something or hear a news item or even a commercial and ask myself if there’s some way it could be twisted to create a good story. Asking what if? That’s how I got the idea for The Wind Reader. I was doing…

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The hardest part of writing a novel

The hardest part of writing a novel

Sometimes people ask me what the hardest part of writing a novel is. That one’s easy. It’s sticking to it even when the first draft is inevitably terrible. But once I get past that, the hardest part of any novel to write is the start. Beginnings are incredibly hard because you have to accomplish so much—introduce characters, get the plot underway, and, in the case of fantasy, set up a bit of the world. As a consequence, I can’t think…

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