With my students, I don't offer any simple tips like that, maybe because my own process is pretty messy, but when we workshop we talk a lot about the deeper subject, which is what the story or novel is about. I think defining a narrative's themes can lay bare a narrative's tensions.
Edan LepuckiThe messiness [in my books] is nothing like an Atwood novel. For me, the deeper subjects are secrets versus intimacy, and how both beget safety but also threaten it. And there is a lot for me about loss, too.
Edan LepuckiIt's a bit scary to see my book come true: the recent (if minor) LA earthquakes, Hurricane Sandy, the Boston bomber, and so on - much of it stoppable, I think, and yet I, too, am also guilty of passivity.
Edan LepuckiI tossed off a mention of the pirates early on. And they became integral to the backstory. Sometimes now I imagine them in the woods. They scare me. All men. Dirty and wearing red.
Edan LepuckiThe issue is that my book, and so many others, are not available for pre-order from Amazon. I hadn't realized how much that mattered for new authors. And how much Amazon is hurting us.
Edan LepuckiI am not sure I knew what I was doing, writing an "apocalypse" novel, when I started this book. Now that the book is done, I can own that I have in fact written an apocalypse novel, one that speculates on a dark, dark future. Why I did it, I really don't know - every time people read my work they comment on its darkness, its sadness.
Edan Lepucki