Writing – Page 7 – Deborah Makarios

January 15, 2021January 15, 2021

Of Hamsters, Lavender, and Immigration

I freely confess that I had not realized how much the general “What Even Is This” of the last year had affected me until I came to start actually writing this new novel. It turns out that I now have the attention span of a hamster who has slurped down three large mochaccinos. A rather stressed and easily overheated hamster, moreover, with a long to do list.

However.

I have been trying to get into the garden lately as a way of reducing stress, and it has been teaching me some lessons. (#1: There are Always More Weeds.)

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December 16, 2020December 16, 2020

The Ambition of a Potato Reviewed

But instead of reviewing the review, I shall simply provide a link to it, and let those of you who are interested nip across to read it for yourselves.

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December 2, 2020December 2, 2020

How Characters Come to Be

“Unlike most writers, Rankin does not plan his characters: he has said that Rebus arrived virtually fully formed on the page.”

Until I read these words in How to Write Like a Bestselling Author (a collection of magazine articles on bestseller characteristics by Tony Rossiter), I had no idea that most writers actually plan their characters. One of those disconcerting moments when you realize that what’s going on in your head is not the same as what’s going on in other people’s heads, even if you have the same name for it.

I don’t plan my characters. They just pop into my head, like bubbles rising from the frothy cauldron of my unconscious mind. And while I might change some minor things about them – such as their names, and whether or not they’re actually in the book – the characters themselves are fairly constant. (Minor spoilers follow…)

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