Kathe Koja Quotes

My writing process often begins with a question. I write down ideas and let them stew for about a year. Then, when I sit down to write, I make a list of characters and try to see how they fit.

I tend to start with a kernel, a vague concept, and just begin to write things down - notes about a character, lines of dialogue, descriptive passages about a place. One idea fires another. I do that for about a year. By then there's a story, and I'll go on to a complete first draft that sews many of those ragtag pieces together.

I find getting the first draft down to be the biggest challenge. Every word, every punctuation mark, every plot point is a decision. It's much more fun to play with something that already exists.

Outlining is not writing. Coming up with ideas is not writing. Researching is not writing. Creating characters is not writing. Only writing is writing.

Basically I started to jot notes, lots of faxes back and forth to my writer, we faxed ideas throughout the whole first draft, and started all over again.

So in the first draft, I'm inventing people and place with a broad schematic idea of what's going to happen. In the process, of course, I discover all sorts of bigger and more substantial things.

My writing process is very organic. I start with an idea. I have the general story arc and the cast. But then I sit down to write, and things change.

The writing process, it's too mysterious to try and describe.

Novelists seem to fall into two distinct categories - those that plan and those that just see where it takes them. I am very much the former category.

I'm always determined that as a novelist I'm going to go out there and research my characters very thoroughly before I start writing.

I start with an idea that is no more than a paragraph long, and expand it slowly into an outline. But I'm always surprised by the directions things take when I actually start writing.

'The Secret Life of Bees' was my first novel, so I had no process. I was flying by the seat of my pants, as they say, trying to understand how I, as a novelist, would work with story.

Anybody can do research. The plotting of the novel, writing the ending before you write anything else, which I always do - I don't know that everybody can do that. That's the hard part.

Even if you plan your book, the actual writing is unplanned.

Plot is not my forte. It's like I have to live in my head in the book for a while before I figure out what the story is... My process is a bit messier.

I binge write, basically. I do a lot of prep, research, setup. I'll have a pretty detailed outline. Sort of like a beat outline. And then I'll add little notes and dialogue ideas, and I'll just create a 20-page document.

When I start a new novel, I often write 'test chapters' in different tenses and from different points of view in order to figure out which is best to tell the tale.

I always have a basic plot outline, but I like to leave some things to be decided while I write.

My writing process is such that a story will be in my head for awhile, and I'll start making notes on my computer. I create character sheets that include a character's past, fears, goals and ambitions.

Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties.

I sometimes start keeping a journal about the writing process itself. Particularly when I get the ideas, and I am trying to brood over the chaos phase. In writing a novel, you really have to brood over a lot of chaos of ideas and possibilities.

A novel is a big thing. It's difficult to hold the whole story in your mind, especially when you've finished a first draft and are still giddy from the flow of creative juices.

After preliminary research, I zero in on an idea, and then I spend at least four months exploring the topic and in plot-building. I jot down every single detail of the plot as bullet points per chapter, and only when the skeleton is complete do I start writing.

When I start writing a novel, I have no sense of direction, no idea, really nothing.

I should tell you that many people think that authors just cut and paste from real life into books. It doesn't work quite that way.