48 | The Writer • November 2019
HOW I WRITE
BY ALLISON FUTTERMAN
E
linor Lipman’s novels are
filled with interesting char-
acters, observational wit,
sharp dialogue, and story-
lines that keep the reader curious
about where the plot is going. They
share certain elements, such as roman-
tic relationships, family issues, and
unforgettable female protagonists, yet
each book feels wholly unique. Her lat-
est novel, Good
Riddance, follows
Daphne Maritch,
a woman who
can’t understand
why her mother
left her a 1968
high school year-
book with myste-
rious notes
written in it. In a cleaning binge,
Maritch tosses it – only to have it
quickly recovered by her aspiring film-
maker neighbor, who vows to turn the
yearbook into a documentary.
Lipman is also a talented writer of
essays, two of which have appeared in
the “Modern Love” section of the New
Yo r k Ti m e s. Her first novel, Then She
Found Me, was turned into a movie in
2008 starring Bette Midler, Helen Hunt,
Colin Firth, and Matthew Broderick.
Self-editing
I tweak as I go and don’t move forward
until I polish the current chapter, prob-
ably a dozen times. Because I rarely out-
line, I’m constantly figuring out what’s
next, what’s next; what’s my character
going to do today? I’ve learned to recog-
nize when it’s working and when it’s
not. When it’s not, I back up a page or a
scene or chapter. When I’m done with
the entire novel, it’s pretty clean, but I’ll
go back and look for inconsistencies.
I’ve even made changes once a book is
done. If I’m doing a reading, I might
change a sentence by a phrase or a
word. And then I might make that
change for the paperback.Staying original
If there’s any similarity in my novels,
it’s probably just my sensibility coming
through and my way of looking at life.
I hope there’s not a similarity in the
characters’ voices. I don’t set out to do
quirky characters, but if that’s how
they’re seen, great, because who wants
normal and dull? I don’t know where
things are going and don’t know much
about the characters. I construct it as I
go along. If a situation feels familiar, I
change it. I don’t want another set of
divorced parents, missing father, etc. It
has to be something different or new.Dialogue
Dialogue comes easily to me, but I do
work on paring it down, removing
attributions and repetition. I follow
playwright David Mamet’s advice
(who’s quoting the screenwriter Wil-
liam Goldman) – “Get into the scene
as late as possible, and out as early as
possible.” Therefore, I cut the nice-
ties, the hellos, how-are-yous, and
good-byes. You can also dispense
with direct address as much as possi-
ble. A sample “don’t” would be: “I’m
very upset with you, Mary,” and two
lines later, “Don’t say that, Mary.”
Tedious and unnatural. There’s no
need for it.Endings
With my first three novels, I got feed-
back that the ending was too fast. I
needed a new penultimate chapter –
so I wrote a new next-to-the-last
chapter to slow things down. By the
time I got to The Ladies’ Man, I was
able to be my own critic and tell
myself not to rush the ending. I try to
be like an outside set of eyes, to see if
it’s too fast, too slow, or if I need to cut
or lengthen it.Essays vs. fiction
With essays, I usually know what I
want to say and the desired word count.
With my two “Modern Love” essays –
one was about my husband’s decline
and death, and the other was about
meeting Jonathan [Lipman’s significant
other] on Match.com – they were told
in linear fashion, with a beginning, a
middle, and an end. That’s easier than
imagining the story.Allison Futterman is a freelance writer based
in Charlotte, North Carolina.Elinor Lipman
Michael Benabib