2019-10-01_Writer_s_Digest

44 I WRITER’S DIGEST I October 2019

THE WD INTERVIEW AliceHoffman

will get lost.” I really do believe that what you don’t write

about tends to get lost. It gets reimagined, retold. But

when you write it down, there’s no way to change it or

change the narrative—it’s there on the page. It’s such a

tragic, dark, horrifi c time and there are so many tragic,

dark, horrifi c times, and so many genocides and so many

huge losses. But I wanted to get it down to its smallest

core, which is losing someone you love. It’s a huge, gigan-

tic canvas, but I wanted to focus on mothers and daugh-

ters, and those sorts of ties that are with us forever, the

deepest bonds that there are.

The characters in this book are unforgettable peo-

ple. They feel as fl esh and blood as if you’d sat in a

room with them. What advice do you have for writ-

ers about how to create compelling characters?

My initial response is, they’re like magic. It’s magic that

you have to work at, and I am a huge believer in revision.

Th e more times you write it, the more alive it becomes.

For me, very oft en the fi rst, second, and third times it’s

kind of dead material, but the more you go over it, the

more you rewrite it, the more it comes to life. How that

happens, why that happens, I’m not sure. I think it’s

attention to detail or going deeper and deeper into char-

acter. A lot of times beginning writers think that more

established writers just sit down and write a book and

that’s it. Th at’s not my experience. I do a huge amount of

revisions. I would say half of this original book was cut,

and that happened with my last book, too. It’s very hard

to cut work that you’ve spent a lot of time on and char-

acters that you’ve invented, but it’s really important to be

able to do that.

You’ve published nearly 40 books. How do you

arrange your schedule to get that much work done?

What is your writing process like and how has it

changed over the years?

It’s changed enormously, because when I started out, I was

in school and so I would get up at 4:45 and write for two

or three hours before I went to school and work. Th en I

had young children and I would also get up really early

and try to do everything in the morning or when they

were briefl y away. When I was starting out, I thought that

I would write for six months and do other things for six

months. But it turned out that once you’re a writer, you’re

a writer, and that’s what you do, and you can’t escape from

it. It is who you become and who you are. To tell you the

truth, I feel guilty all the time because I feel like I’m not

writing enough or not working enough. I have an intense

work ethic where I feel like it can never be enough and I

can never have enough time to tell all the stories. Whether

that’s a good thing or bad thing, I don’t know.

You’ve written many YA novels in addition to your

adult fi ction. How is that work different for those

two audiences? Or is it different at all?

I don’t know because it’s really interesting that so many

adults read YA and so many young adults read adult fi c-

tion. It’s a crossover that there didn’t used to be. Young

adult fi ction is much more interesting than it was a long

time ago. It’s kind of a fi ne line. When you think about

Th e Catcher in the Rye, you think probably if it were

published today, it would be published as young adult

fi ction. Sometimes people think of young adult fi ction as

for young adults because of the age of the narrator or the

characters. And I don’t think that’s true. When I write a

young adult book, I don’t write diff erently, but maybe the

content is a little bit diff erent. I feel like it’s what I would

want to read at 16. Of course, I still feel like I am 16, so I

don’t know what the diff erence is. But I try not to write

any diff erently for teens than I do for adults. In fact, I

think teen readers are more willing to take a leap with

you and read in a diff erent way; just go there with you

and not ask as many questions, just be willing to believe

and dive into a new world.

You’ve had a few of your books adapted for fi lm

and television [Practical Magic, The Dovekeepers,

Aquamarine, and The River King]. What is that pro-

cess like for you of seeing your story taken apart and

then reassembled and told in a different way?

I was a screenwriter for 25 years, so I understand the pro-

cess. It’s just a diff erent process. It’s always interesting to

see how someone else sees your work, and that it becomes

I am a huge believer in revision. The more times you write it,

the more alive it becomes. For me, very often the fi rst, second,

and third times it’s kind of dead material, but the more you go

over it, the more you rewrite it, the more it comes to life.