“Writing a novel is like driving at night in the fog.”

Today, I am pleased to welcome Joan Leegant, author of Wherever You Go, to Great Thoughts’ Great Authors.

Here’s Joan:

I teach fiction writing at a university, and one of the first things I tell my students is that they don’t have to have a story worked out ahead of time before they sit down to write it. This is often a surprise to them. Like many of us, they’ve often been taught that the writer figures out the story—the beginning, middle and end, if not an entire outline—and only then goes to the desk to put it into beautiful or clever or moving or energetic prose.

But many writers—some say most—discover the story as they go. Asked how much of his novels he knows before he begins, E.L. Doctorow famously said: “Writing a novel is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” Doctorow may only know the next chapter, next scene, or next sentence. But if he hangs in there, he can write the whole book.

This can make for an anxiety-laden process as you sit there day after day, groping your way into your novel, not knowing what the plot will be or the themes or characters’ fates. But it can also make for an exhilarating one. Once, while working on a story, I ran downstairs to my husband, who was reading the paper in the living room, and said, “Guess what? Henny’s pregnant!” He looked up and said, “Who’s Henny?” We didn’t know anybody named Henny. Henny was a character in a story set in the Bronx circa 1943. I had no idea she was pregnant until I wrote the scene in which Henny confesses her (unwed!) state to her sister.

Why would anyone choose to write like this, with all the attendant uncertainty? For writers who operate this way, it’s not a choice; this is how they discover their stories—not by planning or mapping it out but by conjuring the characters and perhaps a setting or a premise, and then letting the characters loose and following what they do.

This means the characters, not the writer, run the show. If a character wants to take one path and I want her to take another, I have to get out of the way and let her win. Because invariably she will be right—right about what will ring true for her and for the story.

Of course, the characters are part of me, too; they come from my imagination or unconscious or whatever we might call it. But they somehow exist apart from me as well. This sounds very strange and also surprises my students. Until one day one of them corners me before class and says, breathless and incredulous, “Guess what?” And I know what’s coming. It’s another Henny. Or something just like it.

You can learn more about Joan at www.joanleegant.com.

What are you reading and where are you going?