Wendy Walker: On How to Find Success in Your Genre, Character Development and Her Favorite Resources for Writers
There is nothing more helpful in writing than knowing that you’re not alone – except, perhaps, experience. I was lucky enough to sit down with the wonderful Wendy Walker, author of The Night Before, Emma in the Night, and All Is Not Forgotten. Wendy is one of the most accomplished and impressive authors I’ve ever met, and, on top of that, she is truly one of the kindest people in the world. As an author myself, I have found her to be an invaluable resource, and tirelessly helpful. If you haven’t read her books, they deserve a spot on your to-be-read list, although I can promise that once you read one of her suspenseful, mysterious novels, you’ll want to read them all.
Wendy provided me with some incredibly thoughtful insight on tools for writers, the writing process, and how to find success in your chosen genre.
Alice Berman: What do you consider a helpful, easily accessible tool for writers?
Wendy Walker: I just did a webinar for SheWrites – they publish, they promote, they do all sorts of things for women writers and they’re a great resource. They have webinars on how to write, and they have all different authors who do these webinars… on different topics for writing. That’s a good resource for people. I just did one last week… it was about how to write a thriller that grabs Hollywood’s attention, the things to look out for if you don’t want to prohibit yourself from being picked up as an option, or some things you can avoid at the beginning if you know about them, things that turn off producers. And also how to write a really gripping thriller that has emotional depth, big moments of shock and awe, jaw-dropping moments. It’s available through the end of November.
For people writing things other than thrillers, Taylor Jenkins did one on how to research, if you’re doing a book that’s grounded in a historical context, or based on a true story, and there’s one on memoirs, all different authors doing these on different angles.
AB: How does outlining work itself into your process, and how closely do you follow the outline?
WW: I’m a big outliner. Some people are not – some very successful thriller writers do not outline. I outline meticulously, which doesn’t mean that it won’t change. This is my view on writing suspense in general: your basic plot is essentially the disclosure of facts, and when I say facts, I mean everything from your character description, the action that’s taking place, the backstory, the motivations of the characters, the relationship of the characters – does one character hate another character, or [do they] love another character? – and why. All of those are…fact disclosures that are leading up to the big surprise, or the surprises throughout.
For me, I like to see the layout of the disclosures. I don’t necessarily outline absolutely everything, but I definitely outline where the disclosures are going to take place… so that they’re done in the right order, and they’re not in one chapter as a data dump – they’re sprinkled in. Often times you’ll have multiple story lines; you’ll have a backstory that explains why characters are the way they are, and sometimes you want that to be disclosed slowly, because that in itself has a surprise or a twist, and it adds to the suspense: what horrible thing happened to this person that made them psychotic? It’s all about laying out your disclosures, and that’s why I think outlining can be really useful. Some people can just hold it in their heads and be like ‘okay, I know the progression, and I know it by heart, and I can just do it,’ but I…need to know: in this chapter, I need to cover the following things.
AB: Do you find that your characters almost animate as you're writing -- to the point that they end up making their own decisions, and they’re feeling in those blanks between disclosures for you, or do you really know what they’re doing from the start?
WW: Both – I’ve had it happen both ways.…Especially when I’m writing first person, I’ll…come up with something that I want the character to tell the reader, and that will spark an idea…I’m not a ‘the universe is speaking to me’ kind of person; I’m very pragmatic, but you get ideas, ideas beget more ideas, and the development of one idea will spark your imagination, and lead to a new idea that you hadn’t had before. That can come with plot; that can come with characters. People talk about characters living inside them, and becoming their own people… and, for me, that’s just a way of saying that ideas spark new ideas, so as you’re writing in the voice of a character, you might come up with a new angle or something interesting that you want to weave in, and then the character will take on a new dynamic. The voice of a character, especially if you’re writing in first person or close third person, [will] start to develop a voice as you’re writing. What does this character sound like as they’re telling the story? Are they sarcastic? Are they poetic? How does [that] come across when they’re telling their story? That can develop as well. You’re all of a sudden like: oh, I’m making this character sarcastic; I like it! And that’s what that character then sounds like, [so] you end up having to develop a personality for that character that matches the voice. It is all a process, and…once you dive in, you have to be willing to make…changes as you get new ideas.
AB: How do you reconcile the very introverted life of writing with the very promotional aspect of having a book out?
WW: I find it difficult to be out promoting, honestly. I love hanging out with other authors, that’s my favorite thing, and I love intimate settings talking to readers, and I don’t mind giving big talks – I feel very comfortable doing it, and have development some good public speaking skills, which I think you have to do.
It’s interesting; I think a lot of writers feel this way: we have these bursts of being extroverted, which we definitely do – I’ve been amazed at how funny and engaging authors can be, in talks and in person. but most of the people I talk to agree that it takes a lot of our energy… there are some extroverts where, if you’re really extroverted, being extroverted feeds you and gives you energy, but if you’re introverted, doing that kind of thing really depletes you in a way, and takes a lot of energy away from you; it’s exhausting. I love doing it in the moment, but then it completely depletes me, and my most happy state is when I have nothing on my calendar, and every day I’m just writing, and seeing close friends, or being with my kids. For me, I just love the introverted stages of life.
AB: Is routine important in your writing?
WW: I definitely think that a routine is [necessary]. I have to have a routine because I have kids…. My whole writing career I’ve had kids at home, so I write mostly during the school year. I…write right away in the morning. If I do anything else, I will get into a different mindset – [that of] errands, or paying bills, or even working out – it’s very hard to then stop your brain and dive in the way you need to…to really be living in and immersed in [your book]…. That’s [when] those ideas come, [when] one hundred present of your brain is focused on the story, and on [this] one task. As soon as I get my kids to school, I am at my desk. I try not to have anything else scheduled for a large block of time. When my kids are away without me… I can [write] for twelve hours – it’s my most productive time. I’ll get up, I’ll write, I’ll take a break, I’ll go write another three hours…. I highly advocate setting aside blocks of time when you know you’re going to be fresh. Some people work better at night, some people work better in afternoons, but just try to have at least three to four hours when you can really dive in.
AB: What should new writers know about writing?
WW: There’s a lot of technical stuff [to know] about writing thrillers in particular…. I go into all this in the webinar, but…there are choices about choosing a narration structure, choosing a tense, choosing a point of view, and how to deal with backstory, and also some of the common lessons that new writers are taught – show don’t tell – all these things that, when [writers] approach [a] chapter, are in their heads… [but] each genre has its own rules, and with thrillers, I’ve found that certain rules apply and don’t really apply to psychological thrillers in particular.
There’s a lot of creativity involved. I’m not a trained writer, so I really appreciate the skills and the tools that I’ve developed and learned from other people along the way that I now know, and I’m like wow, this is a really useful tool, I did not know this; I did not know how to do this when I first started writing…. And I wish I had. I wish I’d had this tool in my tool box – that’s sort of how I think about writing.
I never took a writing class – I was a lawyer, I was a banker. I never thought I would ever write. It’s one thing to discover that you have a story to tell, and you have an ability to tell stories, you do need these tools – you have to know how to use dialogue and narration properly, and to recognize when you have done it improperly, and then have other tools for making your disclosures other than what’s not working. Having this whole tool box to look at your chapter and say, ‘okay, I need to tell the reader that my character hates her mother and give them a snippet of why, but I don’t want to devote a whole chapter to that, so how do I do that? Is it through dialogue with another person? Do I need to write her in first person so she can just tell the reader these little snippets as we go along?’
Knowing what the tools are, and having all of those things at your disposal is so important… I wish I had done this when I was starting out, because I would have saved myself a lot of time and I would have been a better writer earlier on. Whether it’s taking classes or just absorbing as much information as you can from writers in your genre, because each genre is so different, and there are different things that are important. If people pick up a thriller, they want to read a thriller. You need to create an experience that falls within your genre…. You need to decide what experience you’re trying to give your reader, and then you need to be consistent. There are very specific tools to use to tell your story. I think that’s the most important take away for new writers: having a great story is maybe twenty percent, but being able to tell it in a way that is engaging and suspenseful and emotional and impactful and coherent and clear – that is the other 80%. That’s where these skills or tools come into play.
Wendy Walker is the national bestselling author of All is Not Forgotten, Emma In The Night and The Night Before. She has sold rights to her books in twenty-three languages as well as film and television options. Prior to her writing career, Wendy practiced both corporate and family law, having earned her J. D. from Georgetown University Law Center and her undergraduate degree from Brown University. Wendy also worked as a financial analyst at Goldman, Sachs & Co. Wendy is currently finishing her fourth thriller and managing a busy household in Fairfield County, Connecticut where she lives with her three sons.
About Alice Berman
Alice Berman is a New York City-based author whose first Audible Originals book, “I Eat Men Like Air,” was published September, 2019. The fiction author sold her book, “Lost Boys and Technicolor Girls,” to ABC, where it is currently in development to become a show with Freeform. Hailing from a political family in Washington, D.C., Berman attended Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree in English Literature from the University of Pennsylvania, winning the Gibson Peacock Award for creative nonfiction. Alice is a founding board member of animal advocacy group Creatures Great and Small; she serves on the Young Collectors Council Acquisitions Committee at the Guggenheim. Find her on Instagram at @alicecanaryplum. Alice is represented by Inkwell Management and Anonymous Content.