by Suzy Krause
There is nothing better, as an author, than the feeling of a great book idea landing in your head. And there is no worse feeling than hitting the 20,000-word mark of that project and realizing that even this amazing idea cannot sustain you for another 50,000 words. It’s like watching the magic fizzle out of a relationship—you once had a clear vision of where you wanted things to go (marriage! kids! a cute house on a quiet street!) and suddenly, inexplicably, you just can’t fathom putting in that work. Not with this person, not with this project. It doesn’t feel exciting anymore, doesn’t feel worth it.
Cue a lot of crying, stubbornly trudging through another 5,000 words trying to reignite that creative spark, and, finally, giving up and being afraid to start a new project lest the same fate befall you a second time.
How do you prevent this from happening? How do you know, when you start the often years-long process of taking a book from conception to first draft to final edits, that the idea you have will last through it all?
Having been there more than once myself—but also having crossed the finish line four times now (to clarify, I’m not talking about marriage anymore)—I have a piece of advice to offer that has served me well.
Simply put: I can generally tell I have an idea I can spend that much time with when I start with a question I sincerely don’t know the answer to.
There was a time when I thought that if I was going to write a novel, I had to have already made up my mind about the topics and questions therein. I thought I was supposed to write from Point A to Point B, already knowing where I was coming from and where I was going. Wasn’t that the point of telling a story? To explain something, to share your vast knowledge with others?
But I’ve realized that this isn’t a sustainable way to write. Turns out…I don’t know very much. If I only write books that explain things I already know, my career’s over already. And I’m bored.
But if I write from a place of curiosity, then it’s not so much a matter of taking an idea and trying to stretch it out to fill a book, it’s having to solve a mystery or a problem before I run out of pages. The books I’ve finished—and sold to publishers—have all started with questions, nary an answer in sight.
Getting Personal
The best questions are the ones that feel personal and impossible—for my first book, Valencia and Valentine, the questions had to do with mental illness, and whether a person living with a severe, life-disrupting form of OCD can live a fulfilling and satisfying life even if their struggle never lessens or goes away (a question I was constantly asking myself at the time, having been recently diagnosed). I gave my brain to Valencia, the main character, and sent her off into her life, to see how she fared, in work, in relationships, in old age.
My second book, Sorry I Missed You, was born out of questions I had about being ghosted by close friends, inspired, of course, by being ghosted by close friends—how do you let someone go when you don’t know why they left? Is there a way to get closure without involving the other party? Is there a way to feel better after it happens to you, to not let it change you into a person who feels unworthy and untrusting of relationships from here on out? I gave these questions to three women of varying ages and personalities and let them hash it out together as they also tried to solve a mystery involving real ghosts in the attic of their rented home.
…And Then, More Universal
As I settle into this career, I find that, with every book I write, I feel more willing to present myself with harder questions. Maybe I trust myself more that by the end of the project I will find an answer, that I won’t waste two years writing a book based on dead-end problems. Maybe I also trust the reader more—that they want to think deeply about hard things with me, that it’s okay if they come to a different conclusion while reading. I’m coming to understand that the point of writing a book is not to make your reader come to the same conclusion as you, it’s to share your journey with them and inspire them to go on one too.
I think, when the beginning of a book is a good question, that book will be received by the reader as the start of a conversation.
My next book, coming out in September, is called I Think We’ve Been Here Before, and it was my biggest challenge yet. Where before I allowed myself to explore questions like, will I be okay, and, how can I feel better, the questions that formed this book were far more existential— questions about living and dying, questions like, what do things like art and love and family mean when the world is ending? Is it possible to feel okay about your impending destruction? And, while we’re here, what is up with quantum entanglement and déjà vu?
(Nothing like asking yourself those questions on a publishing deadline.)
But I’m happy to tell you: I made to the end of that book. I feel satisfied with the answers my characters revealed to me, and curious to hear from readers about their own journey through those questions. I’m hoping that it’s just the start of a conversation.
Suzy Krause is a writer and music lover from the Saskatchewan prairies. Her first two novels, Valencia and Valentine and Sorry I Missed You, were both Amazon Editors’ First Reads Picks. Her third novel, I Think We’ve Been Here Before, is available for preorder now, and hitting shelves everywhere in September 2024.
