Shop Talk: A Year of Writing Advice and Stories from the Trenches

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It’s that time of the year again, and, no, I’m not talking about the holidays. I’m talking about year-end-list time.

Just like the holidays, year-end lists can be anxiety inducing, especially for authors. 

So, as a reprieve from everybody and their Uncle Bob’s “Favorite Books of 2023,” I’d like to offer you something a little less stressful. Something that might help you become a better writer.

Over the course of this last year, I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing eleven outstanding crime writers for “Shop Talk.” We’ve covered everything from haunted office spaces to the importance of daily naps. 

If you happened to miss one of the entries, you’re in luck.

Below you’ll find every 2023 Shop Talk condensed into something like a stat sheet. A quick glance at how these amazing writers do what they do. I learn something every time I sit down and talk shop with an author. I hope you will too.

Jane Harper

Writes every day: No

Morning or night: Writes during school hours

Wordcount goal: Scene goal

Outline: Yes (40k word “plan”)

Writes with: Phone for notes/Desktop for writing

Revision: Prints out and reads

Writerly vanities: Office space and tea

Office: Reserved for writing only

Best quote/advice: “There are only certain things within your control, so focus all your energy and passion on them. Worrying about whether you’ll get a publishing deal or what happens after that can be overwhelming to the point of writing paralysis. Concentrate instead on the things you can do every day to make your manuscript the best it can be — find a working style that suits you, carve out regular time to think and write, do the research you need to do, consider if planning your novel would help you, even if you only plan out the tricky bits.”

Brendan Slocumb

Writes every day: Writes daily when working on a manuscript

Morning or night: Starts at noon

Wordcount goal: 2,500 words

Outline: Yes

Writes with: Mac (even though he’s an Android guy)

Revision: Reads aloud and uses beta readers

Writerly vanities: Old sitcoms playing in background (no music), and edibles  

Best quote/advice: “Try to avoid saying, ‘I have to do it like this or else they won’t get it.’ Trust your instincts. Outline the entire story from the beginning to the middle to the end.” 

Nita Prose

Writes every day: Yes (“Writing is a muscle. Use it or lose it.”)

Morning or night: Two shifts: before day job and after day job

Wordcount goal: No

Outline: Yes, a little

Writes with: Computer, unless stuck, then longhand

Revision: Revises as she goes, then lets it sit, then beta readers

Writerly vanities: Books 

Best quote/advice: “Avoid magical thinking. Focus on story and character. Ride intuition as long as you can, then revert to craft when you get stuck.”

Josh Kendall (Editor)

Works every day: Mostly

Morning or night: Keeps job hours (kinda)

Wordcount goal: NA

Outline: NA

Writes with: Uniball pens / manila folders

Writerly vanities: Ethiopian coffee 

Office: Yes (home office and office-office)

Best quote/advice: “My mother was a social worker. Her specialty was helping children and the parents of children who had suffered horrendous, often criminal abuse. She had an office in the basement of our house. Her patients were always around. I couldn’t stop thinking about them. Maybe my curiosity in crime fiction came from that, this deeper question of who are those people and what are their stories.”

Wanda Morris

Writes every day: Tries to

Morning or night: Early morning

Wordcount goal: Goal is to have “butt in desk”

Outline: Loose outline

Writes with: Yellow legal pad and Pilot G-2 gel pens

Beta readers: Yes

Writerly vanities: Tea and natural light

Best quote/advice: “When I was unpublished and desperately searching for an agent, I got so much advice on what you ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’ do—always write every day, only write when you’re inspired, always plot, never plot, etc. It was mind-boggling and often conflicting. So, I tend to shy away from absolutes when giving writing advice. The only thing I do encourage newer writers to do is to read a lot and read outside your genre.”

Kelly J. Ford

Writes every day: No

Morning or night: September through December for first draft

Wordcount goal: Yes, but doesn’t freak out about it

Outline: Sometimes

Writes with: Laptop

Revision: Let it cool for a month, revise, beta readers

Writerly vanities: Daydreaming

Best quote/advice: “My brilliant mentor and talented author, Michelle Hoover, routinely quotes Goethe to her writing students: ‘Do not hurry. Do not rest.’ That advice has really stuck with me since I first heard her say it in 2010.”

Danya Kukafka

Writes every day: Pretty much (takes the pulse of her manuscript every day)

Morning or night: Morning (Unless it’s a “Full Friday”)

Wordcount goal: No

Outline: “0 Draft”

Writes with: Scrivener 

Beta readers: Husband and agent

Writerly vanities: Writing journal

Office: Yes (haunted)

Best quote/advice: “The process is the point. The sitting down and the writing of it—that’s the point. You’re always going to have a thing you want if you’re thinking about external gratification. There’s always something. You just want to get to the end of this chapter. You want an agent, a second book deal, a bigger advance . . . You can focus on those things, but they won’t get you anywhere. The only way to feel satisfied with writing is to enjoy the actual process of writing. No, not even enjoy it. I don’t like it a lot of the time, but I consider it an act of mediation, of preservation, self-care, whatever you want to call it. Religion even, in a certain way. Thinking about it as thing you must do for the sake of doing rather than a means to an end—that is the absolute key.”

Nina Simon

Writes every day: Mostly

Morning or night: Morning 

Wordcount goal: Depends on where she is in the process

Outline: Combination

Writes with: Scrivener

Beta readers: Yes, the more the merrier 

Writerly vanities: Black tea

Office: Kitchen (Santa Cruz mountains)

Best quote/advice: “There’s a piece of masking tape stuck to the windowsill in my kitchen. It says: PERFECT IS NOT THE GOAL. A FUN, HEART-FILLED STORY IS THE GOAL. I stuck it up there at a particularly agonized moment. It continues to comfort and inspire me every time I sit down to write.”

Lou Berney 

Writes every day: Yes

Morning or night: Both (with nap in between) 

Wordcount goal: No

Outline: “Map”

Writes with: Pen/pad for brainstorm, Scrivener for mapping, Word for writing

Beta readers: No 

Writerly vanities: Walking the dog

Office: Sofa, sometimes

Best quote/advice: “Fiction at its best is very distinctive. That’s the kind of story I want write, so I try to keep fewer and fewer people involved.”

Michael Farris Smith

Writes every day: Yes (Monday – Friday)

Morning or night: Morning (after he drops kids off at school) 

Wordcount goal: 1,000 words

Outline: No

Writes with: Laptop (needs to be able to move with it)

Beta readers: No 

Writerly vanities: Drive around and listen to music

Office: Studio space

Best quote/advice: “Even if it’s only fifteen minutes a day, find that time to be habitual about it. I wrote six novels teaching full-time, married, raising two daughters, and doing all the other stuff that life asks for, and I got them all done because I decided to go to work on it every morning, even if it was for only thirty minutes, just to keep going and trying to get better. There is no substitute for that.”

Featured image: The Empty Chair by Sir Samuel Luke Fildes

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