Cate Tiernan was born and raised in New Orleans, but now lives in North Carolina with her husband and children. She is also the author of the popular young adult fantasy series Sweep and Balefire. Here she talks about how she goes about writing her books.
I always wonder where other writers get their ideas or inspirations --- and readers have asked me about mine. The answer is probably as individual as each writer’s work is --- it’s not like we all get them online from Ideas R Us. (Though that would be so convenient. You could have bulk discounts, etc.)
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where or when I get my ideas --- it’s kind of like, if my brain were a bread machine --- everything I see, hear, taste, read, think, experience all goes into the loaf pan. And then slowly bits of things start sticking together and then I suddenly notice I have some dough I can work with. Something recognizable that feels real, that I can build on.
I tend to come up with characters first. I think about what kind of character would be interesting, both to me and to a reader, and then I create her. (I always start with a her.) Then, because each person is a sum of all of her experiences, I start working backward to think about what kind of life she’s lived in order to create who she is now. And there’s a story in there somewhere. Or if the character feels unformed, I think about what experiences she could have that would make her feel more complete, more whole. And that’s a story.
It’s not that I think this approach works best --- it’s that I don’t know how to do it any other way. I hear about writers who start with a plot and then put people into the plot, and I can’t really imagine that working for me.
What I love about my process is that it mirrors real life. Each of us is a sum of our experiences. Everything we’ve lived through until this point has helped shape us, made us who we are and what we’re like and why we think the way we do. And we each have a story. We’re each working toward completion. In a book, you see a slice of a life, a selection of that character’s experience. In real life, we get the whole picture. We get to use everything. In a book, my characters move along paths I’ve chosen for them. In real life, we get to choose ourselves. That’s the really exciting part. We can look at who we are now, we can imagine who we would like to be someday, and we can start moving ourselves along the path that will get us there. This seems exhilarating to me.
Right now my path includes me telling stories and letting people know some of my ideas about life. I choose this. Who are you now? Who do you want to be? What path will take you there? What is your story? You get to write it; think about it, and write it well.
Read more about Cate Tiernan on her website www.catetiernan.org and connect with her through her Twitter handle @catetiernan.
