The Research That Never Made the Page

For every detail that ends up in a finished novel, there are probably a dozen that didn't.

I research thoroughly, sometimes to a degree that goes well beyond what the story actually requires. It's all to understand the world my characters inhabit from the inside.

• The way people spoke
• The rhythms of daily life
• The particular texture of a place and time
  

That kind of understanding requires far more knowledge than will ever appear on the page. Most of it is invisible to the reader but all of it impacts how the story feels. Unknown or uncommon facts are one of my favorite things about research discovery.

• Fascinating historical details
• Pieces of local lore
• Unexpected connections between two things I didn't know were related
• Things that simply don't fit the story I'm telling

I write them all down anyway. They go into a folder that has never stopped growing. Somehow, they'll find their way into a future manuscript. Nothing is ever wasted!

The Scenes That Got Cut

Cutting a scene you worked hard on is one of the quieter griefs of novel writing. No one except me and maybe my editor or critique partner knows it happened.

But there are scenes in every manuscript I've written that I genuinely mourned losing. Moments between characters that felt real and true and earned, that simply didn't serve the larger shape of the story well enough to stay. A scene can be well-written and still be wrong for the book.

I keep those scenes, though. In a folder, just like the unused research. I may or may not use them, but I can't quite bring myself to delete them either. They're part of the story even if they're not in it.

The Long Road Between First Word and Finished Book

What you hold in your hand as a reader represents years, sometimes, from the first stirring of an idea to the day the book exists in the world.

Every book's journey involves:

• Writing and revising
• More revising
• Conversations with editors about what the story needs to become
• Cover designs
• Marketing decisions
• Endorsements to gather
• A release date that needs careful preparation

By the time a book reaches a reader, the author has usually been living with it so long that reading it feels like visiting a place you moved away from years ago. It's familiar in a way that's almost strange.

That long road is why a reader's response matters so much. The letters. The messages. The moments when someone finds me at an event or reaches out online to say that a particular character or scene met them somewhere real. Those moments close a loop that started quietly, alone, at a desk somewhere, with nothing but an idea and the hope that it might become something worth a reader's time.

It did. You're holding the proof of it.

Is there something you've ever wondered about what happens before a book reaches your hands? A part of the process you've been curious about? Ask me in the comments. I'll be happy to pull back the curtain a little further.