Writer Unboxed

What writer can’t help but giggle at this upon Thursday Next’s meeting with Rochester in THE EYRE AFFAIR:

I thought about the incident at Haworth all those years ago when I entered the book of Jane Eyre and caused Rochester’s horse to slip.

“It was a long time ago.”

“Not to me.  You remember?” [Rochester said.  He’s swirling Maderia in a glass, btw–KB]

“I remember.”

“Your intervention improved the narrative.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Before, I simply bumped into my Jane and we spoke briefly.  If you had read the book prior to your visit you would have noticed.  When the horse slipped to avoid you it made the meeting more dramatic, wouldn’t you agree?”

Thus in one scene, Fforde not only captures the writer’s dilemma of making scenes more gripping, but we get the additional treat of seeing a beloved character like Rochester in a new light.

Fforde’s mixture of wit and audacity have earned him a world-wide readership.  And yet, like any full-time writer, he’s subject deadlines and publishing pressures, and handles them all with aplomb. 

We are pleased to present part two of our interview with Jasper Fforde.  Missed part one?  Click here to catch up.

KB: Is writing different for you now that you have a publishing deadline to meet? I mean, do you have qualms about chucking a character or a plot point with a looming date circled on the calendar?

JF: Absolutely. But you know, you have a deadline. So I delivered my manuscript on Monday (KB: April 30), and now it’s done. Fait accompli. There comes a point where the publisher tells you you have to have it done, it has to go into production or they’re going to lose the publication date.

I started this latest book on Oct. 1, 2006. Then I had a first draft finished by the middle of February. And that was working almost every single day. In Jan and Feb I did 26 days straight of solid writing, not because I wanted to finish it but because I wanted it to be good. I had a first draft finished by Christmas really, but I didn’t think it was very good. I’m always trying to make it better and better.

KB: So what is your writing process? Do you draft it out, plot extensively, or let the story unfold?

JF: Most of my work, I get the idea on the hoof. Then as I’m playing with the idea of the book, I have these notions that get me thinking ‘hm, that might work quite well.’ Usually I have 5 books condensed into one book. That’s how I started THE EYRE AFFAIR, with five very strong threads each of which could actually be a book on its own stuffed into one book. A Thursday Next book is actually a suitcase of ideas. So I start off with the general subplots and I might have three or four of them when I start writing. And then I start pushing them all together to see how the threads cross over because each thread will have at least 4-5 sections to them. That sort of plotting can make work as I try to get them to mesh. So there’s an awful lot of playing around. And in that process, I have other ideas, jokes and gags and things to drop in. But as I’m writing a series, the book I’m doing right now is Number Five in the Thursday Next series, I had to re-read the previous four books before I started just to get the chronology right and to try and figure out if I’ve forgotten a character. And that’s how I do it. I start on page one, write all the sections of a particular thread, and then move on to another plot thread. On a good day I get started in the morning and I can go on to 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. in the evening.

KB: You don’t feel burnt out by the end of that day?

JF: Well, it’s easy to waste time staring out the window and walking the dog. I have a timer, and I actually time my keyboard time. So I actually clock in and out. I get on average about 5 hours of actual keyboard time a day. I reckon most of my books take about 25-2600 hours of writing.

KB: Have you ever had an editor tell you ‘hey, this thread isn’t working’ or whatever and asked for major revisions?

JF: I always like to give them a fairly finished draft instead of an early draft. I actually have two publishers, Hodder in the UK and Penguin in the US. So I have two editors go through the manuscript, which is great. So they all read it simulateously. They get their notes back to me and then I work on version two using both of their notes so I can incorporate all the things they didn’t understand, etc. Then I give them draft 2 and they have another look at that.By then there are just a few tweaks here and there that takes a couple of weeks. Then I have to give them version 3. Along that way, while I’m look at their comments, I’m adding sections and rewriting and still working on the book. So I’ve given them the manuscript, but I’m still working on it.

KB: Do your American editors see things or glom onto things different from your UK editors? How do you reconcile two different editorial perspectives?

JF: The differences between them isn’t a nationality difference but a taste difference. A lot of times they come up with the same points, which means that obviously I’ve got something that needs to be fixed. But they have very different viewpoints on the book, and I sort of juggle it up. If I feel they’re right, then I’ll change it. If not, I don’t change it. But everything has to be taken on board and considered. But often, an entire character or an entire situation—the tone or what have you—and be changed in the space of a single sentence. You can change a character’s dialogue so subtly and so easily, and sometimes there can be vast changes to a character in a span of 15 words. Sometimes it’s that easy. Sometimes it’s very hard. In this book, we had a pacing problem, which my US editor was worried about in the first draft. So I moved around about seven chapters to make it work better and added another day, which is another chapter, so we could stretch out the action.

Check back next week for the final installment of our interview with Jasper.

Photo credit: Mari Roberts.

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