Charles Todd

How did you become a writer?

Caroline and Charles:  Quite by accident. Caroline had always wanted to be a writer, but Charles was more interested in a career in business. But we both loved mysteries and history. When we happened to come across a true historical mystery, we jokingly talked about writing one of our own. That turned into a serious possibility when Charles was traveling as a troubleshooter for his firm, not the most popular person in town!  He missed his wife and family, had long evenings with time on his hands, and he finally called up Caroline and said, “Let’s try that book.” We were just going to try it. Once we got the hang of collaboration, it turned out to be a project both of us enjoyed, and as a result we finished that book—then sold it to St. Martin’s. It was A TEST OF WILL, the first Ian Rutledge.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

Caroline and Charles:  Both of us owe our interest in books to librarians who encouraged us to check out any title that intrigued us, to parents who read to us and taught us early on how exciting books could be, and to all those mystery writers, past and present, who wrote wonderful stories that we couldn’t put down. We were both fortunate in having books all over the house while we were growing up—and this is how we came to have a love of history, geography, travel—all sorts of books that later became resources for our own work. It’s funny, it never occurred to us to write together—it was such an accident of time and place and the right event sparking the idea.  But we were both well prepared to try because we loved books so much. That’s what made collaboration possible. 

When and where do you write? 

Caroline: For me, it’s anywhere, any time, on paper, on the computer, or in my head. Whenever the mood and the ideas come. I much prefer working on my computer during the day and evening, but when the mood strikes, you don’t argue with it. I’ve made notes on napkins and the backs of envelopes, whatever comes to hand. The important thing is to catch the excitement while it’s fresh. 

Charles:  With my business background, I work best in early morning, at my computer. But I carry a notebook everywhere I go, and write down whatever I want to remember for later. It could be a word or a whole scene. As Caroline says, it’s the fresh excitement you don’t want to lose.  Neither of us count number of words per day. It could be thousands—hundreds—or none.  We do talk on the phone, send messages and samples back and forth, and discuss and argue, until we are both happy with what we have. 

What are you working on now? 

Caroline and Charles:  We’ve just turned in the Ian Rutledge for next year, we’re promoting this year’s title for the Rutledge series, A DIVIDED LOYALTY, and we are racing a deadline for the new Bess Crawford, which will probably come out in 2021 also. We would love to do another short story, but so far have been too busy. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

Caroline and Charles: Neither of us believe in writer’s block. It’s actually where you went astray in the ms, and lost direction. It can happen to anyone. You have to go back to where it was all going well, find out what you did wrong, and fix it, so that you can go forward again. It could be misreading a character, it could be a weakness in the plot, it could be just the fact that you were tired one night and forced yourself to go on—and it didn’t work.  It could be the dreaded middle of a ms, where there’s the greatest need to avoid a slump—and you’ve run out of ideas. You know the start, you may even know the end, but the middle is weak. That usually means you’ve got to rethink your plot, so that the story grows stronger and more exciting in the middle. There are ways to fix the problem—but you have to find and understand it first. If you think of it as a “block” instead of going astray, it’s going to be a lot harder to fix. At least that’s our experience!

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

Caroline:  I think for me it’s something someone said years ago about what makes a good story. “Listen to your characters!” I’ve come to understand what that means—your characters can teach you so much if you let them. If you can open up their world, you learn things that make your book even better. Their secrets, their fears, their reasons for doing certain things. On the other hand, if you don’t listen, and make them do what you as the author tell them to do, you lose that insight, and often the characters are flat, ordinary, instead of living breathing people your readers can relate to. 

Charles:  I think the best piece of advice I was given was, “READ.” And it’s true. The more you read, the more you come to see how other writers have handled things like character and plot and pace. How to plant clues, how to keep readers turning the page. You’ll come across good writing—and bad. But you can learn from both. And not just mysteries, mind you. When you read a wide variety of authors and books—fiction of all kinds, biography, non-fiction—it broadens your horizons. That translates to richer, more interesting stories because you have so much more to draw on as you are writing.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Caroline and Charles: Besides passing on the advice above, there’s one thing that’s important to keep in mind. Be as objective about your own writing as you can. Everyone of us needs that little editor in our heads who pokes us and says, “That won’t work.” Or “That’s more than the reader needs to know—this is a mystery, not a travel guide.” Or ‘There you go again, riding your hobby horse!”  That editor will keep you on the right path. Ignore him/her at your own peril! We tend to love our own words sometimes, and get carried away. That little editor needs to be encouraged, to get better and better at his or her job. And as he/she does, you will find you are writing better and better because you’ve learned to step aside and consider what’s best for the story.

Charles Todd, the mother-son writing team of Caroline and Charles Todd, are the 2017 Mary Higgins Clark award winner and author of the New York Times Bestselling Inspector Ian Rutledge Series (A Divided Loyalty, Morrow, Feb. 4, 2020,) and the Bess Crawford Series (A Cruel Deception, Morrow, Oct. 22, 2019), as well as two stand-alone titles and numerous short stories in many magazines and anthologies. They have been Guests of Honor at Malice and are an Agatha, Macavity and Barry award winner. Caroline and Charles live on the East Coast of the United States. www.charlestodd.com

Anne Bishop

How did you become a writer?

It depends on how you define the word. I became a writer the first time I cobbled together a character or two with the wobbly bits of a plot and wrote them down in a notebook—and then did it again. And again. And again. I wrote lots of short stories, some good, some awful. I read books about the nuts and bolts of putting a story together. I read articles about plots and characters and how to make them believable. I wrote until my stories began to be accepted in small magazines where payment was a copy of that issue of the publication, and then semi-professional magazines that paid enough that I could buy a pizza to celebrate the sale.

After about ten years of writing and learning and sending stories out and having some accepted and some rejected, I made my first professional sale, a story that was published in an anthology edited by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow. A couple of years after that, I sold my first novel, Daughter of the Blood. I’ve been writing fiction professionally ever since.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

Rod Serling, because his “Twilight Zone” showed me the possibility of blending the ordinary with the otherworldly and strange, and Andre Norton, because her Moon of Three Rings was my introduction to characters and worlds beyond Earth. Jane Austen should also be added to the mix, with her delightful romance between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy.

When and where do you write?

I write on a large table surrounded by bookcases. I write five days a week now. If I’m drafting, I write until I meet my word quota for the day. If I’m doing second draft, copy edit, or proofreading galleys, I put in about 5 hours each day, take a break, and then work on the business side of writing for another hour or so.

What are you working on now?

I’m writing The Queen’s Weapons, another book set in the Black Jewels world.

Have you ever suffered from writer's block?

Sure. Sometimes that means I’ve taken a wrong turn and need to think about the story and characters for a day or two. More often, it means I haven’t done the things the body needs, like enough sleep, proper meals, and exercise. Fatigue can shut down the creative mind, so when it feels like I’m trying to hear the characters through a thick wall of glass, I know it’s time to rest.

What's the best writing advice you've ever received?

Once you turn in a story, start the next one. It will distract you while you wait for the editor’s reply.

What's your advice to new writers?

Don’t write because you want to get published. There are a lot of words that need to be written in order to learn your craft, so write because you enjoy the fun and challenge of shaping a story. Write because you want to give substance to a world and people only you can see until you put them on the page, be it with paper and pen or in a file on your computer. Write because taking the creative journey is more important to you than getting published. Write because you need to write.

Anne Bishop lives with unicorns, dragons, and two shy parakeets. She is a New York Times bestselling author and the winner of multiple awards for the Novels of the Others, as well as the William L. Crawford Memorial Fantasy Award for the Black Jewels Trilogy. Her first novel, Daughter of the Blood, was published in 1998 and is now celebrating its 22nd year in print. Her most recent novel is The Queen‘s Bargain, a story set in the Black Jewels’ world. When she’s not writing, Anne enjoys gardening, reading, and music—and pondering how to get her imaginary friends into more trouble.

Sean Adams

How did you become a writer?

I always liked writing when I was in high school and college and beyond. I wrote some humor pieces for sites like McSweeney's, tried (and failed) to launch a few blogs, and then eventually started focusing more of my time on writing and submitting short stories to magazines.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

George Saunders was a writer I read and thought: wow! Fiction is allowed to be like this? Reading Kelly Link had a similar effect on me. More recently, I've been inspired by the work of writers Magnus Mills and Patrick deWitt. Their work pushes boundaries of genre and absurdity, but always remains playful.
Beyond that, I had a great writing professor in undergrad named Chris Miller who really pushed me not just to keep writing, but to keep writing funny. 

When and where do you write?

It would probably do well for me to actually set a writing schedule. I work from home as a copywriter, with deadlines but no set hours, which leaves things pretty open. When I'm more disciplined, I'll get up and write first thing in the morning. When I'm not so disciplined, I put writing off into the afternoon, at which point there's a greater chance I'll skip it altogether. Mostly, I write in my small home office. When I do want to get out of the house, I'll go to a coffee shop or sometimes a bar. If I'm being totally honest, writing at a bar in the early afternoon is often much more amenable than writing in a coffee shop. At least in my experience. 

What are you working on now?

Before writing my novel I worked on mostly on short stories. I always assumed when I finished it, I would be eager to get back to working with shorter forms. But honestly, I've really enjoyed the process of entrenching myself in one sprawling world. Which is all to say, I'm working on another novel-length project. It'll likely be a bit shorter than my first, but similar: satire, some genre-elements, a bit of a thriller at times but not entirely.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I don't really suffer from intense writer's block. I always have a few ideas clunking around in my head, and while sometimes it can be more difficult to get them out than others, I'm usually able to work through it. After finishing a big project, I'll usually deal with a bit of a creative hangover, wherein starting something brand new will seem wildly daunting. More often, though, I suffer from editor's block. As in, I'll be going along with my edits, and I'll hit a particularly rough patch, and I'll get impatient and want to walk away from the project, as if smoothing out those rough patches isn't the point of the editing process. 

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

When I took one of my first writing workshops as an undergrad, I met with my advisor--Chris Miller, mentioned above--and talked about the process of sharing my work. He asked me how it was going, and when I expressed some dismay about a certain piece of feedback, he told me: treat every workshop like a focus group rather than a panel of experts. And I think about that a lot. It's great to show others your writing, but you have to be careful not let someone's opinion override your instincts.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Learn to love revision. I enjoy generating new material. It's exciting because, even if you have a meticulous plan, you still stumble upon unexpected things. Revision is not as "magical" but it can be extremely rewarding if you let it be. I mentioned suffering from "editor's block" earlier, but the truth is, the harder you need to work to revise a passage, the more satisfying it will be when you conquer it. If you can find that satisfaction, your writing will greatly improve. 

Sean Adams is a graduate of Bennington College and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His fiction has appeared in Electric Literature's Recommended Reading, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The Normal School, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, The Arkansas International, and elsewhere. He lives in Des Moines, Iowa with his wife, Emma, and their various pets.