Hi!

Every month I invite paid subscribers to a live chat about writing fiction and other stuff. (People ask me questions and I answer them. So far it’s been fun and even kind of heart-warming.) So, today I’m unlocking the transcript from the very first live chat.

*I’m just kidding about knowing how to write a New York Times bestseller—I just wanted you to click on this post. (But if you come to the next live chat, you can ask me.)

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P.S. Paid subscribers…if you can’t make it to the chat, you can send in your questions to [email protected]. I respond to a few questions in depth in my monthly “Writing Advice” column.

*Substack usernames have been changed

Hi Ottessa! After you finish a first draft, how do you approach the revision?

I put the draft away for as long as I can stand it. Then I print it out, make notes and line edits on the manuscript. If I have to move around large sections of text, I cut and paste like a collage and put tiny bits of paper everywhere. Then I return to the computer and make the changes in a new document. I do this process again and again until I’ve practically gone blind.

If I start fussing with the punctuation too much, it usually means I’m just going crazy. So I stop, leave it alone, and come back to it. When I read it and feel like I’m going to have a heart attack, that’s how I know it’s done.

I’m curious about planning vs. spontaneous discovery in your writing. How much do you improvise plot?

Both. I usually have a sense of the shape of the book, but as I write, I keep planning, re-planning, deleting, and reorganizing. It’s all made up right? Even if it takes days to write one sentence. The key is to stay fluid while keeping the big picture in mind.
Improvisation is kind of a catch-22 in fiction. Even when we spend hours writing a sentence, we’re still making it all up. That said, yes—I make plot decisions as I go, but always with a bigger structure in mind. That seems to be the best way to write a good story over many pages. It’s intuitive, but guided by a larger vision.

How do you go about developing a character from an initial idea?

To understand how a character would behave, talk, or narrate the story, I have to get inside their head and walk around in their shoes. That’s why I have so many shoes.

I don’t always feel the need to empathize with a character, but I do need to get close enough to them to understand their reality. That’s when I feel ready to begin—when I can hear them thinking. I try to figure out what their “situation” is, how they got there, and how they would narrate their own story—not how I would do it for them. When I’ve grasped their inner logic and paired it with my own vision as the writer, I feel like I know what I’m doing.

How do you decide between first or third person? And within first person, how do you decide if the narrator is close to the action or looking back reflectively (like in Eileen)?

Great question—it's always a fascinating discovery. I usually know what the POV will be based on the “inspiration” I feel. It’s a kind of tone or angle, a vibe. People say “vibes” now, I think.

Deciding whether to write in the “I” or “he/she/they” is a magical moment for me. It depends on where the first few movements of the novel take me. For Eileen, my first draft was in third person, present tense. It sucked. But what I did get from that version was this sort of obnoxious sarcasm, which was interesting. When I rewrote it in third person, past tense, the voice became that of an older woman looking back at her youth. So the narrator is both the protagonist and also not the protagonist—we feel for Eileen, but we’re also laughing at her a bit.

I discovered I really love writing in third with Lapvona, and my next novel is also in third.

Is it accurate to say My Year of Rest and Relaxation was an expansion or reimagining of the vibe in your short story “Bettering Myself”?

Nobody’s ever asked me that before. Not exactly an expansion, but yes, there’s a connection. “Bettering Myself” was the first story I wrote about a lonely young woman living in Manhattan, and I brought some of my own experiences to that character. In MYORAR, she’s a gallery girl living on the Upper East Side. In “Bettering Myself,” she’s a teacher in the East Village. So yes, same territory—different characters.

Your books seem like they require a lot of research. What’s your research process like?

Research can mean many things. It could be taking a trip and getting depressed in a place just to see what happens. It could be calling your mom to ask why she made you take clarinet lessons. Sure, it can be reading history books or looking up facts online. But mostly I like going places and being there.

For the book I’m working on now—which takes place in a fictional country that feels like the UK—I started writing it while in England. I’ve gone back twice. Each time, I get a flat with a view of the sea. It helps me feel present in the world of the novel. That’s my favorite kind of research: lived, embodied, immersive.

I tell myself to write like my narrator is making a Reddit post—it frees me from feeling like I’m doing a school assignment. But then I wonder if my writing is too internet-y. I worry Flaubert would hate it. Thoughts?

Don’t worry about it. Seriously. Focus on your own work. Avoid social media if you’re serious about writing fiction. Only talk to people who are as smart—or smarter—than you. And don’t get too caught up in “the Flaubert of it all.” Flaubert is dead. We’re alive. We are so lucky.

Do you think writing today suffers because so much prose has adopted this chatty, informal register? Are labored-over, Flaubertian sentences doomed?

I think we need to say “see you later” to the question of what’s in style. If we want to get anywhere as writers, we have to focus on our own journey. Immediacy and connection are important, but a novel is not a Substack post.

Informal speech as a narrator’s voice in fiction is very different from the lazy, shortcut language we use online. Voice is how someone speaks; informal writing online is usually about self-empowerment, showing off. It’s a whole different thing.

So… should I worry that Flaubert would hate my Reddit-narrator style?

No.

What made you join Substack? You’ve never really had a public social media presence.

I want to practice being an imperfectionist. I don’t want to write in total isolation anymore. I also want to write more personal things, just for myself, as a way to process. Because, to be honest, I can be a shut-down, mean-ass bitch.

Is autofiction an inferior medium that’s only taken off because culture is at a dead end? If someone can’t write anything else, does that mean they’re a hack and they suck?

I first misread your question as “do you hold and suck,” which honestly wouldn’t be a terrible definition of autofiction—writing about oneself.

If you want to write about yourself, and it’s interesting and not limiting, then no, it’s not inferior. What is inferior is bad writing about boring shit that’s just you being conceited and overdramatic.

To be honest, that’s how I started being funny in my writing. I let myself write over-the-top, ridiculous, woe-is-me stuff—and then I started morphing those voices into my characters’ voices.

You’ve said before that meditation and thinking often matter more than reading when you’re writing. Has that changed? Do you read philosophy? Has any of it influenced your work, like maybe Kleist with Michael Kohlhaas and Lapvona?

I can only speak from experience. Western philosophy mostly confuses me and makes me angry, so I avoid it. But I’ve re-read a number of spiritual texts over the years. Not to extract answers, but to deepen my thinking and integrate certain ideas more fully into how I live and write.

Did you read Andrea Long Chu’s piece about your work when Lapvona came out?

Yes, I did.

What did you think of her critique of the politics in your writing?

I thought it was uninteresting.

What made you get Substack? I was surprised—you’ve never really had a public online presence.

I want to practice being an imperfectionist. I don’t want to write in so much isolation anymore. I also want to write more personal things as a way to process them—because I’m a shut-down, mean-ass bitch.

How do you know when you’re done with a story?

When I read it and feel like I might have a heart attack.

When I start obsessing over commas, that usually means I’m just spiraling. So I step away, come back, and if it hits me hard—that’s it. It’s done.

I'm at the end of a rough draft and feel more confused than when I started. The ending is true to the characters but not the answer I hoped for. It might say the wrong thing—or nothing at all. Should I change it, keep going, or abandon it?

I would be really curious to read it. Sometimes, a truthful, unresolved ending is the strongest choice. You’re not obligated to wrap everything up neatly.

I don’t believe endings have to be resoundingly conclusive. Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls fades out on the character rather than resolving. It’s like a literary Sopranos ending.

Thank you. Maybe I’ll play around with how much is revealed.

When adapting Eileen for film, did you want to preserve the bleakness or explore something else, like Cheever at his most depressed?

The bleakness and truth were essential.

How do you fight against becoming too self-aware in your writing? When I listen to my bullshit detector, everything feels contrived and dies.

That voice can be useful—until it isn’t. Sometimes it’s just resistance in disguise. You have to learn when it’s telling the truth, and when it’s just fear. I’ve learned to trust my instincts more than I used to.

Could you talk about how you got your agent and started publishing?

A friend of a friend's husband was a literary agent. I sent him some stories and he said, “These are cool, but if you want to be published, you need to write a novel.” I was very naive, so I did it. Along the way, I placed short stories in places like The Paris Review, and agents started contacting me.

Two questions: Why didn’t you listen to music for 20 years? And how do you balance fiction and screenwriting?

I played music as a kid, and at some point I shut that door. It was too emotional, too intense. But lately I’ve started listening again, one song at a time, obsessively. As for screenwriting vs. fiction: they’re completely different forms. I love both, but holding them in my head simultaneously is hard. They scramble my brain in different ways.

I discovered you through the New Yorker podcast where you read the Sheila Heti story. I’ve listened to it an embarrassing number of times. You should do more reading aloud.

I love reading stories out loud and saying things about them. I’ve actually been thinking of doing a podcast here on Substack—maybe asking people what stories they’d like me to read and respond to.

That would be wonderful.

That would be the best MFA program on earth.

Do Anne Carson, please.

What are some of your favorite short story collections from 1900–2000?

“Favorite” is hard to define, but Garielle Lutz’s first short story collection broke my mind when I was about 20.

Garielle Lutz is amazing! She was the last rockstar to be edited by Gordon Lish.

What do you feel you have to know about a character before you can start telling their story?

I feel ready when the character is close enough that I can hear them think. I get there by thinking deeply about the situation they’re in, how they got there, and how they would narrate their story—not how I would. Once I understand them, and I’ve aligned that with my own intention as a writer, I feel like I know what I’m doing.

What’s your rising sign?

And star sign? Do you get a lot of Scorpio fans?

I want to say the final sentences of My Year of Rest and Relaxation took my breath away.

Thank you. That ending was devastating to write. Same with Lapvona.

Last thing I’ll say: I think McGlue is my soulmate. I love him so much.

❤️

Thank you.
And with that, I shall go. Thank you and please come again next time! This has been so fun—great questions, so much hopping energy, and lots of things to chew on.
Lots of love,
xx Ottessa