In this round of Q&As with Santino Hassell, Karen Stivali, and Damon Suede, answer #NYCdreamer fan questions about all things related to writing.

Karen: Not unless you’re writing a memoir. To me, fiction is taking things you know, and things you’re passionate about, and things you imagine, and blending them all together to create a new reality. All writers draw from their own experiences in one way or another, but a huge part of writing fiction is making things up. When people ask me the inevitable question “So do you DO all the stuff in your books?” I like to answer by saying “Yes. In a hotel room. Stephen King is in the next room reanimating all his pets.” If everyone only “wrote what they know” we’d have a lot of very boring books to choose from. That doesn’t mean play with facts. If you’re writing a character who plays violin and you’ve never even seen a violin, I suggest doing a lot of research so you don’t reference the wrong number of strings or something else that would be “wrong” in a real sense. But if you’re world building a fictional place or time, or you’re writing about fictional people (or cyborgs or mythical creatures), it’s your job to make those things real for your readers, not to present them with things you “know” from personal experience.

Santino: Yes and no? But not really. I strongly believe in using your own experiences to bolster a text if it happens to have characters who are going through things you've gone through, but I definitely do not believe a cop is the best person to write a cop, or that a queer person should only write a queer character, or that if you're of one culture you can only effectively write that one culture. If I'm writing about people or situations I'm unfamiliar with I go ask people who have had those experiences or who know about those things to give me critical feedback.

Damon: I believe that this is one of those odd semantic confusions in the writing community because it sounds like a tautology. I don’t think this dictum indicates that every story needs to be autobiography. I think it’s a commandment to KNOW WHAT YOU WRITE. If you write about vampires you’d better learn something about blood, and folklore, and teeth, and death fantasies. If you set your story in Ancient China you cannot do your research in a noodle bar. Do you homework. Know your material inside and out and only write it when it is as familiar to you as your own life.

Do you outline or are you a pantser?

Karen: Yes. I know many people view that as an either/or question, but I straddle the fence between plotter and pantser. I joke that it makes me a plotzer (which, if you’re up on your Yiddish or you’re familiar with how anxiety ridden I can be, should get a giggle out of you). I don’t do elaborate outlines. And I don’t just sit down and write and see what happens. I usually hear the characters talking to me first. (No, it’s not psychosis. Yes, I’m sure, I actually have a degree in counseling, I’d know.) Once the characters start telling me their story I need to let them tell me all of it until it plays out in my head as if I’m watching a movie. Sometimes they tell me the story totally out of order (which would drive a true plotter insane) and I’ll write the scenes as they reveal them to me and cobble them together in order at the end. Until I’ve seen a scene play out visually in my mind and heard the dialogue, I can’t write a word. I’ve learned the hard way that if I don’t write it down when they’re in the mood to tell me, they may not repeat it. I’ve also learned the hard way that if I lose a scene (it gets saved to the wrong file and I can’t find it) and I rewrite it and find the original version later, it’ll be almost word for word identical---even if I think it’s not going to be. I once “lost” two entire chapters and after several days of freaking out and scouring my computer I rewrote them. When I eventually found the file and compared it was off by only a handful of words. I don’t know if that makes me consistent or freaky. Or both.

Santino: I outline. Sometimes it's chapter by chapter but most of the time it's scene-by-scene which may seem like total overkill but I have such limited time to write that it's the whole way I can stay organized. This NaNoWriMo is the first time I've tried using a looser outline (a big chunk just says "shenanigans") and I had a lot of trouble and will likely scrap 75% of it.

Damon: I don’t believe in pantsers. (*cue angry grumbling*) Oh sure, some authors will insist that they’re pantsers, and they believe they are because they’re process contains a certain amount of chaos. But I’d argue they are just wary plotters who take the long way ‘round. What they’d call a “rough draft” I’d call a very long, disorganized outline that they then have to go back and rewrite. Remember, I came to fiction from film and an outline is part of the contract you sign. No outline, no treatment, and you don’t get paid. Business requires planning. Of course, people plan differently. All genre fiction comes with an outline; in romance that HEA is there from the start, so you KNOW the plot even if you try to avoid it or ignore it. Most plans are only partially related to outcomes, but in commercial storytelling the plot is always there. Anyone seriously planning a career in professional writing ends up learning to outline on some level because there are deadlines and marketing meetings. After 25+ years, I know that no two stories get written the same way, but I plot it.

When you’re writing who’s in control, you or the characters?

Karen: I’d like to say it’s me because a) that would be the sane answer and b) I have serious control issues. But it’s not. My characters are very insistent and take on lives of their own. They allow me to see their stories, not the other way around.

Santino: I let the characters take the wheel, and then I edit the fuck out of them if they misbehave and stray too far off course.

Damon: I’d say it’s a constantly renegotiated detente. I always know the general shape of a character’s transformation because of the outline, but characters and situations have a way of unspooling in startling directions. Over the years, I’ve learned to trust those instincts and follow them fiercely. The most valuable thing you can develop as an artist is that clear inner ear for your unique voice. Only you can hear that, and anyone else can diminish it. Headstrong characters can destroy a book if you don’t know when to listen and when to redirect them. 

What do you focus on more when writing, characters or plot? What about as a reader?

Karen: Characters. Always characters, whether I’m writing or reading. As a reader if I fall in love with a character I’ll read about them grocery shopping because I want to know everything about them. A good character that I care about can carry me through lots of other weaknesses in a book. But if I don’t care about the characters, a book can have the most fascinating plot in the world and I won’t be able to wade through it no matter how hard I try. The same goes for when I write. I need to be in love with my characters and that’s what propels me through the story until I can get them their happily ever after ending. I’m a people person in real life. It’s why I became a therapist. It’s why I don’t like being alone. I crave human contact and I’m nosy by nature. People fascinate me, even when they’re pissing me off. I love getting to know my characters and then figuring out what happens to them as they fall in love. I don’t think I could ever come up with a plot first and then figure out who that plot happens to.

Santino: It depends on how you design your books. I'm a big fan of backwards design. There's usually a theme I want to explore or a scenario that inspired me. At that point, I'll create the type of people who would find themselves in those situations or who would be struggling with those themes. Based on the people I create, the rest of the pieces will come together as far as their journey and how they get there. I don't think you can have one without the other.

As far as a reader, I can love a poorly plotted story if the characters are dynamic and interesting. And I can hate a beautifully plotted story if the characters are awful. So in that case, always the character. ;)

Damon: Here’s where I’m going to be stroppy and define terms. I think that character and plot are two words for the same thing.

Whichever word you use is entirely related to the function and problem of the current writing challenge. Romeo MUST stand under that balcony. Cyrano has to give Christian his words. And Darcy’s first marriage proposal has to be insulting, snide, and hurtful. Their plots are their characters because both are a way of expression transformative action along an arc. I also think that different subgenres emphasize external factors more than internal...but everything comes back to transformative actions.

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