Alix Rickloff: On Writing
The Last Light Over Oslo is my thirteenth published novel in a career that has spanned seventeen years. And there are some writing constants that never change.
- I will think it’s the best shiny new idea ever for the first fifty pages.
- I will think it’s the worst crappy idea ever and question how I ever thought I could write a book for the next three hundred and fifty pages.
- I will whine to my husband, and he will tell me to suck it up because I say this every single time. He is not sympathetic.
- By the time I get to final pass pages and have read the book at least a thousand times, I will hate it with every fiber of my being.
- When that beautiful amazing new book is placed in my hands, I will forget all the heartache and pain and think to myself, “Wow! That wasn’t so hard, let’s do it again.”
Write. Rinse. Repeat.
If this sounds like a process fraught with exuberant highs and soul-draining lows, you’d be right. But another constant I’ve found over the years is that there is no changing this process. This is how creating works for me. And attempting to do things differently is a recipe for disaster.
As a new writer, I was addicted to craft workshops. How did the big dogs do it? What was their secret to crafting a novel? What were the writing “rules” that would lead to success? Was it outlining? Character worksheets? Writing sprints? Story beats? Surely using one of these techniques would make my process easier, faster, eliminate the false starts and dead ends that plagued my current way of doing things. Yet, each attempt to put these other writers’ methods into practice in my own work would stop me in my tracks. It was like fitting a round peg in a square hole.
I despaired. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I create character bios like this author or scene by scene outlines like that author? Maybe I wasn’t a real writer. Maybe I never would be. Imposter syndrome and all the usual writer insecurities reared their ugly heads.
Then in talking to an author friend of mine—one of those big boy successes whose opinion I valued—I was given permission to NOT follow those other authors’ rules. To take what worked and discard what didn’t. To follow my own messy, anxiety-inducing method no matter where it led.
Detailed outlines make me break out in hives. I’m a plotzer. I know where my story starts, I can stumble my way from plot point to plot point, and I have a general idea of how the story ends. My brain goes blank when I’m asked to fill out a detailed character worksheet. Instead, the men and women who people my stories reveal themselves to me as I write, in many cases taking me to places I would never have thought to go otherwise. Draft fast then edit slow makes my linear-centered brain hurt. I need to know exactly where I’ve been to know exactly where I’m going. But I save those discarded pages. More than once, I’ve realized I had the perfect words tucked away already. They just weren’t where I needed them to be.
That’s not to say that I’ve discarded all the advice I learned in those workshops. But now I see them less as a guidebook to follow and more as a toolbox where I can pick and choose what methods I need when I need them.
With The Last Light Over Oslo, I stretched my process in ways I never had before. Writing a story inspired by a real person where the events are part of the historical record and readers can fact-check required me to use new tools and call on different parts of my writing skills.
It meant taking a life, or in my instance six months of it, and distilling it down to the three acts required to make a story with a beginning a middle and an end. It meant treading lightly when it came to changing reality, but it also meant working to turn what I could glean from research into three-dimensional characters that readers can root for.
I’ll admit, had this been my first novel, I’m not sure I’d have had the skill to pull it off. But this was lucky number thirteen. I’m confident in my methods and understand when I need to dip into that author toolbox for inspiration or assistance or a different way of looking at things and when to sit back and trust to my own instincts to create the story I want to tell.
So as I start book number fourteen, I know I will still bask in the honeymoon stage of a book where everything is new and perfect. I will still whine and vent to my poor husband as I wrestle with a story that refuses to do what I want it to do. And when I get to the end, I will still forget the struggle as I turn to the next idea waiting in the wings. Because those are my writing constants, and they never change. And now I know that’s okay.
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Award-winning historical fiction author Alix Rickloff’s family tree includes a knight who fought during the Wars of the Roses and a soldier who sided with Charles I during the English Civil War. With inspiration like that, what else could she do but write her own stories? She lives in Maryland in a house that’s seen its own share of history so when she’s not writing, she can usually be found trying to keep it from falling down.
THE LAST LIGHT OVER OSLO
Based on true events, this gripping historical novel set in Norway and Sweden in 1940, follows one of the first female US Ministers, Daisy Harriman, and her niece as the two are unexpectedly caught up in the German invasion of Norway.
Cleo Jaffray was an American. A war in Europe had nothing to do with her. She told herself that right up until the man she loved went missing in Poland and Cleo was forced to turn to the only person who might be able to help—her aunt Daisy, the US Minister to Norway.
Daisy Harriman has never shied away from a challenge, be it canvassing for women’s suffrage or driving Red Cross ambulances in WWI, so as only the second woman ambassador, she is determined to prove the naysayers wrong and succeed in her post. When her disgraced niece Cleo lands on her doorstep, penniless and demanding help to find her lost lover, Daisy must balance her responsibilities as a diplomat with her desire to help her family.
Their search for answers is interrupted when Germany invades Norway and the pair find themselves on the run in a countryside that is quickly becoming a battleground. Then as Daisy is given the task of escorting the Norwegian Crown Princess and her young children to America, Cleo’s lover resurfaces with a story that doesn’t add up and dangerous enemies on his trail.
This riveting historical novel, based on the astounding life of Daisy Harriman and a real-life royal rescue, vividly captures a desperate time and a fearless heroine.
BUY HERE
Category: On Writing
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