Meliss

Meliss asked Maggie Shipstead:

Do you know the ending of a book before you write it?

Maggie Shipstead I don't. Or, at least, I didn't with either of my published novels, and I don't with the novel I'm working on now. Welllll . . . actually, that's not entirely true. Seating Arrangements started out as a short story, and the story ended with essentially the same paragraph as the novel. But I didn't know what any of the action leading up to that paragraph would be. I'm not someone who outlines in advance--that kind of planning tends to kill the project for me, and I'm just not very good at it. For me to keep my writing momentum, it seems most important that I commit to a voice and structure and that I have a few plot waypoints out in the future that I'm writing toward. The way I originally drafted it, most chapters of Astonish Me ended where a piece of information was missing, and then the next chapter would usually jump back in time and supply that information. This made for pretty confusing reading and got simplified a bit as I edited, but the plot of the book evolved organically as I went.

More Answered Questions

Susanna

Susanna asked Maggie Shipstead:

I love your novels, thanks for writing! I would like to know how you come up with the characters? When reading your books, it seems like you can describe what men and women of different ages are thinking and feeling so incredibly well. How did you gain the ability to imagine this? Is it something that you just understand or is it something you deliberately studied?

Tara

Tara asked Maggie Shipstead:

Maggie, I adored Astonish Me. I practically devoured it in one sitting! Your depection of the culture and neuroses of the professional dance world was spot on. Did you dance professionally as a young adult? If not, what type of research did you do?

Jessica Rosner

Jessica Rosner asked Maggie Shipstead:

My cousin died from cancer. I thought she was perfect, in the way people worship people who are a little older. She loved to dance, and when she was a teenager was accepted to the NY City Ballet. If she'd had different parents, she'd have gone. I got this book after she died. I know she would have loved this novel, and I thank you for helping me to picture her so clearly, reading it in her NY apartment ?

All answers from Maggie Shipstead…

Maggie Shipstead

1,912 followers

About Goodreads Q&A

Ask and answer questions about books!

You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.

See Featured Authors Answering Questions