I’ve been asked this question on numerous occasions (often directly proportionate to the number of times I’ve blurted out unprepared for followup, “I’m writing a book!”), and somehow, I always find myself an inadequate resource for the information.
I know exactly what I’m writing when I’m writing it. I know what it’s about because I’m in it, passenger and conductor. What am I after? What are my themes? Who are my characters in their real, raw places? These and other concepts are well within my grasp if the document is open.
Take me out of that world for even an hour, and I’m lucky to remember which of my imaginary women is, in fact, the main character. A nervous, sputtering repetition of the word “allegorical” is likely to occur. I might call the book a psychological thriller, a young adult drama, a dark fairytale, or the deconstructed story of an Alaskan childhood. Once, I said to a late-40-something fellow accompanying his young son to the annual Georgia Writer’s Museum conference, “It’s metaphorically about the body horror of a young girl going through puberty.” Nobody involved was comfortable with my response.
I leave conversations about my work a little startled, a little confused. The asker of the question usually does, too.
It’s no good to have a writer walking the world unable to discuss her craft, so recently, I’ve been committed to the deceptively simple task of learning how to categorize the work I’ve spent my last 6 years on.
At length and with pains, this effort led me, babbling and shivering and barefoot, to the sympathetic doorstep of the Snowflake Method.
Resisting the urge to evangelize, I can only say that this system of storyline development enabled me (a lifelong and chronic “pantser”) to see the fundamental framework of my love’s labor all at once, one stone laid neatly atop the next, and though I have yet to complete all 10 steps I’m able at last to answer that most dreaded and essential of questions – What is your book about?
A volatile coming-of-age story in which the untreated mental illness shared between three generations of women culminates in violent tragedy, Fire in the Wildlands is both a literary exploration of cyclical trauma and the author’s personal love letter to the wild, ancient magic of her childhood hometown.
Young Edith Brolly and Elisa, her dissociative, doll-like mother, are moved into the suburban Alaska home of Elisa’s new husband, Osman. Soon after, Edie witnesses a disturbing transformation in her mother that creates a widening distance between them. Feeling isolated from the new family unit, Edie begins surrendering to manic impulses – including petty theft, public nudity, and fire-setting.
As Edie enters young adulthood and her first turbulent experiences with love and loss, the instability of her household ecosystem is pushed to a violent break which will permanently alter all of their lives.
Margot Sannes 