"He'd applied to eight banks in his senior year at Harvard and was invited to join seven. After working for four years at Pearson Crowell, a bulge bracket investment bank, as an analyst and later as a senior associate, he got into Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar. Then he chose Kearn Davis, the sole securities firm that had rejected him as an undergraduate."
That's a glittering piece of character development from Min Jin Lee's new novel, Free Food for Millionaires.
Lee can masterfully explain the character arc of a complex life in a few sentences, a literary skill that depends on careful outlines. Today, she explains how she organizes her novels in an exclusive interview.
Welcome to my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson's mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.
Jason Boog:
Your large collection of characters created quite an intricate plot. How did you outline your large novel? Any advice for young writers as they plot their own novels?
Min Jin Lee:
I outline my work fairly loosely, then revise my outlines as the plots grow more complicated. I keep index cards with biographical details of my characters. Continue reading...
By the last revision, I usually know the character’s birthday, where he grew up, where he went to middle school, what his major was in college, etc.
None of this may appear in the work, but for reasons that are not entirely clear to me, I find it very helpful to know these things, and how these biographical details may affect his diction, outlook and behavior.
I think outlining is helpful for me, but I am not very strict about sticking to the outline. Characters do stuff that surprise me. I like that. Some of my outlines are a list of numbers and maybe one or two words next to each number.
E.g. “Chapter 1: Trip Canceled.” I also find timelines very helpful, especially toward the latter revisions.
» "Characters do stuff that surprise me" : How To Outline Your Novel from ThePublishingSpot
"He'd applied to eight banks in his senior year at Harvard and was invited to join seven. After working for four years at Pearson Crowell, a bulge bracket investment bank, as an analyst and later as a senior associate,... [Read More]
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