By Itto Outini
Maybe it’s because my background is in journalism, but I do not get writer’s block. When I first started writing fiction, I thought this was normal, but after meeting many seasoned writers, all of whom report experiencing writer’s block at one time or another, I realized there was something different about the way I was approaching fiction. Recently, I spent some time reflecting on what this might be, and it occurred to me that, without consciously thinking about it, I’d developed a method that keeps me on the edge of my seat, breathlessly tracking my characters’ shenanigans, seven days a week.
This is that method in a nutshell.
Instead of thinking of myself as a writer, I think of myself as an investigator. Instead of coming up with plots and scenarios, I uncover them. Instead of developing characters, I spy on, surveil, and interrogate them.
But let’s imagine for a moment that it’s me, not my character, who’s being surveilled. The spy outside my window would probably note that, while I’m brainstorming, I look just like most writers do when they’re working—that is, as if I’m working at all—but, in my head, something entirely different is going on. Instead of struggling to string words together, I’m crouching behind some bushes, waiting for a character to come out and get into a car so I can follow them and see where they go. Or I might be in a park, hiding behind an elm tree, listening to two of my characters conversing on a park bench.
If I run into one of my characters alone, I might strike up a conversation and lull them into a false sense of security, using flattery even if I know them to be the villain and scorning their rivals even if their rivals have my sympathies, until eventually they spills the beans and reveal their true selves: their deepest resentments, projections, jealousies, and fears.
Or I might find myself alone with a character in an interrogation room. In these instances, the tools of the good cop are still at my disposal, but the tools of the bad cop are on the table, too.
Some characters really just want to be loved. They’re tender and insecure and will open up to the first person who smiles or utters a kind word. Others are tougher and need a bit of roughing up.
I should probably clarify here that I don’t use this method specifically to write detective fiction. I use it to write all kinds of fiction. The scenarios I’ve been describing don’t actually have to take place in the story. They’re just means to an end, ways for me to get to know my characters and learn about what they’ve been up to so that I can write it down.
Unlike most of the writers I meet, I never finish a draft, set it aside, return to it a few days later, notice discrepancies that had previously escaped me, realize that I’ve misunderstood my characters’ true motives all along, and end up back at square one, exhausted, dispirited, and suffering writer’s block. Instead, I let my characters tell me their cover stories first, in my head, without typing a word—and I don’t trust a word that they say. Once I’ve spied on or interrogated all of the characters, I spend some time reflecting on everything they’ve told me, comparing what each one has said to the testimonies of the others, and triangulating the inconsistencies until, eventually, I’m able to put together the real story. This way, I’m not the one who came up with a story full of plot holes. Instead, I’m the one who figured out what the real story is.
It probably helps that all my characters and most of my plots are drawn from life to some degree, even if they do undergo a great deal of mixing and matching to yield unrecognizable composites—or at least plausible deniability. My characters don’t have to take on lives of their own. They have lives of their own already. I feel as if I know them because I do, in fact, know them. But, at the same time, I don’t know them well enough. I know the polished personas they show to the world, and I might also know about the things they’ve done that are inconsistent with their personas, but I don’t know why they did those things, or what they’re going to do next, or what it’s like to live inside their skin. Those are questions that can’t be answered by a writer, only by an investigator.
You don’t have to have a background in law enforcement or investigative journalism to make this method work for you. You don’t even have to binge police procedurals or true crime shows, although that might help. All you have to do is adopt a new mindset. Stop worrying about getting words on the page. Words come later. First, you have to get through the lies, the cover stories, the self-serving myths, and the propaganda so that you can get to the heart of the matter. You have to figure out what the real story is.
Bio: Itto Outini is an author and co-host of a podcast about literature and the arts, Let’s Have a Renaissance. Her essays and fiction have been published in literary magazine around the world. In her spare time, she enjoys reading, researching, and community-building.
