How Writers Write interview (1987)
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sutcliff_spaceThe following "interview" is from How Writers Write by Pamela Lloyd, which you can read here on Internet Archive, featuring children's writers of various genres. Rather than a straightforward collection of interviews, the book groups their responses into themed chapters – so you'll have brief remarks from a dozen authors on some aspect of writing. I've collected Sutcliff's answers here, with the chapter titles standing in for the "questions." The page references (21-2, 49, 64-5, 67-8, 84, 103-4, 131, 142) are to the linked US edition.
If you've been reading along with her essays and interviews, you may recognise a lot of her observations and examples here! Let us say that a fondness for revisiting her themes is characteristic of her non-fiction as well as her fiction.
HOW WRITERS WRITE
Writing Historical Fiction (p. 21)
Rosemary Sutcliff lives and works in a very old stone cottage in the beautiful village of Arundel in Sussex, England. Her small and crowded study looks over green lawns and ancient trees, and her dogs share the spare chair while she works. Her deep interest in the ancient and Roman history of Britain have inspired novels such as The Lantern Bearers and Warrior Scarlet, while books such as The Truce of the Games arose out of her awareness of other ancient worlds.
1. How and Where Writers Write (p. 22)
I don’t set myself a certain time to write every day, because I get too many interruptions when I write at home. I don’t try to start writing until late in the morning, and then I work until bedtime. I work whenever there’s the opportunity, so that I can feel free to drop it and go and do other things. I don’t have any difficulty in putting the writing down and picking it up later, as long as it isn’t in the middle of a very tense passage, because I know it’s a draft and I’ll be rewriting it again.
I write in longhand, in large (preferably red) exercise books. I feel better with a red exercise book than any other colour. After I have finished all my drafts and polished the manuscript, then I send it away to be typed.
The only audience I write for is me. Somebody once said that what makes a good children’s writer is a sort of unlived pocket of childhood in the writer. I think that I write mainly for this unlived pocket of childhood in myself. I don’t write for other children.
2. Where Do Ideas Come From? (p. 49)
Rosemary Sutcliff had to have many operations when she was a child. After a long break she found herself facing one more, and felt miserable, lonely and scared. She wanted somebody to keep her company while she waited to have the operation, and out of that need came Marcus, the hero of her first book, The Eagle of the Ninth.
Ideas sometimes come very obviously from having read an article in a magazine, or something that somebody has said. Sometimes one just apparently comes in the window of its own accord. Sometimes I really only get the idea that I want to write a story with a certain background and, little by little, the characters will emerge from the background.
I think The Lantern Bearers was one of the most dramatic arrivals really. That really did walk in through the window when I was trying to make some toast, and I suddenly thought out of nowhere: “Yes, but when the Roman legions were withdrawn from Britain, they’d been here over 400 years. That’s the same time as between us and the first Queen Elizabeth! They didn’t go home on leave. They got married where they were posted, so they must all have been practically British by birth.”
I wondered how many of them just went wilfully missing, and never went back with the legions because Britain was their home, and not Rome. And then I started from there to produce The Lantern Bearers.
But mostly it isn’t as dramatic as that. It comes from somewhere, but I have to wait around for it, poke around for it, and think a lot first.
3. Getting Ready to Write (p. 64-5)
I get a feeling that I want to write about a particular place and a particular period, and I sort of sit and brew on that and see what emerges. Often the characters then step out of that place and period.
I then get a large red exercise book and start to do my research. I copy every thing down on to the backs of envelopes and then, if I don’t lose the envelopes, I put them all into my red exercise book in groups, one page to each idea or piece of information. Now I’ve got everything together under one roof.
When I’ve got it all together, then I start writing the story. The book is fairly well shaped in my mind before I begin writing. It isn’t a detailed synopsis, but I know the beginning, middle and end. I just can’t start writing a book and think I’ll find out how it ends later. I’ve got to know how it ends. Usually my idea of what the story is going to be and what is going to happen in it start emerging at the same time. The two things run side by side.
4. Research (p. 67-8)
I do my homework. I do a lot of research, and in some cases it’s a really big job to get all the things researched before I start writing. I collect the material that I need. I write to people and ask them questions about gunnery or horses or whatever it is I need to know.
I don’t always go to the place that I’m writing about, and some of my best-written locations are places I’ve never actually been to. I read up on them from guidebooks and country histories, from histories of the flora and fauna of a place, and the books that people write about a place when they’ve been on a walking tour of it. I read anything that has got the atmosphere of the place and the wildlife. Then I put them all together. I find that when I’ve read enough books like these about a place, I discover that they have a centre where they all seem to meet. And this is my key to the place I’m writing about.
Then, when I’m writing, I keep on finding other things that I haven’t found out about, so I keep having panics all the way through the writing. When that happens, I stop writing and find out what I need.
5. Characters and Settings (p. 84)
Usually the place and the period that I want to write about comes first, and then the characters step out from that. I wonder about what might happen to the characters, what kind of families they’d have had, what kind of background. And the characters become real people quite quickly.
The characters grow and change as I write. When I start off I’ve just written down colour of hair, colour of eyes, likes and dislikes, family backgrounds, and so on. As I go on writing I get to know them as real people, and if I make them do something that is out of character, I think instantly: “No, they wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t react in that way.”
Sometimes I feel like I almost become one of the characters, and I develop a very strong empathy with them. Certainly, quite a few of my characters come from within me or from my needs and feelings at the time that I write the book. They’re not me, but sometimes they’re what I think I’d like to be.
I use people that I know and observe for my characters, but very seldom the whole person. I nearly always use only bits of them, such as their habits or peculiar tendencies. I’m not really conscious of doing this.
6. The First Draft (p. 103-4)
After I’ve brewed on the shape of my story, and done all the research I’ve been able to think of, I face that first white blank piece of paper. This happens every day, and it’s daunting to try to think of how to get the story put down––how to get the right words and the right shape to the sentences. I find if I’m not careful, I’ll spend a whole morning just sitting and looking at that paper.
I always have to say to myself: “Don’t worry about it being the right sentence, just get something down. You can put it right next time. Get something down. It doesn’t matter how bad it is.”
I always have to write two or three drafts, so I force myself along like that quite often. I rework my writing a lot, so the first draft is almost unreadable, sometimes even by me.
The second draft has major surgery done to it. I drop off characters that have faded out halfway because there’s nothing more for them to do, and introduce other ones that didn’t come in early enough before. Then the third draft is a matter of polishing.
The third draft is delightful, because all the real solid work is done. I just take pleasure in getting the subtle bits, and the colours and the shading. If it’s good, then it feels right. It has the right smell. Something deep inside me says that it works. Then a typed copy is sent away to the publisher.
7. When the Writing Isn’t Going Well
[No quote from Sutcliff in this chapter.]
8. Revision and the Role of the Editor (p. 131)
I change what I’m writing if as I work there’s something in myself which says: “Is this all right? Yes, it is. No, it isn’t.”
I’d be rather surprised and annoyed if an editor asked me to change something in my story after I’d sent the finished manuscript. But I wouldn’t be disagreeable about it. I’d try to do what the editor asked if it was possible, but I have dug my toes in and refused when it was unnatural to the character.
9. After Publication
[No quote from Sutcliff in this chapter.]
10. Why Writers Write (p. 142)
I write because I want to. I write because the stories are inside me and they want to come out. I don’t always enjoy writing, because it’s hard work. But if I don’t write, I get this awful feeling of being all stuck up and turning into concrete inside. When I start writing and everything comes flowing out, I feel looser and more relaxed.
Making the story and the people come to life has got to come from inside me. So I’m doing this funny thing of spinning real people out of my own interior, like a spider spinning silk. These things come from inside myself and it can be a most eerie sensation. It’s very exciting.
If you've been reading along with her essays and interviews, you may recognise a lot of her observations and examples here! Let us say that a fondness for revisiting her themes is characteristic of her non-fiction as well as her fiction.
HOW WRITERS WRITE
Writing Historical Fiction (p. 21)
Rosemary Sutcliff lives and works in a very old stone cottage in the beautiful village of Arundel in Sussex, England. Her small and crowded study looks over green lawns and ancient trees, and her dogs share the spare chair while she works. Her deep interest in the ancient and Roman history of Britain have inspired novels such as The Lantern Bearers and Warrior Scarlet, while books such as The Truce of the Games arose out of her awareness of other ancient worlds.
1. How and Where Writers Write (p. 22)
I don’t set myself a certain time to write every day, because I get too many interruptions when I write at home. I don’t try to start writing until late in the morning, and then I work until bedtime. I work whenever there’s the opportunity, so that I can feel free to drop it and go and do other things. I don’t have any difficulty in putting the writing down and picking it up later, as long as it isn’t in the middle of a very tense passage, because I know it’s a draft and I’ll be rewriting it again.
I write in longhand, in large (preferably red) exercise books. I feel better with a red exercise book than any other colour. After I have finished all my drafts and polished the manuscript, then I send it away to be typed.
The only audience I write for is me. Somebody once said that what makes a good children’s writer is a sort of unlived pocket of childhood in the writer. I think that I write mainly for this unlived pocket of childhood in myself. I don’t write for other children.
2. Where Do Ideas Come From? (p. 49)
Rosemary Sutcliff had to have many operations when she was a child. After a long break she found herself facing one more, and felt miserable, lonely and scared. She wanted somebody to keep her company while she waited to have the operation, and out of that need came Marcus, the hero of her first book, The Eagle of the Ninth.
Ideas sometimes come very obviously from having read an article in a magazine, or something that somebody has said. Sometimes one just apparently comes in the window of its own accord. Sometimes I really only get the idea that I want to write a story with a certain background and, little by little, the characters will emerge from the background.
I think The Lantern Bearers was one of the most dramatic arrivals really. That really did walk in through the window when I was trying to make some toast, and I suddenly thought out of nowhere: “Yes, but when the Roman legions were withdrawn from Britain, they’d been here over 400 years. That’s the same time as between us and the first Queen Elizabeth! They didn’t go home on leave. They got married where they were posted, so they must all have been practically British by birth.”
I wondered how many of them just went wilfully missing, and never went back with the legions because Britain was their home, and not Rome. And then I started from there to produce The Lantern Bearers.
But mostly it isn’t as dramatic as that. It comes from somewhere, but I have to wait around for it, poke around for it, and think a lot first.
3. Getting Ready to Write (p. 64-5)
I get a feeling that I want to write about a particular place and a particular period, and I sort of sit and brew on that and see what emerges. Often the characters then step out of that place and period.
I then get a large red exercise book and start to do my research. I copy every thing down on to the backs of envelopes and then, if I don’t lose the envelopes, I put them all into my red exercise book in groups, one page to each idea or piece of information. Now I’ve got everything together under one roof.
When I’ve got it all together, then I start writing the story. The book is fairly well shaped in my mind before I begin writing. It isn’t a detailed synopsis, but I know the beginning, middle and end. I just can’t start writing a book and think I’ll find out how it ends later. I’ve got to know how it ends. Usually my idea of what the story is going to be and what is going to happen in it start emerging at the same time. The two things run side by side.
4. Research (p. 67-8)
I do my homework. I do a lot of research, and in some cases it’s a really big job to get all the things researched before I start writing. I collect the material that I need. I write to people and ask them questions about gunnery or horses or whatever it is I need to know.
I don’t always go to the place that I’m writing about, and some of my best-written locations are places I’ve never actually been to. I read up on them from guidebooks and country histories, from histories of the flora and fauna of a place, and the books that people write about a place when they’ve been on a walking tour of it. I read anything that has got the atmosphere of the place and the wildlife. Then I put them all together. I find that when I’ve read enough books like these about a place, I discover that they have a centre where they all seem to meet. And this is my key to the place I’m writing about.
Then, when I’m writing, I keep on finding other things that I haven’t found out about, so I keep having panics all the way through the writing. When that happens, I stop writing and find out what I need.
5. Characters and Settings (p. 84)
Usually the place and the period that I want to write about comes first, and then the characters step out from that. I wonder about what might happen to the characters, what kind of families they’d have had, what kind of background. And the characters become real people quite quickly.
The characters grow and change as I write. When I start off I’ve just written down colour of hair, colour of eyes, likes and dislikes, family backgrounds, and so on. As I go on writing I get to know them as real people, and if I make them do something that is out of character, I think instantly: “No, they wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t react in that way.”
Sometimes I feel like I almost become one of the characters, and I develop a very strong empathy with them. Certainly, quite a few of my characters come from within me or from my needs and feelings at the time that I write the book. They’re not me, but sometimes they’re what I think I’d like to be.
I use people that I know and observe for my characters, but very seldom the whole person. I nearly always use only bits of them, such as their habits or peculiar tendencies. I’m not really conscious of doing this.
6. The First Draft (p. 103-4)
After I’ve brewed on the shape of my story, and done all the research I’ve been able to think of, I face that first white blank piece of paper. This happens every day, and it’s daunting to try to think of how to get the story put down––how to get the right words and the right shape to the sentences. I find if I’m not careful, I’ll spend a whole morning just sitting and looking at that paper.
I always have to say to myself: “Don’t worry about it being the right sentence, just get something down. You can put it right next time. Get something down. It doesn’t matter how bad it is.”
I always have to write two or three drafts, so I force myself along like that quite often. I rework my writing a lot, so the first draft is almost unreadable, sometimes even by me.
The second draft has major surgery done to it. I drop off characters that have faded out halfway because there’s nothing more for them to do, and introduce other ones that didn’t come in early enough before. Then the third draft is a matter of polishing.
The third draft is delightful, because all the real solid work is done. I just take pleasure in getting the subtle bits, and the colours and the shading. If it’s good, then it feels right. It has the right smell. Something deep inside me says that it works. Then a typed copy is sent away to the publisher.
7. When the Writing Isn’t Going Well
[No quote from Sutcliff in this chapter.]
8. Revision and the Role of the Editor (p. 131)
I change what I’m writing if as I work there’s something in myself which says: “Is this all right? Yes, it is. No, it isn’t.”
I’d be rather surprised and annoyed if an editor asked me to change something in my story after I’d sent the finished manuscript. But I wouldn’t be disagreeable about it. I’d try to do what the editor asked if it was possible, but I have dug my toes in and refused when it was unnatural to the character.
9. After Publication
[No quote from Sutcliff in this chapter.]
10. Why Writers Write (p. 142)
I write because I want to. I write because the stories are inside me and they want to come out. I don’t always enjoy writing, because it’s hard work. But if I don’t write, I get this awful feeling of being all stuck up and turning into concrete inside. When I start writing and everything comes flowing out, I feel looser and more relaxed.
Making the story and the people come to life has got to come from inside me. So I’m doing this funny thing of spinning real people out of my own interior, like a spider spinning silk. These things come from inside myself and it can be a most eerie sensation. It’s very exciting.
