The Bernardine Evaristo Method From Interview no. 29 • When writing a novel, you don’t know how you get the work done. You go to the gym in the mornings, you come home and faff about; before you know it, it’s lunch. Then you have a siesta… But the work gets done, somehow. When you have to, you’ll do it mornings, afternoons and evenings, seven days a week. You don’t have children, so that helps. • You find it hard to sit down for any length of time. You like variety in your routine – the disruption of travel, meetings, breaks. When you get back to your desk you have renewed energy and vigour, and find that you can look at your work afresh. • Your first novel grew organically, and you learned the lesson that it is better to have a basic story outline before beginning to write – although you don’t necessarily know what’s going to happen within that structure. • You have a passion for history and languages that inspires your writing. Often research involves looking at the period, place and biographies of historical characters. Visual aids help, such as a beautiful book of historical European costumes, as well as photograph books in which you can find pictures to represent characters. • You love the fact that as a writer you are God, that your imagination has no limits. However, if you try to come up with stuff consciously while doing something else, you seem to have really naff ideas. It is in the actual process of writing, of putting pen to paper, that ideas suddenly come alive. • When you try to write traditional prose narrative it often doesn’t work. You find that switching to poetry can make the text come alive. You find verse very easy – it’s your natural form. Once you get the rhythm of the language, the poetic engine takes over. • You tweak all the time. It’s hard for you to get beyond one page because you are constantly reworking. Sometimes you write yourself into a hole because you are crafting the language so much that you’ve forgotten the story. You have to guard against that. • You can take criticism from trusted readers (such as the novelist Jacob Ross) while a book is in progress. However, you need to be very discerning about what you take on board and what you reject – you must have a strong sense of what you want and where you’re going. • There are four things that help you get a better understanding of your work: reading it on the page, reading it aloud to yourself, reading aloud to someone else, then sending it out. At each stage you are able to look at your work more objectively, to see what is and isn’t working. You find that the act of emailing or posting work to someone helps you become more objective about it before you even get their feedback. You find it hard to sit down for any length of time. You like variety in your routine – the disruption of travel, meetings, breaks.
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