Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview.
Today’s guest for the WHAT is Suzanne Moyers, a former teacher who spent more than 20 years as an editor and writer for the education press. Suzanne is the author of ’Til All These Things Be Done
Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?
I was a teenager when my grandmother, aka “Nana”, moved from her Texas farm to our home on Long Island. I’ll never forget the first time I witnessed her staring into an empty corner, crying to the ghost of her long-lost father: Papa, come back! Please! She was in the early stages of dementia, but her emotion was utterly real, driving me to learn more about her father’s inexplicable disappearance way back in 1919.
Papa had supposedly loved his family, but after being maimed in a terrible accident, left to seek clerical work in newly-booming Houston, 350 miles away. When they stopped hearing from him, his family assumed he must be dead, but they were in survival mode and didn’t have the wherewithal to find out for sure. It was only when my grandmother was in her fifties that she learned Papa was still alive and living a day’s train ride away, that even knowing his children needed him, he hadn’t returned to claim them. Though my grandmother had never made sense of this betrayal, over the years, new details emerged suggesting a more hopeful postlude to the story. I’d long ago crafted my own fantasy around these details, imagining a closure my grandmother never had but that I like to believe could be true.
Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?
Deep research into the rich but troubled ‘cotton culture’ of early 20th century Texas provided ample inspiration, as did my grandmother’s recollections of events like the ‘great influenza’ epidemic and day-to-day life on her grandfather’s farm. I also had stories from other kin who lived in Texas during that era, and plenty of photographs and heirlooms to juice my creative endeavors. I used these details and my imagination to create plot twists, conflict, and also develop unique but believable characters.
Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?
I am a pantser/plotter hybrid. I like having a basic outline for a novel and, in this case, I already had certain key elements of the story in mind. But creativity often feels like a supernatural force to me, driving me down unfamiliar yet eerily vivid paths. I always follow those paths, surprised at where I end up but always glad I’ve gotten there.
Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?
Anything I wonder about becomes fodder for potential stories. And since I’m constantly wondering (sometimes annoyingly so), I have a lot of ideas! Usually my best inspiration arises from a need to understand what makes ‘ordinary’ people do unlikely things, from following a charismatic guru around the world to abandoning their families to killing their families (see below). My problem isn’t coming up with ideas; it’s finding the time and, frankly, the willpower to develop them. A great idea is one thing, but the work of turning it into compelling fiction is another thing entirely. Even if you’re not writing historical fiction, you have to do the initial research into your setting, learn as much as you can about your subject, get into other peoples’ messy minds—and turn yours inside out too.
How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?
Having just written this heartfelt, intense historical saga, I’m thinking I want to challenge myself in tackling something completely different. To that end, I’ve started a thriller based on a true crime in which a stressed-out, religious, suburban mom persuades her ‘golden child’ to murder the rest of their family. Of course, there’s also the temptation to use my hard-won skills in writing another historical drama. I have a thick file of research about this family of Dutch female traders living in New Amsterdam (now New York City) in the 17th and 18th centuries. It’s such an intriguing subject and I’m a fool for history, so who knows where that might lead?
I have 6 cats and a Dalmatian (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?
My six-year-old Havenese, Tuxi, is also black-and-white and adorable like your Dalmatian. Both breeds are notoriously neurotic too. Sometimes Tuxi sits next to my desk and stares at me with these soulful eyes and, even though I know he’s recently been fed and walked and belly-rubbed, it drives me crazy. It’s how I used to feel when my kids were toddlers and they’d stick their heads into my office and ask, “Now, Mama? Now can you play?” I do keep a big bag of treats on my desk, and I’ll take five minutes here and there to throw a couple down the hall for Tuxi to chase. If he still keeps staring at me after that, I’ll take him downstairs and put the gate up and try to forget him for a while. Because that’s the difference between having a dog and a toddler.
Suzanne Moyers is a lifelong history geek who spends her free time as a volunteer archeologist, mudlarker, and metal detectorist. Suzanne is the proud mom to two amazing young adults, Sara and Jassi, and resides in the greater New York City area.
