Kerry Chaput on Fresh Drafts, Intuition, and Inspiration for 'Chasing Eleanor'

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 Kerry Chaput, author of Chasing Eleanor which releases on June 15

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’ve always dreamed of writing a manuscript set during The Great Depression, but never had a clear idea of what the hook would be. I started to freewrite a few scenes about a teenager named Magnolia in 1936. I had very little direction, until three chapters in when research led me to the time Eleanor Roosevelt visited the inn where my character worked—at the same time my story was set. As Eleanor has always been my favorite historical figure, it felt like serendipity! I rewrote the story that would become Chasing Eleanor. At its heart, it’s an admiration letter to Eleanor as seen through the eyes of a strong, lost, hopeful girl trying desperately to put her family back together. 

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

I’m a sucker for the found family trope, so I knew Magnolia would go on a great journey with friends who could heal each other (also a nod to my childhood obsession with the movie The Journey of Natty Gann). I began by introducing Eleanor as a symbol of hope for Magnolia before the two have a chance encounter. In historical fiction, staying true to research goes hand in hand with crafting plot. I read dozens of memoirs to prepare for this book, and they all had similar experiences. Families losing jobs, putting food on credit, leveraging their houses, begging, bartering, often homelessness and usually broken families. Magnolia steps into the role left by her troubled parents with the youthful assumption she can manage the house and her brothers. She believes she can give them the life they deserve. Until reality hits—as it always does—and all Magnolia’s best intentions lead her down the same road. Although she begins to lose everything she cares about, her fighting spirit won’t let her give up. She must find something to hold onto, and a promise from the First Lady is as good a hope as any. After that, I crafted Magnolia’s journey through 1936 America, with dust storms and hunger, and all types of characters, including her new friends Hop and Red, who face their own struggles for survival. Chasing Eleanor explores friendship, family, and love as these orphans face the terrifying world together. 

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

I don’t plot. I’m a pantser all the way. Rewrites don’t intimidate me, and I love when characters guide me in a surprising direction. Every story I’ve ever written unfolds as I’m in the pages. I don’t know what the plot will be until I’m in it, feeling my character’s choices and motivation. It can be unnerving to write without a plan, but I find the purest moments when I keep all possibilities open. My first draft of Chasing Eleanor was missing something. Magnolia was so close to my own struggles, yet I felt a distance in her words. I knew Magnolia deserved the best I could give, so I moved all 87,000 words to the recycle bin and started over. The next day, I jumped right in on a fresh draft. I stumbled, but I never gave up, inspired by the very protagonist I was trying to understand. This time, I yanked open the part of me I hadn’t realized I was protecting. I cried my way through that next version, but as I wrote The End, I knew I had left it all on the page. 

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by? 

New story ideas are my fuel! I always have 2-3 ideas floating around and keep a folder of everything that comes up. Most ideas take months or years to form, so I like having a few to choose from. I’m like a mood reader with my own stories! Interesting ideas for character or setting frequently pop up in my dreams, so I make sure to have a notebook ready at my bedside. Ironically, all those ideas find their way into my manuscripts in some way, even subtly as character backstory or motivation.  

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

Intuition, mainly. When my character slides into my dreams and wakes me up at night, I know I’ve found my next project. Those ideas always transform into something quite different, so I never get too attached to any one thing. In true type A fashion, I usually draft two projects at a time to allow my brain to switch gears if I ever feel stagnant. The break helps me every time.

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?

I have two! My black Labrador is my good luck charm. I write at 5am every morning and he loves to join me on the couch. I like to believe his cuddles ensure a successful writing session. We share a blanket, and he snores while I work so it’s a perfect setup for us both. I also have an adorable golden retriever puppy who comes and goes for attention, but doesn’t appreciate that I’m not constantly playing with him. I always break for puppy hugs. I would be lonely without my buddies. They certainly make the process more fun.  

Kerry Chaput is an award-winning historical fiction author. She believes in the power of stories that highlight young women and found families. Born and raised in California, she now lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, where she can be found on hiking trails and in coffee shops. Connect with her at www.kerrywrites.com, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter.

The Saturday Slash

Don't be afraid to ask for help with the most critical first step of your writing journey - the query.

I’ve been blogging since 2011 and have critiqued over 200 queries here on the blog using my Hatchet of Death. This is how I edit myself, it is how I edit others. If you think you want to play with me and my hatchet, shoot me an email.

If the Saturday Slash has been helpful to you in the past, or if you’d like for me to take a look at your query please consider making a donation, if you are able.

If you’re ready to take the next step, I also offer editing services.

My thoughts are in blue, words to delete are in red, suggested rephrasing is in orange.

I am a seventy-six years young mother of four and grandmother of five. I graduated with a B.S. in Education in 1968, and decided to go back for an MBA fifty years later. Reading has been one of my favorite things, most genres, all of my life. I found that I also love to write, and that I, and my family and friends enjoyed my story: it is my hope that you will also. I advise almost everyone to put their bio at the end of their query. Quite frankly, you have to grab attention with your first line, and the first line of anyone's bio isn't typically all that interesting.

Grace of God is a modern-day tale about protagonist, Delle Carrington, born to parents at like, yet conflicting conclusions of their early existence. This is a very conovluted opening sentence. You need to work on a hook that will grab the reader, not intro them in like a book report. Each a product of a large inner-city environment, they survive, yet with different outcomes. At this point we're talking much more about the parents than about Delle, even though D is supposed to be the protagonist. Delle’s father advances to a high-profile position and wanting more for his family than he had, moves them to an upper-class community. Her mother, coming from the exact same environment, yearns for the opposite: a diverse community in which to raise their family. Although beloved by both of her parents, young Delle loves her mother, but adores her father: she is his Princess. Again, lots of focus on the parents, not Delle, and no idea of what the plot might be. You only have 300 words to get major points across in a query. Right now I don't know what the plot is or who Delle is, and we're already 1/3 through.

To folk on the outside looking in, Delle was blessed by wishes from all the good fairies at birth: You haven't mentioned a genre, so while everything sounds like a modern, contemporary setting, the mention of people considering the wishes of fairies muddies the genre waters beauty, wealth, prominent, good-looking parents, intellect, everything that would dictate a happily-ever-after outcome for her life. But the marriage has chasms that cannot be forged and at odds, they divorce. Again, still talking about the parents.

One might ask, what recourse is there for a Daddy’s-girl, literally torn from her father’s arms, on the occasion of her parent’s divorce? Rhetorical questions in a query are best avoided. They're not compelling. This becomes the catalyst that forms the kindled-dysfunctional person she will become. The Princess, will not forgive her mother from removing her from the only home she’s ever known, and more importantly, from her beloved father. In fact, she distains her mother from that moment forward in her life and instead seeks fulfillment from the most horrific influences of society: drugs, alcohol, sex and living in the super-fast lane.

It is only after a spiraling, life-long path towards all-embracing destruction and eminent death, that she seeks to attain salvation…in a most unexpected way.

Again, there's no plot here. I have no idea what Delle does to attain salvation, how old she is, what the goal is, etc. At the moment this just reads like a poor little rich girl story, which had been done a million times before. What makes your story different? Get the plot in here. A query isn't the place to tease. We have no idea who Delle is, what she wants, and whats preventing her from getting that - in other words, the main character and the plot.

Also, you make no mention of genre or word count, which is pivotal to a query. Check out examples of successful queries at Writer's Digest.

https://www.writersdigest.com/successful-queries

Marianne Bohr on Lightning Bolts, Silent Whispers, & Miles of Travel Create Story Ideas As Long As The GR20

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 Marianne Bohr, author of The Twenty: One Woman’s Trek Across Corsica on the GR20 Trail which releases today!

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?

When a retired British army general we met on our adult gap year in 2011 heard that my husband and I were avid hikers and were about to circumvent Mont Blanc on foot, he said, “Then, you absolutely must do the GR20.” We were familiar with the Grande Randonée (GR) trail system that’s primarily in France and had done several of the treks, but we’d never heard of the Twenty. We soon learned that it’s a rugged, mountainous trail, often called Europe’s toughest long-distance footpath, and which bisects the French island of Corsica. The general was not a man to be ignored, so we put the Twenty on our calendars and I planned to write about it.

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

We decided to do the hike to celebrate our 60th birthdays in 2016 and I thought that how we came to the decision could be of interest to others. I also hoped our story might inspire readers to mark a milestone with a physical challenge. The Twenty starts with making the decision to undertake the journey, then follows our months of training, and finally recounts the hike itself. While writing, I discovered that there was a lot in my upbringing that led me to enjoy pushing myself physically. And so, even though it wasn’t planned, I peppered the story with flashbacks to my childhood. Lucky for me, the group we hiked with had its share of interesting, quirky characters who made the narrative particularly interesting for me to write.

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

It isn’t necessarily the case when I write travel memoirs because they chronicle actual events. But when I write fiction, absolutely. I just finished a novel about a young woman who befriends an elderly widow that takes place in France. I started with a rough outline but as I went along, new ideas came to me and all of a sudden, the story made a lot of U-turns. I’ve come to learn that the writing process can be magical with dialog and plot and character ideas that come either from deep within, or simply settle beside me when I’m not looking.

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

Ever since I started writing creatively, which was when I was about 54, I’ve become very observant and write down so much in my writer’s notebook. The minute an idea comes together, even when it’s rough, I transfer it from my notebook to a “Story Ideas” document I keep on my laptop. As a result, I have list and lists of ideas to pursue, and they always involve travel.

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

There always seems to be one that floats to the top without my even thinking about it and it takes over my imagination. I’m always restless for adventure and so now that much of COVID is behind us, we’re planning to celebrate our 68th birthdays by hiking with our dog across England on the 188-mile Coast-to-Coast walk. It’s a through-hike that crosses England from St. Bees to Robin Hood’s Bay. I already have some ideas and notes about fictionalizing the three-week journey and I can’t imagine another story bubbling up before I get that one done.  

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?

I absolutely love my canine writing buddy. Her name is Snap and she’s a particularly athletic 19-pound rescue, part black lab and part chihuahua. She’s usually on the overstuffed chair next to my desk, looking out the window on watch, but every once in a while, she jumps on my lap. Having her nearby is never a distraction and she even inspired me to include a dog in my novel. 

Marianne C. Bohr, published author and award-winning essayist, married her high school sweetheart and travel partner. She follows her own advice and hits the road at every opportunity. She wrote her first book, Gap Year Girl: A Baby Boomer Adventure Across 21 Countries, over the course of the yearlong sabbatical she and her husband took to explore Europe. The Twenty: One Woman’s Trek Across Corsica on the GR20 Trail, is her second book. Marianne lives in Park City, UT, where—after decades in publishing, and then many years teaching middle school French—she now skis, hikes, and writes.