Shalini
asked
Alwyn Hamilton:
Hi! I'm a huge fan of your books. I finished the Rebel of the Sands trilogy in a week and I LOVED it. I was really curious about your writing process, especially in the planning stages. How do you do your background research? Also, how do you come up with your characters' names? (I'm having a hard time doing that.) Do you have any tips/advice for a young writer?
Alwyn Hamilton
Hi Shalini! Thanks so much for the kind message! So so glad you loved the books! It would probably take me a whole essay to go into detail about all these things, and I'm pretty sure Goodreads has a word limit on these things. But I'll try to give a short version.
First, my biggest tip for any young writer: Finish the book. It doesn't matter if you feel like it's bad, or messy or whatever. Just finish it. You'll learn SO MUCH MORE from writing a full imperfect book, to writing a perfect first 10 chapters. Among other things you'll learn is that you are capable of finishing, which I think is important to know. And then you'll also, gradually, learn what your own unique process looks like. Because everyone's is different. You need to know what works for you!
So in terms of what I've learned about my process/planning: I always start a book with a rought idea. Usually a beginning and an end and then some big pillars in between. It's important for me to spend several months daydreaming about a book, and letting it take shape in my mind, so that when I go in to start writing, I'm going in with at least a roadmap, and the landscape of the book takes shape around me. And then the process for me is usually to finish a really ugly "scaffolding" draft. Where many things are imperfect but at least every scene and character is somewhat sketched out on the page. And then my next pass through is going through it and fleshing it out, or smoothing it out, or whatever that part of the book requires.
Research is something that continues throughout, and can be very helpful in unsticking you. For instance, in TRAITOR, I knew I wanted a scene where Amani confronts the Sultima and gets certain info. But that scene kept not working, and moving around, happening in a garden, in a bedroom, in the palace, in the rain, on a train...ok those last 2 are from Green Eggs and Ham. But no matter what I did the scene lacked tension. And then I found a passage in one of my research books about daily life in the harems and how they got so bored they'd play games of retrieving jewels from the bottom of the pools there. And this action became the backdrop to the conversation and added an active backdrop and an element of tension that wasn't otherwise there.
Now names, these are tricky, sometimes they don't fit right and you do have to change them. Something I use a lot is Behind the Name.com, where you can search names by meaning and I often like to add this in as a little easter egg. For instance Amani means "wishes" which is an allusion to who her father is. And Ahmed means "praiseworthy" referring to him being a good dude. And then Shahzad, is a reference to the 1001 nights, while also being a typically male construction of a name, to refer to the fact that she's adopting a more masculine role. The Notorious Virtues meanwhile was pretty easy to name characters for becasue they all have...Virtue names. So I basically went through lists of virtue names that are the most commonplace in the real world (e.g Grace, Constance, Clemency, Felicity...) and assigned them to the character they fit the best. Another thing that you can do on Behindthename.com is filter names by origin or nationality, and just scroll down the list until you see a name that jumps out at you. It's very useful when you're stuck. But also don't feel weird if you get halfway through a book and realize that a name needs to be changed. When I pitched The Notorious Virtues, a main character was named Lucas. But then it wasn't sticking and there were too many L names in the story so it's now Theo. (incidentally these are both names of guys I went to High School with).
And then finally I guess the thing I would say is, you don't need to show the book to anyone else until you're ready to. It can be your messy little sandbox with constantly changing names and still developing research etc. for as long as you need it to be. Write with yourself in mind first, and it will naturally grow from messy sandbox to beautiful polished thing that you want to share.
First, my biggest tip for any young writer: Finish the book. It doesn't matter if you feel like it's bad, or messy or whatever. Just finish it. You'll learn SO MUCH MORE from writing a full imperfect book, to writing a perfect first 10 chapters. Among other things you'll learn is that you are capable of finishing, which I think is important to know. And then you'll also, gradually, learn what your own unique process looks like. Because everyone's is different. You need to know what works for you!
So in terms of what I've learned about my process/planning: I always start a book with a rought idea. Usually a beginning and an end and then some big pillars in between. It's important for me to spend several months daydreaming about a book, and letting it take shape in my mind, so that when I go in to start writing, I'm going in with at least a roadmap, and the landscape of the book takes shape around me. And then the process for me is usually to finish a really ugly "scaffolding" draft. Where many things are imperfect but at least every scene and character is somewhat sketched out on the page. And then my next pass through is going through it and fleshing it out, or smoothing it out, or whatever that part of the book requires.
Research is something that continues throughout, and can be very helpful in unsticking you. For instance, in TRAITOR, I knew I wanted a scene where Amani confronts the Sultima and gets certain info. But that scene kept not working, and moving around, happening in a garden, in a bedroom, in the palace, in the rain, on a train...ok those last 2 are from Green Eggs and Ham. But no matter what I did the scene lacked tension. And then I found a passage in one of my research books about daily life in the harems and how they got so bored they'd play games of retrieving jewels from the bottom of the pools there. And this action became the backdrop to the conversation and added an active backdrop and an element of tension that wasn't otherwise there.
Now names, these are tricky, sometimes they don't fit right and you do have to change them. Something I use a lot is Behind the Name.com, where you can search names by meaning and I often like to add this in as a little easter egg. For instance Amani means "wishes" which is an allusion to who her father is. And Ahmed means "praiseworthy" referring to him being a good dude. And then Shahzad, is a reference to the 1001 nights, while also being a typically male construction of a name, to refer to the fact that she's adopting a more masculine role. The Notorious Virtues meanwhile was pretty easy to name characters for becasue they all have...Virtue names. So I basically went through lists of virtue names that are the most commonplace in the real world (e.g Grace, Constance, Clemency, Felicity...) and assigned them to the character they fit the best. Another thing that you can do on Behindthename.com is filter names by origin or nationality, and just scroll down the list until you see a name that jumps out at you. It's very useful when you're stuck. But also don't feel weird if you get halfway through a book and realize that a name needs to be changed. When I pitched The Notorious Virtues, a main character was named Lucas. But then it wasn't sticking and there were too many L names in the story so it's now Theo. (incidentally these are both names of guys I went to High School with).
And then finally I guess the thing I would say is, you don't need to show the book to anyone else until you're ready to. It can be your messy little sandbox with constantly changing names and still developing research etc. for as long as you need it to be. Write with yourself in mind first, and it will naturally grow from messy sandbox to beautiful polished thing that you want to share.
More Answered Questions
A Goodreads user
asked
Alwyn Hamilton:
Usually fantasy books has maps in the front. Why doesent this? Otherwise no complaints about this amazing book.
Cash'Lion Elud'Ox
asked
Alwyn Hamilton:
Do you illustrate? I would like to see the characters as you see 'em. You mention in your interview that its a blend of Wild West meets Middle East in mythology/fantasy. You describe them and I just started reading this book, and already even with your descriptions I see them with mixture of Cowboy like Clint Eastwood's characters and Arabian stories like Aladdin or Prince of Persia. Only with a woman lead character.
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