Brendan O'Meara

Brendan O'Meara asked Erik Larson:

How do you excavate story ideas and at what point do you realize there's enough/not enough narrative drive to pursue/abandon fill-in-the-blank project?

Erik Larson Hard to say. By now it's become more or less instinctive. Even so, I always do a book proposal to test an idea. My proposals have a sample opening chapter, an essay about what I propose to write and how I plan to go about it, and a chapter by chapter outline, with capsule descriptions of what's likely to be in each chapter. This is a very rigorous test. If I can't complete the proposal, I know the idea'll never work.

More Answered Questions

Maureen

Maureen asked Erik Larson:

During the writing of which of your books was the research the most surprising? Why?

Jen

Jen asked Erik Larson:

I loved, loved, loved devil in the white city almost as much as I love Chicago. What in the world drew you to major in Russian history? What is your craziest international incident? Mine was being attacked by a bat in my hotel room in Tianjin, China. I'm convinced bats can see.

Dwayna

Dwayna asked Erik Larson:

Do you ever pull all-nighters when writing?

All answers from Erik Larson…

69,724 followers

To ask Erik Larson a question, please sign up.

About Goodreads Q&A

Ask and answer questions about books!

You can pose questions to the Goodreads community with Reader Q&A, or ask your favorite author a question with Ask the Author.

See Featured Authors Answering Questions