Writer's Digest January 2016

1 Find More From Moyes In adapting her smash hit Me Before You for the big screen, Jojo Moyes (WD Interview, Page 40) delved headfirst into what she calls “a much more technical craft” Find out what went on behind the scenes, what’s up next for the versatile author, and more of her secrets to success in our exclusive interview outtakes. 2 Make Your Kids’ Book Interactive In our companion to “App or e-Book?” (Page 14), one writer shares how her children’s book became an award-winning app—and what you can learn from her journey. 3 Go Ahead—Get Graphic Graphic novels literally both show and tell a story—and graphic memoirs do the same with truth stepping in for fiction. Debut author Ozge Samanci (Breaking In, Page 20) shares secrets for combining…

“Every time I start a book, I think, I have no idea how I did this the last time” bestselling novelist Jojo Moyes says in this issue’s WD Interview. “No idea” At first, knowing that the struggle “happens to the best of us” as they say, might seem discouraging—especially if you’re facing that novel-sized pile of blank paper for the very first time. But even as I write this, I’m in the midst of drafting the opening to my own third novel, and I actually find Moyes’ words comforting. Because I don’t know how I got to The End before, either—but I know that I did. And so all I can do is have faith that if I just begin, I’ll find a way to do it again. In another…

JOANNE C. HILLHOUSE (“Literature With a Splash of Lime” Page 44) writes from Antigua, the island of her birth. Her poetry and short fiction have been widely published, and she’s written several books, including the novels Oh Gad! and Musical Youth, the children’s book Fish Outta Water, and the novellas The Boy From Willow Bend and Dancing Nude in the Moonlight. Hillhouse is also a freelance writer, editor and arts advocate, and can be found online at jhohadli.wordpress.com. STEVEN JAMES (“Rewriting the ‘Rules’ of Dialogue” Page 26) is a national bestselling novelist of several award-winning thrillers—Suspense Magazine says he “sets the new standard in suspense writing.” His book on the writing craft, Story Trumps Structure, received the Special Storytelling Resource Award from Storytelling World. When he’s not writing or speaking,…

True Grit In his interview in the October issue, Dennis Lehane said he drew on his own experience—growing up nonracist in a Boston neighborhood that was a “cauldron” of racism—to create the characters Danny and Joe (The Given Day, Live by Night), two rare egalitarians in a milieu of profound, systemic racism. Lehane deserves credit for not just his strong imagination, but for his meticulous research into the racism of the 1910s and 1920s. I haven’t yet read the third book in the trilogy, World Gone By, but I expect it to be a compelling story that pays as much attention to America’s racist past as it does to the multigenerational saga of the characters. Jim Hight Eureka, Calif. SPOTTED ON TWITTER Great, inspiring #dennislehane interview in the new…

Sometimes a setting is so central to a story that it’s almost a character unto itself—a fully crafted, fictional ode to a real-life place. I set out to travel in the footsteps of three accomplished writers, and discovered there’s a lot we can learn from the relationship between writers and location. EVEN SUBTLE SETTING CAN BE POWERFUL. Robert Louis Stevenson made many visits to Hawaii, which inspired him to write the short story “The Bottle Imp” about a man facing great power and consequence. The tale might have been just another Faustian soldone’s-soul-to-the-devil story if not for its novelty location. Stevenson is concise in his description, drawing upon both his surroundings and the history behind them: “Above, the forest ran up into the clouds of rain; below, the black lava…

For as long as I can remember, my mother has loved the obituaries. My sister and I would be eating our cereal, hair gone porcupine overnight, and Mom would read aloud ones she found notable. “Oh, look. This husband and wife died within days of each other. They d been married 52 years. Can you imagine?” “This one says, ‘There are no survivors ’ That is so sad. Are you listening?” My sister and I counted this as just one of Mom’s quirks. Then we both passed the 40-year mark and developed a sudden hunger for the obituary section. I’m always amazed by how much story can be expressed in so few words. On Nov. 23, 2013, Barbara celebrated her 100th birthday at a party at Calaroga Terrace. She was,…