John Lescroart offers advice like: Don't be afraid to hang out in Idiot Mode

HALLIE EPHRON: This past weekend I taught at the annual Mystery Writers Conference at Book Passage in beautiful Corte Madera California.

If you’re in the Marin area, put Book Passage on your itinerary. It’s a gorgeous, rambling store and their events and classes are world class. They host events just about every night I’ve been going to teach at the conference since 2007 and it never disappoints.

The bookstore is owned by Elaine and Bill Petrocelli, and the conferences are run by their amazing daughter, Kathryn Petrocelli (I'm her #1 fangrrrl).

What’s especially nice is when a writer who was working on a manuscript comes back later with a PUBLISHED book. That’s what happened with Cara Black and Tim Maleeny (the authors who chair the conference) – they both came to the conference as participants and now, many published books later, they run it.

This year, a featured speaker was John Lescroart (pronounced Le-squaw – and we all love to say it.) His new book, THE MISSING PIECE, is the 19th in the New York Times bestselling Dismas Hardy series… but he didn’t talk about his book. (Because this was a writing event, not a book event!)

Interviewed by Tim Maleeny, he talked about writing, and it was fascinating. I furiously took notes and I only hope I can do justice to some of what he shared about his writing process.

• In each chapter he sets the scene, “I put the characters on the page and get them interacting with each other. If you’re lucky, a little conflict arise. Something has to happen.” 

This sounds SO obvious, but let me tell you it is not and it’s absolutely fundamental. 

What about editing? Or is what comes out in rough draft close to the finished product?

• He talked about writing in two modes: “Genius mode” and “Idiot mode” – genius mode is where he lingers when writing in first draft.
  “When I’m getting the story out, I cannot make a mistake. I don’t question it."
  But when he gets in to edit what he wrote, “I look at it and say, this is awful. I’m an idiot.”
  He gets into a rhythm, swinging from Genius to Idiot. 

What advice does he have for writers? 

• Don’t be afraid to be terrible or good. - Try to make dialogue as real as possible (when you revise) 
• Create unique voices in dialogue that are so distinctive that you don’t need attribution (so-and-so said) 
• Get the FIRST SENTENCE written and that will lead you to the next. 

When does he let other people read his manuscript? 

• Not until he’s done with ALL the revisions ("Otherwise you have other people saying you’re an idiot, and you don’t want that.") 

And by the way, when he started writing, it took 14 years before he submitted his first book to a publisher. 

A final word: 

• "Sometimes you have to kill someone in a mystery. Most of the time I’m shocked when it happens, especially for a recurring character.” 

(And if you’ve somehow missed his wonderful series/writer, his advice on the first book to read is HARD EVIDENCE, the first in the Dismas Hardy series.) 

Have you ever found yourself trying something new and having to give yourself permission to be in Idiot Mode?