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BLOG: The Writing Method
Sunday, March 15, 2009
By Ben Beagle
bbeagle@batavianews.com
Paul L. Gaus, this year’s “A Tale for Three Counties”
author, is an untraditional novelist.
He published his first work of fiction, “Blood of the Prodigal,” a decade ago while still a chemistry professor at Ohio’s College of Wooster.
And as he talked about his latest book, “Separate From the World,” and his fiction-writing career during a series of programs in the last few days he was never far from his scientific mind.
The description of his writing process, in response to a question during his Tale talk in Perry on Saturday afternoon, sounded a lot like the scientific method.
Gaus begins with a CONCEPT for the novel, often a theological theory that is significant to Amish life that he would like to illustrate.
For “Separate From the World” that concept is one in which God commands this sect of Amish to live their lives separate from the outside English, or non-Amish, world. His murder-mystery story is framed by a rift in his Amish community between a group that favors the use of medicine and is participating in a college study of genetic traits particular to the Amish community, and another group that rejects any outside influence.
Next, comes the DESIGN. This is where Gaus creates additional characters (he has three recurring characters - a college professor, sheriff and pastor - in each book) and plot sequences.
“This is where I lay down a road map for myself,” Gaus said.
These first two steps may take a month of two to complete. Then comes CREATION, which may take the rest of the year.
During the creation phase, Gaus “writes and writes and writes some more. Though not long, it’s a lot of writing.”
He often writes from 8 a.m. to noon each day, “but finds when I’m ready to write, that’s the time to write,” he said during a Friday lunch with winners of the annual Tale book review contest.
The final and most involved phase is REVISION.
“It gets serious now,” Gaus said. “This is the longest, hardest work of all.”
Revision, the author said, is more than just “reading through and fixing things like commas. That’s a waste of time” and doesn’t accomplish much.
For Gaus, revision is done with a purpose -- or two -- and can often mean significant changes throughout the entire work. For example, he often goes through a work to revise dialogue so that the tone is more conversational.
“The hardest thing to write is dialogue,” Gaus said at Friday’s lunch.
Sometimes, he said, characters sound like they are making speeches, and “people don’t talk that way.”
Of writing, Gaus said in Perry Saturday afternoon:
“This is a labor intensive operation. It’s like no other I’ve known.”
Gaus had published a number of professional articles, and co-authored a best-selling chemistry textbook before trying fiction in the mid-1990s.
“I had always intended to do science,” Gaus said. “Until I was 50, I though science was challenging enough.”
“Writing has to be something you want to do,” he said.
“And, as it happens, it needs to be important to you to inform
you as you write.”
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Courtesy of Batavia Newspapers Corporation