5 Pieces of Literary (And Life) Advice From Bestselling Author Lisa See
“I want to be in [the character’s] shoes...their clothes, and try to understand…the people that I'm writing about.”
By Imanee Magee
What was the inspiration for Lisa See’s bestselling historical novel Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, chosen by Sarah Selects as her book of the month for July? In her podcast, Moms Don’t Have Time To Read Books, Zibby Owens has an intimate conversation with See about the book’s origins, the embedded themes of the novel (female friendship, leadership, and gender roles), and her writing process.
Set in 15th century China, the novel chronicles a young doctor born into an upper class family whose life is changed forever when she is sent into an arranged marriage. See admits the writing process wasn’t easy. When her research trip to a remote part of China got cancelled due to the pandemic, she did something quite relatable during that time: “spent quite a few months just at loose ends, moping around.” That is, until she pulled down a book from her shelf that was the catalyst she needed.
That title, Reproducing Women: Medicine, Metaphor, and Childbirth in Late Imperial China, spent 10 years on her shelf before she opened it again. The book mentioned a notable figure in Chinese history, Tan Yunxian, a female physician who primarily treated women and girls during the Ming Dynasty. See says, “I just thought, ‘This is so amazing.’ I [went] to the computer and looked [Tan Yunxian] up. Within twenty-six hours, I knew that I was going to be writing about her.”
Three years later, Lady Tan’s Circle of Women was published. Unlike Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and The Island of Sea Women, Lady Tan’s Circle of Women was the first time See has written a novel inspired by a historical person. Heeding advice from her fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Bruinslot, See says her ultimate goal when writing is to “be in [the character’s] shoes, be in their clothes, and try to understand…the people that I'm writing about.”
Here are five more essential pieces of writing (and life) advice she shared on the podcast:
Research. Research Some More. Repeat.
“I thought I knew what [my] next book was going to be. I'd been quietly doing research on it. Then when the pandemic hit, I couldn't do that book because it was going to require a trip deep, deep, deep into a very, very remote part of China. Also, all of the research libraries, all of the archives, everything was closed. I actually set aside some money that… I would've spent on the airfare, hotel, and food going to China [and] used [it] to buy books that I couldn't get otherwise.
A book typically takes about two years. The majority of time is the research. The writing is actually the least amount of time. Then the editing is somewhere in the middle. When I'm doing research, I love it so much. To me, it's like a big treasure hunt.”
2. Talk to people.
“The main thing I did [when researching] was to reach out to different scholars. Ordinarily, I just read their work. This time, I felt like I really needed to talk to people. These scholars around the country, but also around the world, were unbelievably helpful to me. There was one professor at Harvard who’s kind of the god of Chinese studies. He talked to me many, many times.
It was only recently that I had the thought, Oh, maybe they were feeling at loose ends as I was that they couldn't do the thing that they [want to] do. I sent them a note saying, ‘Would you talk to me about how you would send a letter in the Ming dynasty?’ Very, very specific things. There are people out there who have spent years doing research on things like that.”
3. The ‘1000 Words’ Rule
“When I'm writing, I write a thousand words a day, which is just four pages. I have a notebook where I keep track of how many words I've written in a day. Sometimes I'm at 997. I'll just stay [and write] until I get that final bit. I have to do a thousand [words]. Sometimes I can do that in two hours. Sometimes it takes me eight. I know if it's eight, it's probably not very good, but I will stay until I get it done.
When [my mother] was in college, her father wrote her a letter saying, ‘If you want to be a writer, you need to write a thousand words a day.’ It was something that my mother always said to me. It was something that she taught in her classes.”
4. Write the last line first.
“I know I'm ready to write when the last line comes to me. I write the last line first. Once I have that last line, then I know where I'm going. Bad things happen in my books. I can't deny it. When I know what the ending is, the emotional place that I want to end, that's, to me, the light at the end of the tunnel.”
5. Find a circle of support.
“A really great friend sees through to the core of who you are. The other thing about friendship… is that it is unlike any other relationship that we have in our lives. We will tell a friend something that we wouldn't tell our mother, our husband, a boyfriend, a lover, our children. It's a very, very particular kind of intimacy.
I think it's fair to say that in my novels, I do come back to friendship a lot. It's for the reasons we've been talking about. It's that love. It's that support. It's the people who give you the strength to keep going forward in often very difficult circumstances.”
You can listen to the rest of Owens and See’s humorous conversation here.
Posted October 17, 2023
