April 2, 2010
Jodi Picoult’s Thoughts on Writing
My mom and I went to see Jodi Picoult on Wednesday night; she was in town as part of a “Writers on a New England Stage” series.
For those of you unfamiliar with her work, she’s a best-selling U.S. novelist who tends to write books about complicated family situations with incredibly satisfying “gotcha” twist endings. One of her books, My Sister’s Keeper, was turned into a schmaltzy Cameron Diaz vehicle last year that received decidedly mixed reviews.
Jodi had some interesting observations on:
Fiction in the U.S.: She believes there’s a sharp divide in this country between “literary fiction” and “commercial fiction.” It has nothing to do with the quality of the writing, she said, but rather the fact that “literary” fiction tends to win awards and acclaim, while “commercial” fiction gets better marketing budgets and larger print runs.
She said she made a conscious decision early in her career to focus on commercial fiction so that she could reach a wider audience (and, presumably, set herself up to make more money, though she wasn’t crass enough to say so).
Her fans: She has no assistant and personally responds to every one of the 200-250 emails she gets every day. “To me it’s just a matter of good breeding,” she said. “There are so many books out there, and the fact that someone out there has chosen not only to read one of mine, but taken the time to let me know what they think about it, is an honor.”
Finding the time to write: She recommends that anyone who wants to be a writer should try to carve out time every day – “It doesn’t have to be much, even 20 minutes” – where they’re writing. “Not looking at emails, not talking on the phone, but writing.” She noted that so many people give up before they finish a project, fearing that it’s the worst-written thing ever, “but if you don’t finish it, you never know what it could have been.”
A director changing the ending of your book in the film adaptation (i.e., My Sister’s Keeper): Jodi said that signing over the film rights to a book is a lot like giving a child up for adoption in that you cede all control over the outcome. “You check in on that child years later, and you hope that she’s been raised by good people and has become a good person who’s contributed something to society. Of course, it may turn out that she’s been raised by crack whores.”
