Imagine meeting your favourite author, or any well-known and respected author. What would you ask them?

I would prefer an experience like that over meeting someone like Janet Jackson (in my youth). I know exactly what I would say.

Nothing. I would say nothing! 

It’s most likely that I would stand there with a gaping mouth, unable to breathe, trying to control my knees from buckling.

But I digress…

I am a responsible and mature adult (who am I kidding? I still feel like I’m 19), and I hope that I’d be able to contain my awe. 

In anticipation of such an event, I have decided to list questions I would ask any author I may have the opportunity to meet and why.

1. Do you Google your name and/or your books? 

Doesn’t anyone search their name on Google at least once?! I did, and I found an article with my name in it in my University Publication about a mathematics lunch I apparently attended (very exciting stuff). But Imagine being known for something great, like writing a book (in comparison to eating a bagel). I think that any author would want to know what is said about them and their creation, and how it’s being received.

2. Would you write a story you absolutely hate if you were promised it would be a bestseller and elevate your reputation and popularity as an author?

Understandably, at first glance one would think that the answer would be no. But what if you do, and then you are so popular that you can write whatever you want and people would buy it…personally, I have no motivation when it comes to doing things I dislike, so I wouldn’t do it. But if one writes anyway, then why not go through the agony of one book to become established? 

3. How do you decide on the names of the characters in your stories?

This one is 100% intriguing to me. It took me three months to decide on a name for my daughter — I can’t imagine having to find names for all your characters, who are an author’s “babies” after all. 

4. Would you publish a book if you feel that the editing process has compromised your story?

When you finish a book and are hungry for more, do you ever wonder what didn’t make it into the book? What events or conversations were taken out, and would they have fed the hunger for more? 

5. Where is the weirdest place you’ve ever written? And what is the weirdest thing you’ve used to write down your ideas?

Imagine Margaret Atwood’s just finished a business lunch and all of a sudden has a fantastic idea for a line in a new book. So, she asks the waiter for a pen and picks up a used napkin from the table to write on. Or imagine Ami McKay scribbling in public on the back of her hand because her phone is dead. It’s fun to think about!

6. Do you have to hate a character you want your readers to hate, or love one you want them to love?

I don’t think any author can be completely impartial to the characters they create, can they?! But it’s a very delicate balance between how much you want to push a personality onto the readers. And is it really a requirement that the author should feel the same way as the readers do?

And finally…

7. What is one piece of advice you would give yourself before you wrote your first book? Or what is one thing you wish someone told you before you started writing?

Hindsight is always twenty/twenty, but what if an author knew just half of what they know after they’ve gone through the process of writing and publishing a book? Would it have changed their reality as they know it, or ours as readers? I wonder how many books would stay in desk drawers if they had the advice they think they wanted.

What about you? What would you ask your favourite author if you had a chance?

Let us know at info@rebooks.ca and we may just be able to get the answer for you!

xo

Maya B., Executive Editor