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Sarah Waters

Novelist

United Kingdom · b. 1966

Welsh novelist whose books include Tipping the Velvet, Fingersmith, The Night Watch and The Little Stranger. She completed a doctorate in English literature before publishing her first novel.

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What is the part of your job that people would be surprised is most of your job?
Treat writing as a job. Be disciplined. Lots of writers get a bit OCD-ish about this. Graham Greene famously wrote 500 words a day. Jean Plaidy managed 5,000 before lunch, then spent the afternoon answering fan mail. My minimum is 1,000 words a day – which is sometimes easy to achieve, and is sometimes, frankly, like shitting a brick, but I will make myself stay at my desk until I’ve got there, because I know that by doing that I am inching the book forward. Those 1,000 words might well be rubbish – they often are. But then, it is always easier to return to rubbish words at a later date and make them better.

Recorded The Guardian Review, 20 February 2010 source

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What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise?
Writing fiction is not “self-­expression” or “therapy”. Novels are for readers, and writing them means the crafty, patient, selfless construction of effects. I think of my novels as being something like fairground rides: my job is to strap the reader into their car at the start of chapter one, then trundle and whizz them through scenes and surprises, on a carefully planned route, and at a finely engineered pace.

Recorded The Guardian Review, 20 February 2010 source

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