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Doug Rice hears voices in his head. But that’s not a comment on his state of mind—the voices come from characters in his next book.
Rice, a professor in the English Department and author of three published novels including Skin Prayer, says his writing process starts with a single character saying a single line. In an instant, he knows the nature and complexities of his novel’s protagonist.
“By the time the character has uttered the first sentence, I know its entire life story,” Rice says.
For Rice, character development comes ahead of a storyline. “When I start to write a novel, I don’t know what the book will be about. I put the character in a situation that causes complications in his or her life, and sit back and watch how the individual behaves in that particular situation.”
He also does his best to strike minutia from the story. “In our everyday lives, we don’t go home and bore our partners with every single detail of the day. I don’t do that when I write either. I include in the story the moments that matter, because those are the instances that change who my characters are as people.”
And what if he runs into a boring character or situation? “Luckily, art isn’t exactly like life,” Rice says. “I get to orchestrate what happens, so if I find my character in a situation that doesn’t matter, I can ‘fast forward’ through that and move on to something more significant.”
So how does Rice know when a story is finished? “Total exhaustion,” he says.
“I know when I’ve pushed a story as far as it can go. When I get to the point of suffocation, there isn’t any language left in me to tell the story,” he says, adding that the ends of his novels never tell the whole story. “I want the readers to be able to provide their own ending. That way, the story doesn’t just belong to me. It belongs to the reader as well.”
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