Black Rock White City by Alec Patric: 3 Feb, 2017

Hi Sarah,

The Dome is a cathedral of literature, for me, so I liked writing a scene set in that wonderful room, but no, have never done any writing in it.

It is the most amazing place to write. I highly recommend it.

You'll have to visit sometime! Thanks Alec, really enjoyed the book 😊

Hi Matthew,

I like to think of myself as a pure storyteller, and by that I mean that the first and last consideration is the story. But for a story you need compelling characters, and the deeper you go into developing those lives the more they draw out of your own life. All your hopes and fears, experiences, philosophies, love of art and literature, etc, etc, your entire existence gets drawn into the vortex of a story.

Hi Sharon,

Mainly I read short stories or novels by writers who have a love of short stories. So George Saunders new novel Lincoln in the Bardo is on my desk. Reading In Cold Blood again. Reading a lot of Italo Calvino at the moment. Enjoying essays by Annie Dillard and Eliot Weinberger. Recently discovered great writers like Antonya Nelson and Andrea Barrett. I work in a book store so there's always so much to get excited about. Jim Shepard has a new collection coming out soon.

Thanks, Alec - I'll take those recommendations! I've been meaning to read In Cold Blood for years - I'll make it a definite for my 2017 reading list.

Hi Indra,

My approach had failed with every publisher (something a writer can do in Australia in only as little as six months of submissions) and I was talking on the phone with my publisher about another project entirely, when I started talking about the relationships in BRWC and the manuscript was only then read. Some books just don't sound appealing no matter how you pitch them but the story itself can win you over. I think that happened with this novel with reviewers, judges and general readers. Sometimes all you can hope is for someone to give you a go despite what they think they want to read and don't want to read.

Hi Alec, was it anything specific about the relationships that piqued your publisher's interest?Jovan and Suzana's relationship is conveyed with such tenderness and fragility...what do you think is the key to writing relationships that tug hard on the heartstrings of your reader?

Hi Hannah,

I think for my publisher it was a way to see the novel as more than just a book about refugees from the Bosnian war (which can sound so dire) and feel there might be a story that connects on a more fundamental level. I can't speak for my publisher of course, but I was just happy that someone was willing to read the manuscript. And the key to create emotionally involving characters is your own emotional involvement with them. So with Jovian and Suzana I found aspects of myself and my wife, aspects of my father and mother, aspects of friends and family, and an author gets just as involved with the plight of the characters as any reader, and more so. There are parts of the BRWC that make me era time them and there are also lots of laughs and everything in between. Glad you enjoyed the novel Hannah.

Thanks for doing this Q&A Alec!

Hi Ash,

Had a sense of breakthrough when my first story was published by a literary journal, and then again every time I published stories in other journals, and then when my books were published. The breakthrough isn't a state you live in though, it evaporates and leaves you hungry to do more, to be better, to evolve.

Hi Laura,

Thanks. Hopefully you can borrow a few of the books from a library. First thing? Danced around the kitchen with my wife and daughters. The Miles Franklin has meant a lot to us as a family. It took about six years to write BRWC. About four months for the first draft of the story and the rest of the time developing, editing and polishing. I also wrote two short story collections and a novella during that same time period. Almost finished a new novel, which has taken three years because I haven't been working on anything else, but a novel needs a lot of time just for reflection, gestation, forgetting and remembering, losing focus to regain focus. After the book I found it frustrating that no publisher was willing to even read the manuscript and in the end that only happened with Transit Lounge because they'd already published a previous book of mine - but that was perhaps less than a year after really being done writing. Which isn't long to wait in the publishing industry. Motivated is a tricky word. Most of the novel isn't driven by a motivation as much as a sense of necessity. You keep going with a novel for the years it takes to write it because you feel it's necessary on the level of being. That might sound a little grandiose, but honestly, it's not worth all the doubts and fears and the crazy odds of success if writing doesn't justify itself on that level. No, didn't receive any grants or advance, never have for anything I've written. Have always worked to support myself (had a lot of help from my wife) but worked as little as possible to be able to have enough time to write, so there's all the usual sacrifices that entails, like not knowing if you can afford to save a tooth because of the cost of a root canal. You get the idea. Best of luck with your own writing.

Thanks so much! 😍

Hi Bec,

I wrote the novel in one unbroken sequence but later, when it came to editing, I wanted to retain my short story sensibility, so I focused on each chapter the same way as I had when writing short stories, making sure each word was absolutely necessary, that there was no sentences that felt flat, etc. Also wanted to have a strong beginning, middle and end to each chapter while developing the overall narrative momentum. There's also a feeling of concision and integrity that the best short stories have and I wanted to not lose that in my novel.