Chatting About The Wedding People, Finding Your Character's Voice, and Querying with Alison Espach: author interview

One of my major goals for the blog this year was to chat with more authors again, so it's been beyond my wildest dreams to have the chance to interview Alison Espach, author of one of my favorite books of this year, The Wedding People. You might be familiar with the novel from it being a Read with Jenna pick or its popularity on bookstagram, or you might have just stumbled upon it in the bookstore and been drawn to its stunning cover. I've had so many wonderful conversations with other readers who loved the book, so it was awesome to then get to talk about it with Alison herself and get some insight into how the book was written, her tip for querying writers, how writing looks both the same and different 3 books into her career, and what books she's been loving lately! 

If you're not familiar with The Wedding People yet, you're in for a treat. Check out my review to hear about why I loved it, but I'll also add the back cover copy to give you some context for the conversation: 

"It's a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamt of coming for years―she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she's here without him. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe―which makes it that much more surprising when the women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns uproariously, absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach's The Wedding Peopleis a look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined―and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us."

The book is written very clearly in Phoebe’s voice and is the closest third person I’ve ever read! It nearly felt like reading a first person novel. Was the narrative intimacy something that happened effortlessly or did you have to cultivate that feeling across drafts? What was that process like? 

It came naturally at first. For me, the first part of writing a novel always has to happen naturally or else I probably wouldn't do it. A novel takes years, however, and that means you have almost every possible feeling while finishing it. Sometimes I lose the connection to the book for whatever reason, and then I have to cultivate the connection again and deliberately bring myself back into the mind of Phoebe the way I imagine an actor has to spend time trying to get into character. This gets easier and easier to do the clearer the character becomes. 

The Wedding People is your third novel. Have you noticed ways your writing process has changed over the course of writing these books, or have you developed a consistent method?

There are definitely some things that have remained consistent over all three novels. When I don't have to teach, I wake up and start working on it right away, before the day gets away from me. That seems to be important. I always have coffee at my side. My cat is always sitting next to me, judging me. And if I really like what I'm working on, I will work on it almost obsessively until the main arc of the story has been filled out. There are some things that have changed though. I doubt myself a little bit less, or, I've become very good at not listening to those doubts. I don't allow myself to "try out" every possible course of action when plotting; that just takes too much time and depletes too much of my energy. I think a little bit more deliberately about the reader's experience, too. 

Phoebe’s story is largely an internal one. She starts the book seeing no point in continuing in life, stuck in stasis, and throughout the course of the book rediscovers why life is worth living. How did you approach plot development with a story like this? Was it difficult to figure out how to externalize Phoebe’s journey to build the plot?

In this instance, it wasn't too difficult to externalize her journey. Because I put Phoebe in a wedding hotel, there were so many opportunities for dramatic scene and interaction with her physical surroundings. For me, the wedding hotel turned out to be a very good prompt, keeping my attention focused on such a limited but rich space. I liked imagining how that space (and the people in that space) were going to interrupt her running internal monologue and propel her forward on her journey -- and get her out of her head. 

What’s one thing that you wish you knew as a querying author that you’ve learned over the course of your career?

I wish I knew how important it was to practice pitching my novel even before I finished writing my novel. Every time I pitch a novel, I realize I don't quite have my novel figured out yet because I can't fully describe it the way I want. When that happens, I go back into the manuscript and usually start working on it again for months. We think of pitching as something that should happen once we're all done, but if you do it really early in the process, I find it can be an amazing outlining tool that helps me figure out the book I actually want to write. 

What’s the last book you read that you absolutely loved?

Thanks for This Riot by Janelle Bassett. A darkly funny short story collection.

You can find Alison on Instagram @alison.espach, and, as always, you can find me @readingwritingandme for more.